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[JimH]

The following is pure fantasy -- we have no current plan to do it, but I'm interested in your opinion.

Suppose we made an appliciation that could run on 3G cell phones and suppose it could access and play your MC library on your phone.  Think of it as a roving iPod.

I'm not very well informed about 3G (Third Generation), but I believe that data speeds are supposed to be up to 14Mb/second.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Would this be a good thing?

[Ingo]

As long as it wouldn't be a streaming client but a syncing device with a good interface, yeah. count me in.

(currently my phone only uses WMP9-mobile and it's just crap: no library function, so it's near to unusable with larger flash cards in the phone)

Ingo

[IlPadrino]

No way is 3G going to get 14 Mbps to the handset - if memory serves me correctly 3G (UMTS) is 384 Kbps for low-speed mobile users and possibly up to 2 Mbps for stationary (i.e. office) users.

I'd think the future is VoIP.  You might consider WAP2 as a way of using an existing infrastructure to access the library.

I assume you're talking about streaming (otherwise why worry about the cellular bandwidth, eh?) and I, for one, think it's a great idea.  I'm surprised the cellular providers haven't already gone this route to generate increased revenue.  There's also the Motorola/Apple partnership to put iTunes on a cell phone.  Are you considering something like this?

[tofer]

While the idea of being able to access my MC library from my cell phone is intriguing,  I have a much more practical idea:   

Could MC (or whomever) create a basic remote control that could be implemented on a cell phone? [/b] Why spend another $500+ on an LCD remote when i have a reliable, high res, multicolor transmitter in my pocket (my cell phone) ?   While I'm not a huge fan of the technology, I would think bluetooth would be able to handle the range needed for this type of application.   Since most cell phones are used by a single owner, personalized customization should be an easy next step....

Am i missing something - or should implementing something like this a slam dunk?

[IlPadrino]

While the idea of being able to access my MC library from my cell phone is intriguing,  I have a much more practical idea:   

Could MC (or whomever) create a basic remote control that could be implemented on a cell phone? [/b] Why spend another $500+ on an LCD remote when i have a reliable, high res, multicolor transmitter in my pocket (my cell phone) ?   While I'm not a huge fan of the technology, I would think bluetooth would be able to handle the range needed for this type of application.   Since most cell phones are used by a single owner, personalized customization should be an easy next step....

Am i missing something - or should implementing something like this a slam dunk?

I thought about this too...  so much so that the last time I was in Europe (summer 2004) I bought a 3G cell phone (Mot A835) that had a great display and BT for only $100.  It had a subsidy lock - so the provider thought they'd get back their loss on the unit through traffic.  When I got back to the States I started to think about how I'd go about doing this.  If I had unlimited data service (which I don't because it's locked to a European provider) it already be done:  use something like netremote or JRiver's built in server.  BT seems a little harder because I don't think there's a standard profile that would work.

If someone could work out a BT solution, I'd probably spend up to $30 on it.  It's certainly as cheap as an RF remote (like the RemoteWonder from ATI).

So, yeah, count me in, too.

[runemail]

3g speeds:
in the future HSDPA offers a raw speed of 14 Mbps, which should offer perhaps 1 to 2 Mbps as a real speed for end users. Currently, UMTS offers a typical speed of perhaps the mid-300 Kbps(theoretical top rate of 2.4 Mbps). Upload are currently limited to something in the range of 50 to 100 Kbps.
In all of these cases, average speed and typical speed are two separate concepts. A typical speed is what a user might see most of the time, with large peaks (and occasional troughs) that skyrocket download speeds. Average speeds are therefore often higher than typical speeds if you were continuously downloading.

For now i think tofer's idea for a basic remote is a better place to start, i can currently control my pc via bluetooth from my SE t610and show and control my playlist from winamp on my phone. But its very buggy and not very well implemented yet.
http://fma.sourceforge.net/

My bluetooth range is about the same as wifi or 100m from the computer. it would be great if I could control MC on my Htpc from my phone!

Eventually as phones get more memory and better audio, I belive they will take over from current flash-memory players and eventually hd-players as well, and we would love to synch them from MC.
Everybody have their personal phone that they change every second year or so, so this could be a big market very fast.
The entertainment industry will off course try to make us pay as much as possible, just look at the crazy prices on ringtones. I guess thats what iTunes is after as well.
 

[Omni]

*raises hand with trepidation*

I don't use a cellphone.  (Don't get me started on the reasons why )  But I'm curious.  Wouldn't this cause problems in regard to battery life?

[runemail]

Off course using your phone decreases battery time alot, i have recharge about once a week if i don't use my phone alot. But if i make many calls and play games on it, I have to charge it almost every day. I recharge my phone almost every day anyway.  Before I go to bed I set the built in alarmclock for the next day, check my messeges and plug in the charger.
bluetooth does not use a lot of extra battery.

I belive modern cellphones hava a battery life of about 1000 charge cycles. And that means that you usually would like a new phone before your battery dies.

[Catul]

Suppose we made an appliciation that could run on 3G cell phones and suppose it could access and play your MC library on your phone.  Think of it as a roving iPod.

That would be AWESOME!!!  Some of us talked about this in that thread new phone.

I have an Audiovox XV6600 Pocket PC phone on Verizon, and EV-DO speeds are anywhere from a low of 200k to up to 500-600kbps, more than sufficient to stream reasonable-quality MP3 files.  I'd LOVE a way to access my MC11 server from my phone!!

There are plenty of these Pocket PC phones (and WiFi-connected Pocket PC PDA's) becoming available, so I see this as a good market to look into.

What are your current thoughts on providing such capabilities?

[datdude]

I'd buy it for $40 if it worked better than Promixis.  Lets make it happen.

[jgreen]

Regarding 3g speeds, I'm using 3g to post to the forum right now, and have been for months, off and on, along with wi-fi to broadband.

Currently, VZ and Sprint, I believe, run EV-DO both for laptop data cards (like my VZ), and to cell phones.  There are 2 tiers of service, with the fastest sevice available only in Metro areas.  There you can get ~700 kbps steady throughput on downloads, although the ~400 is much more common.  Uploads poke along at ~100, although the new rev of EV-DO is supposed to be much faster on the upload, closer to the download speeds.

Outside of metro areas, and pretty much ANYWHERE you get cell signal, you can get the slower tier of data service, where downloads move at 100-150 kbps, and uploads are 50-100 kbps.  i want to emphasize the portability of this.  All you need is a single "bar" of reception (or even less), and you have net access.  That means 90% of the country, including checking emails while you drive down the highway.

I believe these speeds are the same for cellphones, you be the judge on whether that's fast enough to support a slim MC client for the phone.

[datdude]

So there are 2 good ideas here.  1 is to use it as a remote for whereever MC is residing to output at that location, and/or to act knid of like a slingbox to output to your phone?