MOG launches mobile apps with unlimited downloads to your phone
Music streaming service MOG unveiled its mobile strategy today, laying out Android and iPhone apps that will let users get unlimited song downloads to their phones for $10 a month. — Subscribers will be able to get on-demand streams …
Context & Ripple Effects
MOG had already telegraphed this move: earlier this month it prepped its mobile app for a SXSW showdown with Spotify, timing the debut one day ahead of the European rival's appearance at the festival. Today's announcement converts that positioning into shipping product — Android and iPhone apps with on-demand streams plus unlimited song downloads for $10 a month.
The platform choice matters as much as the pricing. Android came out of CES 2010 as the software story of the year, roiling the smartphone market after a slow start, so launching on both Android and iPhone puts MOG where subscriber growth actually is while Spotify remains unlaunched in the US.
First-order effects
- MOG subscribers immediately gain offline access to an entire catalog on their phones for $10 a month, making the service competitive with Spotify's desktop experience without needing a constant connection.
- Spotify now faces a live, priced US mobile rival at SXSW rather than a hypothetical one, forcing its own American launch plans into direct comparison.
Second-order effects
- Labels face a fresh licensing precedent for unlimited cached downloads on handsets, which pressures them to define whether $10-a-month download tiers cannibalize per-track sales or complement them.
- Carriers and handset makers gain a new category of flat-rate music content to bundle with data plans, giving Android's surging ecosystem another differentiated app class that feature phones lack.
Third-order effects
- If the $10 unlimited tier holds, recorded music's center of gravity keeps shifting from ownership (per-track purchases) to access subscriptions tied to a specific app and account, changing what 'having' music means on a phone.
- A crowded field of subscription entrants points toward consolidation, since licensing catalogs at scale carries fixed costs that only scale can amortize — leaving room for a few global players rather than many regional ones.
The trend: On-demand music is migrating from desktop streaming to cached mobile apps under flat monthly pricing, with each US launch tightening the licensing template rivals must follow.