June 22, 2009
iBiquity Forced to Build Own Portable Player
iBiquity CEO Robert Struble tries to explain away to the Wall Street Journal why firm is building its own portable HD Radio player: Sure, Microsoft's very modestly selling, very decent Zune players will feature HD Radio in a new model later this year, but iBiquity is making its own portable, too. That makes nearly no sense if the firm could find any other company willing to incorporate the long-awaiting portable digital AM/FM chips.
Companies like iBiquity that work with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), who product PC and consumer electronics gear nearly never get into the business of making their own branded devices because this kills the motivation for the firms they sell technology and reference design hardware to. The only reason a company gets into the business of making its own branded stuff is that they can't find a partner.
That's why the rather marvelous technology behind MusicGremlin never made its way into anyone else's devices, and MG had to release its own players. Its players weren't bad, but a small firm can't do the full-on polish and full-on marketing of Apple or Microsoft. (MG was eventually sold to SanDisk.)
Struble does some excellent tap dancing in this interview, where the reporter doesn't have the history to cite his previous statements over the last several years, some of which were repeated here. I've interviewed Struble in the past, and he's a perfectly frank guy (especially among CEOs), and ready to admit when things don't work out. But the company's technology has stalled and is floundering.
Portable devices have been promised for "next year" every year for at least three years, maybe four. This fall, they will finally appear. The number of stations that have added digital broadcasts has stalled at around 15 percent of all U.S. broadcasters. The AM situation is ugly; I don't know how that will play out, but it's possible that HD Radio for AM is a dead end, which doesn't doom the advantage of the FM side, the only way to market receivers today.
As the Wall Street Journal reporter notes, there's enormous interest in playing an iPod through a car stereo (and a vast number of kits and built-in options for that as well as factory-installed integration), while J.D. Power's found that only 10 percent of those surveyed had interest in adding HD Radio.
Struble pushes on the company's advantage by having a partnership with Apple (iTunes Tagging), but then reveals that he thinks iTunes Tagging isn't actually that great because it requires a dock with tagging intelligence. Struble wants iTunes Tagging built into iPods and iPhones; I wonder if Apple has any interest in that? I would love to know whether 1,000 or 100,000 or a million songs have been tagged and purchased with the feature. Apple and iBiquity know.
Struble also mentions future tech, which has been "soon" or "next year" for a long time, such as real-time traffic reporting, image data for covers of albums and other details, and selective broadcast areas. Selective addressability--being able to allow a specific radio to receive a broadcast--wasn't mentioned.
None of this interview reeks of desperation, but there's a lot of plate spinning. I don't see how iBiquity can continue indefinitely without a dramatic increase in stations choosing the technology and units sold.
I suspect that the decision to release its own portable player comes close to last ditch. If a portable player doesn't spark more interest, then what kind of growth does HD have? If the AM problems can't be solved and more stations brought on board, then you have an untenable path for future technology.
I do fear that the sets sold to date--which could be over a million, but no one knows for sure--could actually stop receiving digital broadcasts in the future, if iBiquity can't ultimately make its technology become dominant. Then the FCC has to get involved, a new standard must be adopted, and new radios released.
I Like Tagging! At Least in My Car
I finally put an HD Radio capable receiver in my car: I'm a cheapstake, so despite having written about HD Radio for years, the only set I only is a Radio Shack Accurian tabletop model in my office. With HD Radio having stalled, it just didn't seem like an important feature to get elsewhere. And, as I've noted many times, iBiquity has seemingly been unable to crack the home receiver market.
The reason is likely because receiver makers are focused on integrating HDMI, computers, and other audio sources into a package, rather than more terrestrial radio. At home, people listen to digital music collections and stream Internet radio. I suspect that there is a continuously and rapidly declining home AM/FM listening market, with AM having a more stable audience because of its talk radio and religious content.
Which is why it's perhaps funny that I finally put HD Radio in one of the family cars. An old and crummy Aiwa jsut gave up the ghost, and I found a $170 JVC with HD Radio reception, a front-panel USB jack for an iPod or iPhone (or even a memory stick), a CD player, and a front aux mini-stereo jack. This was ideal.
What I didn't notice is that iTunes Tagging was also included. And it works. I've always thought that iTunes Tagging was a big slog: with an iPod docked, you press a button when you hear a song you like, and later, when syncing the iPod over USB, the tagged song is retrieved and shown in a special section under Store in the sidebar.
With an iPhone and a car radio, though, the process is much more seamless. I wrote this up at TidBITS, a long-running Mac site at which I'm a contributor. See "Tag Radio Songs for Later Purchase While You Drive."