Cingular's Music Store Sounds Like Good News

Some exciting news from Cingular, according to the Wall Street Journal and Seeking Alpha (when I first started writing this post—now, it looks like it's official). Today the wireless carrier (finally) launches its own music store.

According to the article, the store is a partnership with Napster and Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and you'll be able to listen to "to-go," all-you-can-eat subscription tunes from those services. The store will launch with to-the-destop-only downloads for 99 cents a pop, but by next year, Cingular will offer over-the-air downloads using its high-speed, 3G HSDPA network. Then, you'll have to transfer tracks from your desktop to your phone via USB. Either way, you can buy tracks using your phone and charge it to your Cingular account (which means you'd download it later onto your desktop).

In addition, Cingular offers a music ID service that lets you identify a song you hear by just holding it up to a speaker, then buy the song right then and there, something that hasn't existed on U.S. phones until now (the ability to buy-on-the-fly right after ID-ing a song, that is).

This is great news for anyone who is already a subscriber to these services, since you can sync about three different devices to work with most subscription services. It's also great for anyone in the market for a music phone, since you don't have to commit to owning non-iTunes compatible songs—you can just rent them and listen to them on your phone when you feel like it, without having to invest in another MP3 player. The problem with the current music stores of Verizon and Sprint is that they charge an arm and a leg for over-the-air downloads right to your phone and are not compatible with subscription tunes.

I am a big fan of the subscription services and am over the moon about this news: I love my iPod, but not enough to replace it with my subscription-tune-compatible Creative Zen (or other Plays For Sure device). On several occasions, I have been in away-from-home situations where the licenses for the subscription tunes just didn't work, leaving me stranded without music for several days. And carrying around two different players can be a bit much. With one, this new service, and a compatible phone, I'll be able to bring my iPod and a subscription-music-compatible player without adding to my existing load.

But I wonder: What happens to the MotoSLVR and other iTunes phones that are also available from Cingular?

Would you get an extra phone to add on to your iPod?