Apple talks to airline in-flight entertainment developers to bring iTunes to seatbacks
“The key is to get them to see the value of hosting iTunes on an aircraft. Is it a big enough market for them to be interested in? I’d try to do it tomorrow if they said yes.”Panasonic Avionics strategic product marketing director David Bruner agreed that “there’s a lot of airline interest” in the idea of hosting iTunes. “Apple is aware of the market,” he said. “It’s a small market for them, but it’s a very visible market.”
Apple refuses to confirm or deny the talks, saying “Apple never talks about the future.”
Several airlines have requested building iPod docks, or Universal Serial Bus (USB) portsin seatbacks, allowing passengers to browse iTunes through the airline’s IFE system before transferring music directly to the MP3 player. Flights could be an ideal time during which to download songs, but currently it is restricted to those passengers with laptops flying on a flight with a wireless network.
As an ipod user I definately see the value of being able to do this. Too bad the licensing problems meantioned later in this article might stop this.
Tags: Apple, Hardware, Interesting, ipod, Transportation
