Jobs comes out punching in Paris

Apple’s Steve Jobs is always good value when comes out to speak and in Paris yesterday at Apple Expo, he didn’t disappoint. Record labels are greedy, bluetooth headphones for the iPod aren’t worth it, built-in radio for the iPod – no one wants it and mobile operators’ music model doesn’t make any sense: “In terms of buying music over the air – the carriers spent an awful lot of money on their 3G networks and they charge an awful lot of money to download a song to a phone… they might charge $3,” he said. “And you have to sync it back to your PC – so let’s think about this: you buy songs over the air for €3 a piece and then have to sync it to your PC or you buy them on your PC for less than €1 a piece and then sync it to your phone.”

Apple is in the midst of renegotiations with music rights owners over the cost of music for the iTunes service and Jobs has taken the high moral ground though it’s quite possible that he may be forced to back down, especially as HMV has now broken the single price point for downloads by offering new music for lower prices in the UK. That’s something Jobs will have noted but until the same thing happens in the US he’ll not be worried.