The apps focus on offering rich multimedia content to users, including music, movies and games.
Since Reliance Jio’s entry into the telecom space, it has managed to garner over 72 million subscribers in record time. Jio has already created a heat among incumbent telecom operators by offering free unlimited voice and video calls, and offering high-speed data services for free of cost. While other telecom operators have lowered their data tariffs to offer customers with maximum benefits, Reliance Jio has also one more trick up its sleeve – content ecosystem. Now, to take on Jio’s content services, Idea Cellular has launched ‘Digital Idea’ app suite to offer rich multimedia content to its users. Let’s take a quick look at these apps.
Digital Idea apps
Idea Music Lounge: Dedicated to music lovers, the app will be available on Android and iOS platforms. Idea has partnered with Hungama Digital to bring music content to its subscribers. Currently, the platform has two million songs in 14 Indian regional languages, and the company expects it to grow 10 fold in short time.
While there are other music centric apps out there, what makes Idea Music Lounge different is the data saver mode that streams music in low-quality, for those who don’t want to burn data. There is Wi-Fi streaming, queuing mode where you can add songs to next playing list, and HD streaming. There is also DJ Effect mode to mix and match different songs, ‘sing along’ mode that shows lyrics, and ‘wakeup with music’ that lets you setup your favorite songs as a wakeup tune.
Idea Movie Club: The app, in partnership with Eros now, bring access to more than 4,000 blockbusters in 11 different languages, 90+ live TV channels with partnership from Ditto TV and over 100 videos for kids. There are also other features such as voice search, pause and resume among others.
Idea Game Spark: This one’s for the gamers. The app hosts over 1,500 games in different genres. With Virtual Reality (VR) content picking up the pace, Idea will also have games that offer immersive experience when used with VR glasses. Idea has also partnered Paytm for technology integration, and it is inviting game developers to create content for enriched experience.
Digital Idea Pricing
It’s an era of freebies, and as an introductory offer, Idea is offering free access to its suite of apps till March 31, 2017. During this period, users get free access to content services for 90 days from the day of initially downloading the app. After the 90 days period, the Idea Movie Club and Idea Music Lounge apps will be available for Rs 49 per month respectively, whereas Idea Game Spark will set you back by Rs 29 per month. However, users will have to pay the data download charges from their existing data pack. This is where Reliance Jio gets an advantage by offering 1GB of free data daily under its Happy New Year Offer.
Competition
Reliance Jio suite of apps includes JioTV giving you an access to more than 400 LiveTV channels, JioCinema for watching on-demand movies on the go, and JioMusic, allowing you to enjoy more than one crore songs in HD in 20 different languages. As of now, there are no subscription charges for the service, and access is free until December 31 2017. However, when you stream music, movies or LiveTV, corresponding data is debited from your account.
Vodafone has its own Vodafone Play TV app with access to 150 live TV channels in more than eight regional languages. Powered by Eros now, the app also gives you access to blockbuster movies and music videos. What’s more, Hungama Play is also integrated in the to let you stream and download your favorite music on the go. Airtel, on the other hand, has Airtel Movies, an on-demand movie streaming app, and Wynk music with over 2.5 million songs in more than eight languages.
Other announcements from Idea
Besides content services, Idea also announced that it will be launching an e-commerce portal from where users can purchase smartphones and dongles, along with other services such as music subscription, movie subscription, add-on booster packs for data plans and more.