New Cricket customers can kiss Muve Music goodbye
As AT&T folds Aio and Cricket into one and relaunches its prepaid brand, the signature Muve Music service as we know it will be no more.
Customers of AT&T's newly-relaunched Cricket Wireless will get new rate plans, a heap of new phones, and a new network backbone. What they won't get is the old Cricket's signature Muve Music service.
Launched in January 2011 at CES, Muve Music is an all-you-can-eat download service that's tacked onto the Cricket rate plan. Before AT&T's buyup, Cricket leadership credited Muve Music as an important motivator for keeping customers and gaining new ones.
The Muve Music software will still work on "legacy" Cricket handsets -- any devices purchased before AT&T's rebranding -- but any phones bought through AT&T's new Cricket network won't have Muve built in.
Does that mean music is gone for good? Not according to Jennifer Van Buskirk, Cricket's president,who told CNET during an interview that music will still remain part of the Cricket experience, but perhaps in a different form than the software seen on Cricket phones now. "We're evaluating our options," Van Buskirk said. "We haven't quite made a decision."