New Apple hire foreshadows possible iTunes subscription service - Page 2

i live in indiana my family sends me ipod articles from our local paper that are at least 3 weeks old. that is, the paper reports on ipod things 3 weeks late.

I have some inside info for you then.. a 6gb iPod mini is coming with a week.. you heard it here first

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couldn't her hire be for something greater perhaps like a movie subscription service???


The long fabled iTunes Movie Store??


Or, the .mac evolution?

/me bashes his head against the wall.

You mean againt the "wale".

Well, he's been on a roll lately so I'd say we'll trust him.

Over on MacNN, they are still railing against music subscription. Someone should pop over and tell them apple may go into the subscription business. I mean, now that steveo has changed his mind, they all sound really silly. They are now suddenly out of tune with the deity.

yeah you should e-mail them or something.

Original post was too damn long, so deleted. I guess summary should have been, in business, never leave a stone unturned. Jobs initial insistence on not doing subscription was reckless at worse and naive at best. To imagine that apple would permanently forgo a revenue stream was not realistic.

With the advantage of choosing what to play when you want to play it, not just what's currently being broadcast. Or, maybe pick some interesting-looking iMixes when you don't feel like making your own playlists.

Glad you and some other people are seeing the positives and interesting potential of this type of service. 8)

I don't understand the whining over price unless a person's stealing music. Assume a subscription service is $10/mo. and a CD costs $10. Personally, I'll listen to *a lot* more different music for that $120/yr. with a subscription than if I only bought a dozen CDs, some which I'll never listen to again and maybe just a few songs from some. Honestly, what percentage of your CD (or even iTMS) collection is stagnating over time? Sure, it's satisfying having the luxury of spontaneity to choose and listen from what you own but that has its price, too, and a pretty high one if you're not ripping off your collection. Or you're content only listening to a small collection which, frankly, eventually gets boring.

I won't stop buying music because of a subscription service. And most of what I buy now isn't available on iTMS anyway. But I'd pay $10/mo. for the ability to explore ITMS selections without any obligation to buy. Then maybe I'll make some ITMS purchases because of new discoveries, while buying CDs for the higher quality.

Ideally, an ITMS subscription would be pay-as-you-go, without any long-term contract or obligation. Sort of like paying monthly utility bills. You stop paying, off goes the electricity, water, etc.

Such a service is clearly not for everyone and I really don't care who hates it, but fighting against it because of personal preference is selfish arrogance. Fortunately that attitude is minimal here... let it stay over on MacNN or wherever.

I've already said earlier that Jobs did NOT rule it out. It certainly wasn't reckless not do it then. subscriptions are still a small part of online music sales. I'm sure that if Apple feels threatened, they will come out with it.

When Jobs said that people wanted to buy, not rent, their music, he was probably right at the time.

Most people still haven't made their minds up about online music yet. The majority of the market is still untapped.

There's also the "doing it" and the "doing it right" part.

If Apple is watching and taking notes, the way they did with the player market, they could simply be biding their time.

Yeah, but remember - Steve said the same thing about flash MP3 players! And while he was making fun of them being left in a drawer, the Shuffle was currently under development at Apple.

At first I thought I wouldn't like the service. Then after iTMS became available, and I started browsing - I found it very fustrating that I can browse through all this great music - but I could only listen to 30 seconds of the song. As soon as they offer subscription, I'm signing up right away.

Precisely. Though today I tend to just buy the song when I'm really curious, which may be more profitable to Apple...

Where did you find this thread/ It's so old it might as well have been dead. We are well past this by now.

I'm sure plenty of ITMS sales are spontaneous curiosity like that but Apple's not getting as much ITMS business from me as they could if they offered a subscription service since I've only bought one song "on a whim" this year.