The important thing about iTunes is the infrastructure that they are building. Apple could service any model of DRM/encoding/payment that the world desires. Selling iPods is what its all about.
Exactly...do you think books will be sold physically for ever?
Once Apple come out with a decent eBook they will start selling books digitally. (Amazon's worst nightmare)
And the beautiful thing is the infrastructure is already there.
Books...Magazines...newspapers...textbooks... all digital
Fonts, stock photos, recipes, maps, software...can all be sold digitally
1) This btching and moaning about DRM is foolish. Especially by this group! You all knew the files had DRm and know there are other means that are cheaper to get the same music (and at hgher bit rates. If you don't like what is offered then you shouldn't do business with them.
2) DRM Dumpster is an iTunes plugin that will LEAGALLY convert your Protected ACC files to whatever format you desire. It burns your iTunes Store purchassed files to a CD-RW and then back again. Since it uses a re-writable CD it will repeat this process until your entire library is transfered.
3) I suspect iTunes will bump their songs to 192kbps in 2007. Though, I'd prefer they went to (Protected) Apple Lossless based on CD quality, with an option in iTunes to convert on the fly to Protected AAC, of various rit rates, to allow more storge of remote devices.
4) If eMusic averages about 25 cents per song and Apple is 99 cents per song how much money is Apple paying out to the music industry?
5) Why doesn't Apple offer higher resolution album covers, as well as every page of the album insert? It's such a simple and cheap value added service. On this note, they should add purchase optional subtitles for the hearing impaired; or a way to embed this info their files that can be turned on/off if needed.
6) I've heard that overall AAC is better compression than LAME's mp3 compression. Is this true? If so, how much better? How much do the previous answers vary change if the kbps increase/decrease dramatically.
I am still buying CDs. They are higher quality and don't come with DRM. If they are of the sort that are labelled as 'copy protected' then they stay on the store shelf, even if want to buy it. Reasons for not buying online:
- DRM
- Quality
- Lack of availability outside of the USA and iTunes
- Inability to buy non-North Americain stuff, when in Canada. Online distribution should break down distribution barriers, but instead you are still limited by what the cartel has made availble to your country.
Another thing is that numbers can be played any way you want. Also, I am a customer and as long as I have product for which I am not dependent on the existence of the seller, then I am happy.
Exactly...do you think books will be sold physically for ever?
Actually, yes I do.
Books have lasted a hell of a lot longer than the digital format du jour and the Internet. They'll still be around as the Net evolves into whatever it will be in 200 or 300 years in the future. Books kick the web's ass!
6) I've heard that overall AAC is better compression than LAME's mp3 compression. Is this true? If so, how much better? How much do the previous answers vary change if the kbps increase/decrease dramatically.
You are the best critic here for a number of reasons:
- Different types of music will prefer different types of lossy-compression algorithms, since each makes a certain assumption about the audio.
- If you have bad equipment then you will probably not notice things too much. On the other hand if you have high quality audio equipment the differences become more noticable.
There is one final factor that will make a difference: you! Basically it comes down to phsyiology, experience and what ever other factors might make you perceive sound differently from someone else.
It's only moments away that the music industry will read this and demand that the FBI get the library records of people who check out "suspiciously high" numbers of CDs.
Forrester is correct about sales slowing but it is wrong about a large decrease, as usual. And today's a great buying opportunity for Apple stock.
Go to the numbers. Apple mentioned 1.5 billion songs sold in its BMG Japan on iTS press release on 10/26/06. It's previous press release related to music or the iTS was on 10/5. So sometime between those two dates it passed 1.5 billion.
So Apple passed 1 billion songs on 2/23/06. Between 2/23/06 and 10/26/06, there were 245 days, in which it sold .5 billion songs, which is a rate of about 2.04 million songs a day. (If you assume the date was 10/6 instead of 10/26, the rate is 2.22 million.)
Apple passed .5 billion songs on 7/18/05. Between 7/18/05 and 2/23/06, there are 220 days, so the rate was about 2.27 million songs a day. So there was a decrease in rate over the time periods of about .23 million songs a day (or .05 million if we use 10/6).
But Apple has seen slower sales between May and Oct each year, and higher sales between Nov and Feb each year. So seasonality plays a role as well. Of course, the seaonality of music releases (and the quality or lack of quality) also play a role.
Plus, Apple has been selling more and more gift cards (don't have numbers but check out the ranking of gift card sales at the Apple Store). I don't believe Forrester included gift card sales at Apple Stores or other retail in their numbers.
And finally, the iTS now has other things for sale. More people are buying iPods with video and buying videos, or listening to podcasts. And did Forrester actually sort through all the transactions to determine the split between music and video, or did they use some heuristic?
Apple made pennies on all iTunes downloads anyway...
Itunes as an iPod/Music Library interface and manager or Jukebox Still shines regardless of how many users purchase through the store.
If you just use it to manage your CD collection (which could easily include thousands of CDs if you've been listening and collecting most of your life) it's the best software there is.
iTunes is free and is also the most amazing music manager and ipod, airport and stereo system interface there is.
It allows anyone to import any CD ( which most people own 'cause they bought it - (some, many years ago) at any resolution and it will rip, store and play at full resolution 44.1kHz if yiu choose.
What is all the fuss about people not buying full fidelity music from the iTunes store?
It's a choice some people obviously care or don't care about.
Though I own and purchased every one of the 10-20 thousand CDs I have, over many years, and don't appreciate degraded quality, I have one or two iPods full of Apple Lossles quality compressed CDs which I take on the road with me, because I can store more music on my iPod that way and if it means a compromise , well I'd rather that then have no music to listen to.
Music - we buy a CD we own it. We are not entitled to copy it for commercial gain, but we have always and will allways continue to make as many personal copies as we want or ever made on cassettes or any other media we chooses - Screw the record companies!
iTunes is GREAT JUKEBOX SOFTWARE that makes life easy for anyone who has lots of music in digital form.
Don't Panic less sales from iTunes doesn't mean Apple is going out of business or going to hurt at all.
We might even see iTunes used as a bridge between all the new forthcoming Apple products such as the IPhone, iTV etc....
Just like the iPod holds alot mor potential than an MP3 player so does iTunes as a package....
They are analyzing this wrong. iTunes is not as much about selling content as it is selling hardware. It is there to help sell iPods, not the other way around. It was a major reason I purchased my iPod 10 months after buying my first Mac, even though I already had an MP3 player. That's why iTunes is free - it's like a loss leader and it gives you an idea of what the iPod can do. Plus, iTunes allows Apple to say to the RIAA that their players do not encourage illegal downloads. So this study should mean nothing to Apple.
Though I own and purchased every one of the 10-20 thousand CDs I have, over many years,
This is where the labels are feeling the crunch.
There is no way in this age of downloading where you will find teens starting a collection like this. They will have hard drives full of music, not 10-20 thousand $10 cd's ($100k to $200k).
I imagine record label's revenue stream projections are in the crapper
I have owned an iPod for about a year now, an never purchased music from my own credit card.Everything I buy for myself is from gift cards. Everything I buy for others is in the form of giftcards as well.
All in all I spend about $200 - $300 a year in giftcard purchases for myself or others. Compare that to the $0.00 I spend directly through credit card at the store.
So I could see how this article is true... at least from this one aspect... for me. There are actually only a few people I know that actually purchase their music outright. They all seem to go the gift route as well.
Anyway, I think iTunes music sales are doing just fine.
Here is my take of the situation. I would rather wait for Apple to release their quarterly or annual earnings report which contains the summary of iTMS profit or losses worldwide before I believe in Forrester's analyst.
I'm sure it's quite similar to that paid "study" that was done a while ago asking people in a very sneaky way if 50% of them would be 40% likely to buy digital music players other than Apple ones if Ballmer would release their families from his private army's secure jail compound just outside of Seattle, on a Tuesday.
Comments
Good call Rolo. The conclusions sounded 'hyped'.
The important thing about iTunes is the infrastructure that they are building. Apple could service any model of DRM/encoding/payment that the world desires. Selling iPods is what its all about.
Exactly...do you think books will be sold physically for ever?
Once Apple come out with a decent eBook they will start selling books digitally. (Amazon's worst nightmare)
And the beautiful thing is the infrastructure is already there.
Books...Magazines...newspapers...textbooks... all digital
Fonts, stock photos, recipes, maps, software...can all be sold digitally
Exactly...do you think books will be sold physically for ever?
Once Apple come out with a decent eBook they will start selling books digitally. (Amazon's worst nightmare)
And the beautiful thing is the infrastructure is already there.
Books...Magazines...newspapers...textbooks... all digital
Fonts, stock photos, recipes, maps, software...can all be sold digitally
I forgot to mention that Podcasting can be adapted for PDFs.
So instead of subscribing to a magazine, you subscribe to its PDFcast.
iTunes will auto-magically download the latest issue in PDF format and sync it to your Apple eBook.
Exactly...do you think books will be sold physically for ever?
Once Apple come out with a decent eBook they will start selling books digitally. (Amazon's worst nightmare)
And the beautiful thing is the infrastructure is already there.
Books...Magazines...newspapers...textbooks... all digital
Fonts, stock photos, recipes, maps, software...can all be sold digitally
I know it's going to happen eventually, but previous attempts at eBooks have flopped for various reasons.
2) DRM Dumpster is an iTunes plugin that will LEAGALLY convert your Protected ACC files to whatever format you desire. It burns your iTunes Store purchassed files to a CD-RW and then back again. Since it uses a re-writable CD it will repeat this process until your entire library is transfered.
3) I suspect iTunes will bump their songs to 192kbps in 2007. Though, I'd prefer they went to (Protected) Apple Lossless based on CD quality, with an option in iTunes to convert on the fly to Protected AAC, of various rit rates, to allow more storge of remote devices.
4) If eMusic averages about 25 cents per song and Apple is 99 cents per song how much money is Apple paying out to the music industry?
5) Why doesn't Apple offer higher resolution album covers, as well as every page of the album insert? It's such a simple and cheap value added service. On this note, they should add purchase optional subtitles for the hearing impaired; or a way to embed this info their files that can be turned on/off if needed.
6) I've heard that overall AAC is better compression than LAME's mp3 compression. Is this true? If so, how much better? How much do the previous answers vary change if the kbps increase/decrease dramatically.
- DRM
- Quality
- Lack of availability outside of the USA and iTunes
- Inability to buy non-North Americain stuff, when in Canada. Online distribution should break down distribution barriers, but instead you are still limited by what the cartel has made availble to your country.
Another thing is that numbers can be played any way you want. Also, I am a customer and as long as I have product for which I am not dependent on the existence of the seller, then I am happy.
Exactly...do you think books will be sold physically for ever?
Actually, yes I do.
Books have lasted a hell of a lot longer than the digital format du jour and the Internet. They'll still be around as the Net evolves into whatever it will be in 200 or 300 years in the future. Books kick the web's ass!
6) I've heard that overall AAC is better compression than LAME's mp3 compression. Is this true? If so, how much better? How much do the previous answers vary change if the kbps increase/decrease dramatically.
You are the best critic here for a number of reasons:
- Different types of music will prefer different types of lossy-compression algorithms, since each makes a certain assumption about the audio.
- If you have bad equipment then you will probably not notice things too much. On the other hand if you have high quality audio equipment the differences become more noticable.
There is one final factor that will make a difference: you! Basically it comes down to phsyiology, experience and what ever other factors might make you perceive sound differently from someone else.
Don't forget your public library, hundreds or thousands of CDs and DVDs just waiting for you to rip for free.
to build up my first 5000 songs into my iTunes library.
Btw, i strongly agree that it is all about selling iPods. That's it.
The iTMS is just a nice venture on Apples side, they do it just for kicks,
they just telling the music industry "look this is the future". It might be bright some time.
The model is not matured yet (quality issues), but you get the picture how it is gonna
work in the future.
I'm personally the cherry pick up type regarding iTMS, all in all i do prefer buying
CDs because of their superior sound quality.
cheers
Go to the numbers. Apple mentioned 1.5 billion songs sold in its BMG Japan on iTS press release on 10/26/06. It's previous press release related to music or the iTS was on 10/5. So sometime between those two dates it passed 1.5 billion.
So Apple passed 1 billion songs on 2/23/06. Between 2/23/06 and 10/26/06, there were 245 days, in which it sold .5 billion songs, which is a rate of about 2.04 million songs a day. (If you assume the date was 10/6 instead of 10/26, the rate is 2.22 million.)
Apple passed .5 billion songs on 7/18/05. Between 7/18/05 and 2/23/06, there are 220 days, so the rate was about 2.27 million songs a day. So there was a decrease in rate over the time periods of about .23 million songs a day (or .05 million if we use 10/6).
But Apple has seen slower sales between May and Oct each year, and higher sales between Nov and Feb each year. So seasonality plays a role as well. Of course, the seaonality of music releases (and the quality or lack of quality) also play a role.
Plus, Apple has been selling more and more gift cards (don't have numbers but check out the ranking of gift card sales at the Apple Store). I don't believe Forrester included gift card sales at Apple Stores or other retail in their numbers.
And finally, the iTS now has other things for sale. More people are buying iPods with video and buying videos, or listening to podcasts. And did Forrester actually sort through all the transactions to determine the split between music and video, or did they use some heuristic?
Itunes as an iPod/Music Library interface and manager or Jukebox Still shines regardless of how many users purchase through the store.
If you just use it to manage your CD collection (which could easily include thousands of CDs if you've been listening and collecting most of your life) it's the best software there is.
iTunes is free and is also the most amazing music manager and ipod, airport and stereo system interface there is.
It allows anyone to import any CD ( which most people own 'cause they bought it - (some, many years ago) at any resolution and it will rip, store and play at full resolution 44.1kHz if yiu choose.
What is all the fuss about people not buying full fidelity music from the iTunes store?
It's a choice some people obviously care or don't care about.
Though I own and purchased every one of the 10-20 thousand CDs I have, over many years, and don't appreciate degraded quality, I have one or two iPods full of Apple Lossles quality compressed CDs which I take on the road with me, because I can store more music on my iPod that way and if it means a compromise , well I'd rather that then have no music to listen to.
Music - we buy a CD we own it. We are not entitled to copy it for commercial gain, but we have always and will allways continue to make as many personal copies as we want or ever made on cassettes or any other media we chooses - Screw the record companies!
iTunes is GREAT JUKEBOX SOFTWARE that makes life easy for anyone who has lots of music in digital form.
Don't Panic less sales from iTunes doesn't mean Apple is going out of business or going to hurt at all.
We might even see iTunes used as a bridge between all the new forthcoming Apple products such as the IPhone, iTV etc....
Just like the iPod holds alot mor potential than an MP3 player so does iTunes as a package....
Though I own and purchased every one of the 10-20 thousand CDs I have, over many years,
This is where the labels are feeling the crunch.
There is no way in this age of downloading where you will find teens starting a collection like this. They will have hard drives full of music, not 10-20 thousand $10 cd's ($100k to $200k).
I imagine record label's revenue stream projections are in the crapper
All in all I spend about $200 - $300 a year in giftcard purchases for myself or others. Compare that to the $0.00 I spend directly through credit card at the store.
So I could see how this article is true... at least from this one aspect... for me. There are actually only a few people I know that actually purchase their music outright. They all seem to go the gift route as well.
Anyway, I think iTunes music sales are doing just fine.
just my 2 cents.
I'm sure it's quite similar to that paid "study" that was done a while ago asking people in a very sneaky way if 50% of them would be 40% likely to buy digital music players other than Apple ones if Ballmer would release their families from his private army's secure jail compound just outside of Seattle, on a Tuesday.
The problem is that in every category except convenience, CDs are superior?
And which categories are these?
And which categories are these?
- Cost per song ratio
- Music quality
- Original, hard copy backup
- Informational insert
- Sharability