The sales figures for Apple's recently launched online music store are almost unbelievable for many in the industry and according to Apple, this is just the beginning.
Apple launched its online music store, iTunes, a week ago and already claims whopping one million sold audio tracks. Each track costs $0.99 (except when user buys a full album) and tracks can be burned on CD, transferred to Apple's own portable audio player, iPod (which itself is already a culture icon), and the store has a selection of over 200,000 tracks. And to put the sales figures into perspective -- the service is only available for Mac users. No Windows, no Linux -- only Macs allowed.
Only complaints seem to relate to the fact that the service is almost too easy to use -- you wont even notice when you've already shopped audio tracks worth of tens of dollars. Apple also reported that it has sold over 20,000 iPod portable audio players over the last weekend in the U.S. and has received over 110,000 orders for the player.
It seriously looks like Apple has finally figured out something that record labels just couldn't understand -- offer a legal, relatively cheap way to purchase (virtually) unrestricted digital audio tracks from a massive audio catalog and you have a winner.
It is rumoured that Apple has plans to launch a Windows version of the service later this year, but company hasn't confirmed the rumours yet. Company has announced that it will extend the audio catalog to include 500,000 songs by end of the year. The audio tracks sold are encoded by using AAC format, which is one of the standardized audio formats within the MPEG-4 standard.
Source: News.com
Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 5 May 2003 14:32
Apple's iTunes a whopping success
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- 20 comments
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Tedronai
And the RIAA says MP3's are evil.. What a crock.. If I had a mac, I would probably use this service.. But I'm just a poor PC owner.
5.5.2003 15:58 #1
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Dela
Well sounds good, TOO BAD YOU NEED A MAC TO USE IT THOUGH AINT IT!!!
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JoeMax
Nice, but I still think the music should be significantly cheaper than 99 cents per track. The analysts say the price of 49 cents is ideal. When I buy 20 tracks through iTunes, I pay almost 19,8 USD, which is far more expensive than a CD sampler :o(( Music industry still has to learn a lot...
5.5.2003 22:08 #3
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Ne007
You Sir are correct. I would pay only 5 cents a song.
5.5.2003 22:17 #4
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Ghostdog
Somebody finally got it right...
All those music services by the different record labels, and now Apple got it right.
I hope the PC version functions as well as the above news article suggests.
200.000 songs seems a bit low though.6.5.2003 00:09 #5
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jodge407
Apple always gets it right :)
But I still use P2P to get my songs lol6.5.2003 08:46 #6
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tribal-t
I would never pay for music. I don't care how cheap it is. Besides, P2P networks have more than just music, like software, videos, and images. You can download the best video and pc games for free!! Not to mention music videos, and movies. You can roll out Pressplay and iTunes, but no limits on a file for free is hard to beat.
6.5.2003 12:45 #7
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phuocle
JoeMax, I agree with you... for me $0.49 per track is the sweet spot. But they have to go one step further - make it totally unrestricted and offer at least another format (like the ubiquitous MP3 - let's not debate quality here).
Why totally unrestricted? Because it makes my life easier since I already have the ability to make unlimited burns to CD, I can just re-rip to MP3 or anything else and then it's unrestricted - but it's an extra step. They should go for it all and make it totally unrestricted. For example, Madonna.com (not that I'd buy from her) offers tracks from her latest album in unrestricted MP3 format for $0.99...
Here's proof though that P2P/MP3 were not responsible for declining CD sales... people aren't interested in CD's anymore after they replaced their vinyls. The interest is there for digital music in a format they can use. The music industry and the RIAA should not be allow to use that argument anymore in their fight against P2P.6.5.2003 13:31 #8
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maryjayne
$0.99 per track? The average tracks per CD is around 14 tracks/CD. That makes the cost of a downloaded CD around $14. Why wouldnt I just go out and pay the extra $1-$3 and buy the actually CD and rip it into a format of my choosing? Or with wonderful services like BMG Music or eBay, I can get the CD used or new for less than $6.
If they do plan on introducing this into the PC world, then they need to dramatically reduce their prices.
At any rate I still like FREE. Long live P2P!Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- Benjamin Franklin
Time is never wasted when you are wasted all the time.6.5.2003 13:57 #9
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dRD
maryjayne: Albums actually cost $9.99 at iTunes, if you want to purchase a full album.
Petteri Pyyny
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http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/7.5.2003 01:55 #10
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Ghostdog
"I would never pay for music. I don't care how cheap it is. Besides, P2P networks have more than just music, like software, videos, and images. You can download the best video and pc games for free!! Not to mention music videos, and movies. You can roll out Pressplay and iTunes, but no limits on a file for free is hard to beat. "
Even though I agree that as long as you can get things for free more easily from the internet instead of paying for it in a store piracy will exist, I think it´s wrong.
Ex. Someone has put money, time and effort into developing a piece of software, and he doesn´t get any financial compensation for it, not to meantion not making any profit what so ever because peoplem are stealing his software.7.5.2003 05:36 #11
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tribal-t
"Someone has put money, time and effort into developing a piece of software, and he doesn´t get any financial compensation for it, not to meantion not making any profit what so ever because peoplem are stealing his software".
There still are people that just buy CD's and don't rip them or share the ripped music. These profits go to the artists. Even the people who rip music have to get the music from somewhere. A lot more people are going to have to stop buying CD's to really hurt the peolpe who produce music.7.5.2003 13:18 #12
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maryjayne
Thanks for the info dRD. I really did not have too much interest in going to the acutal website. Even at $9.99 per album, I will still just buy used copies off eBay or get my music from BMG Music.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- Benjamin Franklin
Time is never wasted when you are wasted all the time.7.5.2003 13:44 #13
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Ghostdog
Quote:There still are people that just buy CD's and don't rip them or share the ripped music. These profits go to the artists. Even the people who rip music have to get the music from somewhere. But what if everyone followed that philosophy?
8.5.2003 06:31 #14
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tribal-t
Lots of people don't even use the Internet. They just go to the nearby music store, buy a CD, and put into their CD player. These people rarely ever use computers. They are not well informed about technology.
-Tribal-T8.5.2003 13:13 #15
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tribal-t
Lots of people don't even use the Internet. They just go to the nearby music store, buy a CD, and put into their CD player. These people rarely ever use computers. They are not well informed about technology.
-Tribal-T8.5.2003 13:13 #16
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phuocle
@Tribal-T
What the hell are you talking about and what exactly is your point? You really don't know what you don't know.
The recording industry does have a point that P2P sharing of copyrighted music does hurt their sales to some degree, but I have no sympathy for them since they view consumers as their personal bank accounts to milk as much money as they can get. That's why I don't feel bad downloading the occassional tracks for FREE off Kazaa or Grokster. Everybody loves free.
But there is a price point for unrestricted digital music that even I would consider participating in - for me that's $0.49 or less per track and about $4.99 per album - half of what they're charging now. At that price point, it's worth my while to pay to get the music faster, at a consistent quality, and just to feel good about doing something right. It doesn't mean that I'm still not bitter about them for past wrongdoings and bending me over, but maybe I can begin to forgive.8.5.2003 13:28 #17
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tribal-t
I haven't bought a CD in the past 4 years. I have become used to downloading music for free. I want it to stay that way. That's what I'm saying.
8.5.2003 16:28 #18
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Ghostdog
And that is exactly what we´re saying is wrong.
9.5.2003 08:22 #19
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hurrah
why are you retards subscribing to this corporate dogshit ripoff by paying a single cent for downloading music when P2P is infinite, free, and simple... if you're willing to spend any money at all then you should buy cd's and get the album art and a quality, beautiful disc..
oh yeah and lets all enjoy our pointless little lives being force fed media mainstream corporation dogshit garbage every single minute until we die having accomplished nothing for humanity....17.3.2004 00:51 #20
