iTMS Moving Up The Sales Charts 185
Kyusaku Natsume writes "According to the NPD Group, Apple's iTunes Music Store has sold more music than Tower Records and Borders in the U.S., based on sales and download figures for July, August, and September." From the article: "At seventh equal in the chart was iTunes, up seven places on the same period last year. Both Tower Records and Borders slipped a place to seven and nine respectively. Russ Crupnick, music and movies industry analyst for NPD, said he would not be surprised if iTunes was to continue to climb the charts, especially in the run-up to Christmas when iPods are high on many present lists."
Good news (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not have a system where once I own a song, I own it in perpetuity, and can download it again whenever I want?
I wonder when the first lawsuit over consumer rights and ownership of 'lost' music files will be?
Re:new business practises (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good news (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good news (Score:3, Interesting)
That is quite a bold statement. Perhaps the promise of permanent ownership and free future downloads would further increase consumer confidence in ITMS and significantly increase sales. Bandwidth costs would be easily offset against further sales, and with bandwidth becoming cheaper the long term costs of future downloads will become increasingly insignificant. Alternatively Apple could make a small charge for bandwidth costs. Either way I stand by the free future downloads concept.
Slightly anecdotal... (Score:5, Interesting)
iTunes makes more sense when you're looking for music. I only knew that at Best Buy, I'd look for something and it would take a minute to find the right section, and then another minute to find the right area where the artist theoretically should be, and then another to determine that no, they don't have the CD.
Stranger still is the fact that some bands STILL refuse to (or their labels prohibit them from) posting all their CDs on iTMS. I'm looking at you, Dave Matthews Band.
What's the deal with that? Do they intentionally want to lower their sales figures? Or do they still operate in the theoretical haze of "profit margins" for sales that don't exist (iTMS) vs. sales that might exist otherwise (Best Buy, Tower)?
Re:Good news (Score:1, Interesting)
Appropriate Hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't imagine to pay for a DRMmed file that's not very high quality, to boot. I'm a typical headphones listener, and even through crappy A/Ds you hear a serious difference...
I'm enough of an audiophile that the high range tinniness in mp3s bugs me but not enough of one to know what "crappy A/Ds" are. I also agree that it's a bit of lump to pay money for a low-quality AAC/mp3. Sometimes when I get turned on to a new act, I preview on iTunes and then order from half.com. In fact, that's pretty much what I do for eighty to ninety percent of my music.
However, I have purchased maybe forty songs from iTMS and have received from friends maybe several hundred 128 kbps AACs/mp3s, and I notice a gigantic difference when I listen to those files on a pair of regular speakers/headphones and when I listen to those files using a pair of <BRANDNAME> in-ear canal phones.
For example, I have a pair of Sennheisers and listening to low-quality files on them is an awful experience. I also have a pair mid-range floor speakers and listening to low-quality audio files on them practically makes my ears bleed. But the <BRANDNAME> canal-phones provide a very different experience. I'm afraid to say "good," but that's pretty much what listening to AAC and mp3 files using those canal-phones is like. Even tracks with a wide dynamic range (yeah, I'm a child of the 70s) sound really good.
I guess this a long way of saying that the hardware you use to play low-quality music files makes all the difference in the world. Playing cheap tracks on high-quality hardware not optimized for compressed music just plain sucks. On the other hand, paying a bit of a premium for appropriate hardware might surprise your ears. I'm glad I received my canal-phones as a gift since they run about a quarter of the price of a new iPod (the high-end ones cost much more than even the top-of-the-line iPod), but that very unpretentious piece of hardware (black instead of mug-me-white cords) makes all the difference in the world.
iTMS is really the only way I shop now (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good news (Score:2, Interesting)
It didn't. The full purchased song had CD quality. I even compared it back to back with the preview from the store and the difference in quality was as clear as night and day.
I suppose Apple does this to conserve bandwidth. Or maybe it's just an honest mistake. Either way, they lose sales because of it.
Re:Who cashes in? (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, you might have noticed that Steve Jobs, known primarily as a hype master, also downplays at times to suit whatever his diabolical strategy is. Exhibit #1 being the video iPod (or is it the iPod that incidentally also plays video?); Apple is still de-emphasizing that feature, insisting that it is first and foremost it is a music player. Not too long ago, Steve said that Apple wasn't interested in making a video iPod because he didn't think that it was what people wanted.
Around that time he mentioned making a computer with a built in toaster, because he was of the belief that most people eat toast. I immediately registered the domains ibread.com and itbs.com, but so far, no luck. Oh, well.
Another thing about Apple is that while they have a reputation for being on the cutting edge, introducing or incorporating new technologies (Firewire and USB being good examples), they often enter a market after others have pioneered the space (iPod). Also, while they have a reputation for being revolutionary, their improvements are often incremental. I think the reason for this is twofold. Obviously, the incremental model helps pump up sales for those who purchase the latest and greatest. It's perhaps the oldest trick in the tech marketing book, and Apple does it well. The other reason is that Apple engineers seem to take their time to polish a product and get the details right. It's the last 10% that's the most difficult and the most work, but Apple more often then not gets that 10% on any given feature. I'm thinking of two different products lines here: the laptops, which have continually added small touches (DVI out, backlit keyboards) even when the CPU upgrades were paltry, and the slow (and ongoing) evolution of the iMac into a media center.
Back a moment to the downplay strategy: I think the motivation at the time was to discourage others from starting up their own music stores. You'll remember that MS was going to stay out of that business, instead developing and selling the software/infrastructure to companies that wanted to open such stores. Which they did and still do, although probably not in the great numbers they'd hoped. Because Steve talked down the profit potential of selling music downloads.
Now, no doubt that the iPod is earning the lion's share of Apple's profit. But the iTMS is delivering a nice chunk of pocket change. Those pennies add up!
There were probably other considerations. I'm sure Steve didn't want to look foolish if iTMS flopped, so it was positioned as a way to sell iPods.
OK, this has turned out to be much more long winded than I had planned, so I'll stop, even though I'm feeling untypically insightful at the moment.