New iPod Owner Onslaught Overwhelms iTunes

Billosaur writes "In the post-Christmas rush to power up and use their new iPods, an onslaught of downloaders brought iTunes to its knees, according to CNN. Monday and Tuesday saw users posting message after message about slow downloads and the iTunes site denying them entry. The heavy traffic was apparently more than the system could bear, what with the large numbers of people receiving iPods and iTunes gift cards. Perhaps Apple was underestimating just how successful they were going to be?"

So what?

[notque]

So they underestimated how successful they'd be, and will quickly throw money at the problem and correct the issue.

I don't see this as positive, or negative. It happened, if they fix it quickly we'll all move on.

I helped with this

[sgt.greywar]

2/3rds of the gifts I bought this year were iPods and iTunes music gift cards. I think I am not alone in this and the traffic shutdown on iTunes shows it. Apple has done a great job with their service and I don't mind paying for it. My wife did have to wait until yesterday to buy the rest of her Tunes though since the site was so hammered.

DDOS'ed by their own marketing success!

[mmell]

That's hilarious!

Somehow, I doubt that Apple feels too badly about this; and I'm sure they're scaling up their server farm to accomodate this, their most recent success.

I didn't notice

[93 Escort Wagon]

Well, I was using iTunes last night and it was as responsive as ever. Ripped a CD, listened to a podcast...

Oh, wait, did you mean the iTunes Music Store [apple.com]?

brought to you by Mr. Pedantic(TM)

Sales were supposed to be weak weren't they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote: "Perhaps Apple was underestimating just how successful they were going to be?"

I thought the press was saying the iPod wave had crested and the sales were on a downward spiral....
What if Apple believed those reports and scaled back iTunes?... Naaw not likely. But it is nice to see Apple get suprised once in a while.

It's Win/Win for Apple

[mrshermanoaks]

Apple sells a ton of iPods, and then gets press about how many iPods they sell. You can't just do a news story about Apple selling a lot of iPods for the holidays, that's the story we hear every year. You need a situation where they sell so many damn iPods that their service is overwhelmed. That's a story. And you're further reinforcing the idea that "everyone" owns an iPod and nobody owns a Zune. Yeah, it was a pain for people for a day or so. If I read a story about how many iPods were returned because people had trouble with the iTMS, that's something else. But do you think those iPods went back? Doubt it.

Proof?

[repetty]

A couple anecdotes and an analyst who uses the technical term "blew up" are a pretty week foundation for a news story.

I have drawn these conclusions:

1. The iTunes service has operated just fine
2. It's a very, very slow news day

--Richard

Re:Yes

[DECS]

Which is why Creative is losing huge amounts of money. While DIVX might be popular among people who don't pay for things, it's not something that NORMAL people use. And by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots.

Creative stuff is generally big and bulky - not exactly the mass market stylish and simple product that Apple's been churning out with the iPod.

--

Inside Apple's iPhone [roughlydrafted.com]

Re:Apple and iPod...

[aristotle-dude]

I never invested money in an ipod, due to some of the rantings and ravings about it. What would be its best competition out there on the market? Also, is the ipod store as populated with songs as they say it is?

Why do you base your purchase decisions based on how you feel about the views of others? Give different players a try on the displays, ask questions from the store staff and buy which ever one you find to be the best.

I have a feeling that you are trolling but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Re:So what?

[neoform]

Maybe so, but this definitely shows that those rumors of apple's iTune sales being way down were total crap.

Systems and Spikes

[MrGHemp]

In the brick-and-morder storea if you suddenly had a spike in sales... no one blamed you if you didn't get a new store constructed in a day or two to meet the demand. Plus if the demand spike only lasted a day or two did anyone expect you to construct an extra store and have it just sit dormant until that one or two days next year when you had the sales to support using it? No. So part of me doesn't wonder if some of these big online applications don't kinda expect to have there hardware taxed for a day or two, and consider the cost of doubling there hardware costs to only handle one or two days of traffic spikes not worth it?

Guess I'm wondering if Apple suspected this would happen but considered the cost of increasing there server capasity to handle it (maybe even doubling it) not worth it?

Re:I helped with this

[needacoolnickname]

I'm guessing that someone who might have thought of getting you a gift, you already gave this rant to and they decided just to get you some nice socks.

Shit. It's a gift. Say thank you and smile.

Re:It's Win/Win for Apple

[c00rdb]

Compare Zune: Bigger screen with the exact same resolution, bulkier to carry, less efficient interface (deemed by most), no options other than color for the hardware....

Re:I helped with this

[sgt.greywar]

Good grief, iTunes sounds great to anyone not looking at the music through an o-scop and bitching about the degraded waveform. Basically if it is even somewhat close to the CD and better than the radio people like being able to pay .99 ofr one song they want as opposed to $15-17 for a CD with 2 songs they liked. For people with iPod's the DRM isn't an issue either. I bet your family *loves* buying gifts for a bitchy old curmudgeon.

Re:I helped with this

[punxking]

Add to the reasons of CDs with only 2 good songs and having to go to the store the fact that the CD selection at Best Buy is horrifically pathetic. If you don't want the latest flavor of the minute hit songs, good luck finding it at Best Buy.

Re:I helped with this

[geekoid]

You are an ass and you are giving UNIX a bad reputation.
Immediatly change your logon and then think hard about the idea of hitting someone just because they give you a GIFT.

You ungratefull S.O.B.

1) No one,not even you, can tell the difference without looking at high end equipment.

2) "Epensive" is determined by the market, not by your opinion. YOU may find them to expensive, but clearly the market doesn't it.

3) No music you buy from anywhere is yours. The media is, and the ability to listen to that media any way you want is, but the content is not your, and never has been in the history of music.

4) How much would you spend at a music store if you wanted only 1 track that is on 10 different CDs? You would have to pay 100 bucks to get the home made compilation. 25-50 bucks if you could get it as used music.

Re:First Post!

[JazzLad]

Yep, my wife and I spent a combined $35 on each other this year.

Yes, I know this is OT. Feel free to mod accordingly.

Re:I helped with this

[Kesh]

Y'know, you could just offer to sell the gift card to some kid on the local campus, a relative or *gasp* a friend, right? Then you'd have the cash to spend however you want.

Also, those socks have terrible DRM. I mean, you can only use them on your feet! Talk about restricted use. I mean, maybe you can use them as a rag, or a hand puppet, but you have to do some serious hacking to get any other serious use out of them. ;)

reality check-building to capacity

[way2trivial]

if you expected a 4 fold ncrease for 72 hours, then demand to drop to more moderate levels- you might decide to take the service hit rather than make a huge capital
  investment that would cover your 'brownout'

Re:It's Win/Win for Apple

[mgv]

So of the two things you could get right, Microsoft chose to focus on the physical device that needs to be shipped and examined and repaired, while Apple chose to focus on the readily copied and distributed software that would otherwise need to be downloaded from the web.

Overall, I think Zune made the best choices of where to fail. Both sides are failing a little, but the Zune doesn't have any failures that can't be fixed free of charge later on down the line.

Right. Like windows XP, it doesn't have any failures that cant be fixed by a software upgrade. Its called Vista. Let me know when microsoft sends you a free copy.

If you seriously think that they will fix software problems for free, you should go have a talk with all the people who bought into "plays for sure". They got a deal worse than software upgrade. It was forced obsolescence of the worst kind. The software upgrade that those people deserve would be to remove the DRM off their music so that they can at least move that onto another player before their hardware dies. Let me know when microsoft offers that.

But I can see that you really believe that microsoft will look after you. After all, they are the ones fighting the RIAA to keep the cost of a song down and there is no way that they would just donate money to them now, like for every player that is sold.

Michael

Re:Why was everyone downloading?

[TheRaven64]

That must suck for people who don't have broadband (yes, there are some, and many of them have extensive CD collections). Since all iPods can act as USB mass storage devices, why not just put it on the device itself?

I used to own a serial adaptor for my Psion Series 3 palmtop. It came with a blob of flash in the middle of the cable that contained all of the drivers etc. required to use it. I don't see why iPods shouldn't adopt this model. Sure, download a newer version of iTunes if you want, but at least provide the software required to use it...

Re:First Post!

[leenks]

I love the spirit of Christmas. Soon *everyone* will know that Christ was born with a pair of Nike trainers on his feet and an ipod in his pocket!

Re:It's Win/Win for Apple

[gordgekko]

bulkier to carry

God, I wish this would die. The Zune is marginally larger and heavier than the latest iPods. If the Zune is a huge brick, that means every previous iPod was a monster as well.

And before someone resorts to that tired accusation of "shill", I own a 5.5G 80GB iPod and a Mac (along with two Windows XP machines).

more marketing research required by competition

[SethJohnson]

And by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots.

That comment, sir, got you added to my friends list.

Your other observations about the importance of market research in determining a product's feature set are stating the obvious, but valuable nonetheless. Extremely granular market research that determines who will pay how much for this product over that product because of which features is what should have sent the Zune designers back to their drafting tables.

Seth

Re:What's "portable" video?

[CronoCloud]

Portable means having a good quality of video for a smaller file size, and the MPEG2 you're burning for your DVD player doesn't fit that qualification. Especially since the Zen Vision M's screen is 320x240. Why play MPEG2 on it when you can use video specifically designed for good quality, low file size and that looks good at 320x240. Meaning MPEG4 SP/MP or h.264 AVC. You could still play those files on your computer, though admittedly not on your DVD player.

Re:Yes

[jonnythan]

This is a repost of something I posted previously:

The 30GB iPod takes up 31% less volume than the Zune and 42% less volume than the 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M.

The 30GB iPod has 15% less mass than both the Zune and the 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M.

The 80GB iPod has 167% more storage space than the Zune and takes up 12% less volume than the Zune.

The 80GB iPod has 33% more storage space, takes up 38% less volume, and has 12% less mass than the 60GB Creative Zen Vision:M.

The 80GB iPod has 167% more storage space, takes up 26% less volume, and has 4% less mass than even the 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M.

No one makes an MP3 player comparable to the iPod in the capacity/form factor department. Same goes for the Nano. iPod owns the market because Apple has no real competition.

Re:Packaging

[lakeland]

Why not put itunes on the ipod? Every ipod has a capacity > 35MB.