St-st-studios
Gene Munster, the analyst with the classic TV name, says Apple will add two more studios to the iTunes Store within six months if Apple can “tweak” its pricing.
But the Macalope thought Apple would only ever have Disney…
Apple adds PBS shows to iTunes
Geek that he is, the Macalope is excited to see that you can now download individual episodes of NOVA (and other PBS shows) from the iTunes Store. At first the $8 price tag seemed a little hefty, but the same shows on DVD are $18 from Amazon.
The Macalope wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the largest iTunes discount there is. Wal-Mart and Target are not going to happy about that.
Death by anecdote
Sven Rafferty declares the iTunes Store a fad that will be killed by CDs.
Apple is up against a difficult problem before it. DRM. What to do about it.
Uh… well… put.
While the most lenient in the business, it still won’t let you play it on other non-iPod devices such as Creative’s offering or the home entertainment system by Sonos.
OK, one more time for the slower students in the class: that’s how Apple tries to keep you buying iPods. That’s their business model. They make it inconvenient – but not impossible – to move your music to another player.
They also just make cool players.
This is starting to become an issue not just with techies but with regular non-technical users as well. I’ve already heard a few people tell me they went back to buying CDs because, “It won’t play on my [insert hardware device here].”
The anecdotal evidence is incontrovertible! The iTunes Store will fail!
With such a change in current, Apple will start to see its sales level off at the Store.
Really? And that’s supposed to start, what, now? Just because “a few people” told you they were going back to buying CDs? Did people just suddenly become aware there’s DRM, even though it’s been on every song ever downloaded from iTunes?
Sure, the lazy at heart may still go with a quick download here and there…
OK. Stop.
…but for the most part, you’ll start seeing more and more CDs being purchased (or visits to AllofMP3)…
Stop. Stop. Stop.
…as more users become aware of Apple’s desire not to share FairPlay with others.
STOP!
Sven uses the example of Beck’s latest release The Information to try to prove his point. He says you can easily buy the CD for $12.99 – presumably from a brick and mortar outlet – compared to $11.99 on iTunes. He derides the videos as “cheesy” and says “no one cares about those”, probably because he doesn’t realize the CD actually comes with a DVD with the videos on it.
But let us conjecture two possible purchasing scenarios.
- A customer buys Beck’s album off the iTunes Store and burns it to a CD. Cost: $11.99 + 50 cents for the CD media = $12.49. Elapsed time: maybe an hour for the download and the burn.
- A customer goes out to the store and buys the CD and included DVD. Cost: $12.99. Elapsed time: maybe an hour if he doesn’t stop at Starbucks.
Now, the results are not exactly the same as you can’t burn the videos to DVD via iTunes. But nobody cares about those, right Sven? (In this instance there is some backup for that as the videos are not studio productions, but lower-quality home-made stuff.) But you end up with a DRM-free copy of the music for 50 cents less from iTunes and, more importantly, you didn’t have to get off your ass to do it.
While Sven is apparently against the vice of sloth, he also has a problem with the virtue of thrift. Possibly he’s a Presbyterian.
Truth is, the iPod will not be number one for ever and when that happens…
Intelligent chimps will rule the Earth?
…Apple will no longer make money off of the iTunes Store as other venues for the other players will be available.
Unlike now, when no other venues for purchasing music online for other players are available.
Wait, what?
Further, as additional music lovers become more frustrated with DRM in the coming months…
What is so freakin’ special about the next few months? Is it DRM Awareness Dayz or something? Is Cory Doctorow going door-to-door to tell YOU about the evils of DRM? WHAT?!
…they, too, will find themselves back in Target, Wal-mart, or online at Amazon, purchasing hard copy material as they once did in the ancient times of the digital frontier.
Because a couple of dudes Sven knows are doing that. And Rick is, like, a total trend-setter. He had a troll patch way before they were cool.
Until that happens, legitimate stores such as Apple’s iTunes Store will see a leveling and most likely a spike in illegal downloads…along with some rise in hard copy sales. Maybe. Hopefully, however, Apple will be smart enough to avoid this and really play fair.
Groan.
Look, it’s FairPlay that brought the record companies to the table in the first place. Without FairPlay, the iTunes Store wouldn’t exist. But Apple also benefits from FairPlay. The reason you can’t play a FairPlay-protected song on a Zune is the same reason you can’t use Schick blades on a Gillette handle.
If Sven and his buddies want to “stick it to the man” by buying CDs (wait, don’t the record companies want you buy CDs anyway?), that’s their business. But none of the rest of us really need to watch another episode of “The Anecdote That Crushed Cupertino”.
Zune reaches critical mass of craptacularosity
The Macalope was willing to give the Zune the benefit of the doubt for a while, but yesterday it reached a point where the negatives overtook the positives.
The Zune had three things the iPod didn’t: a physically larger screen, wireless and… brown. But as Pee Wee Herman said “Everyone I know has a big ‘but’.”
The screen is larger, but the resolution is still the same as the iPod’s. It has wireless, but it may drain the heck out of the battery and might only be useful if you run into Jim Allchin.
And, in the Macalope’s opinion, brown is a fine color for mythical beasts, but not for electronic devices. Many who have seen it in person say it has a nice retro look, but unless you’re going to put a tacky brown face plate on your cell phone, it doesn’t go with any of the devices you already own. How’s a girl supposed to accessorize?
The Macalope believed the one thing that could make up for the Zune’s big “buts” and the iPod’s market advantage was aggressive pricing. But the Zune is actually 99 cents more expensive than the iPod. And that’s the cheapest Zune you can buy. If you want to get play in the Zune pool, you’ve got to shell out $249.99.
The subscription service is a ridiculously high $14.99 a month or, if you want to buy songs individually, they’re roughly the same as iTunes’ 99 cents. Although, because Microsoft sells 80 Microsoft points for a dollar and songs are 79 points, you get one free song for every 396 you buy – so act now!
Well, not now, because you can’t buy it now. Act Nov. 14th!
But if you’ve purchased any DRM-protected songs (including the oxymoronically named Plays4Sure), they won’t play on the Zune. Remember when the news of the Zune was first leaked and we were breathlessly told by Microsoft boosters that all your iTunes songs are belong to us because they would somehow magically be re-licensed on the Zune because Apple stupidly published that API called NSListOfSongsToReLicense and Microsoft is just so mega-rich and mega-cool that they can do that and no one else in the world can and OMG, OMG, OMFG?!
Yeah, well, about all those songs you already bought… how’d you like to pay for them all over again? Or, better yet, every month for the rest of your life?
And the Macalope can’t help but wonder what the activation process is for the Zune, the store and the media. Does it involve 16-digit alphanumeric codes that you get after waiting on hold to talk to someone in Redmond? Frankly, the Macalope’s had enough problems with registering computers on iTunes, although the added ability to deregister them all in one swell foop has pretty much cleared that up. Still, the process just doesn’t need to be any more complicated and you can forgive the Macalope if he doesn’t trust Microsoft to make a better mouse trap here.
Finally, the Zune’s supposed video advantage over the iPod may be difficult to enjoy. Microsoft’s store won’t be offering video on launch, so you have to bring your own.
Just, you know, make sure they aren’t DRM-protected. Because they won’t play.
Phew.
The Macalope’s not saying the Zune is DOA, but in its current form it’s remarkably troubled and is simply not a compelling competitor to the iPod. Microsoft has not leapfrogged Apple at all because each leap forward is matched by a leap back.
Your ad here.
Coming soon to www.apple.com: an “Advertise on this site” link?
The Macalope can’t wait for Apple to put up something about Bonjour and have GoogleAds dump a bunch of “Vacation in France” ads on them.
Now you’ll know how we feel!
ADDENDUM: Another thought on this: ad-based subscription service for iTunes? It’s not the Macalope’s cup of tea, but it could appeal to a segment of the market Apple’s not currently reaching.
If it’s not that, it’s annoyingly close to what the Macalope joked about below – a fee service that also made you watch ads.
Can a punch in the gut be far behind?
Silly report prompts silly conclusions
By The Macalope and has 5 comments.
Perhaps some of the Macalope’s readers from across the pond can tell him, is there something in the water over there? Or did Jonathan Ive do something really, really horrible that everyone in the UK hates him for and then have to flee to the U.S. and we just don’t know about it because we refuse to read the British press because of our fervent belief that Zed is a sodomist who is dead and not the last letter of the alphabet?
Via MacSurfer, the Macalope read Personal Computer World’s Clive Akass’ latest post on the iPod. Clive links to a PCW story on a recently released report by Jupiter Research that shows that just five percent of iPod tracks were purchased through the iTunes Store.
Now, before the Macalope goes off on Clive, it seems possible that the story Clive links to was subsequently changed because it’s very clear to the Macalope at least that what Jupiter is talking about is the total percentage of tracks on an iPod’s hard drive, not purchases.
From the story:
A survey by Jupiter Research has discovered that an average of just 20 tracks on an iPod are bought from iTunes – about five per cent.
From Clive’s post:
Figures from Jupiter Research indicating that iPod owners buy only five percent of their tracks from Apple’s ITunes online store…
The difference between “bought” and “buy” is rather important in this instance.
It seems rather unstartling to the Macalope that in the 3+ years of the iTunes Store’s existence that it hasn’t surpassed the 20 years of the CD or the orgy of downloading that took place during Napster’s heyday.
What would have been meaningful is a representation of overall music purchases, not music ownership, and the trend of online buying.
Even with the questionable meaningfulness of the statistic that drives the Jupiter report, there are some really odd conslusions they draw from it.
The report warns that the ‘free’ concept is still very important to most digital music users and advises that newer services should look into offering ad-supported ‘free’ services, like the forthcoming Spiral Frog service.
There are few problems with that. First, people’s time is not free. In fact, to many, it’s their most precious commodity. Second, another conclusion you could draw from the continued prevalance of music ripped from CDs is that people like to own their music and ad-supported services give you zero ownership. “Free” to digital music pirates also means “free to play anyway and anywhere I want.” Plus, the Macalope can’t help but wonder how that question was phrased.
“Hey, kids! Who likes free music?!”
“I do! I do!”
So, the report concludes that people prefer CDs (the most expensive option but it lets you do what you want with the music) and pirating (the least expensive option which also lets you do what you want with the music) to iTunes downloads.
It then recommends the most restrictive type of service currently imaginable, short of having to pay a dollar and watch an ad every time you want to listen to a song.
And get a punch in the gut.
People pay for this research?
But let’s get back to Clive because the Macalope knows you want to see how silly the rest of his post is.
Trust the Macalope. It’s very, very silly.
Neither will the iPod work with any online music store other than Itunes, which is rather like a CD player being restricted to playing disks only from the device’s manufacturer.
Clive could not have picked a worse analogy as the iPod actually will play music ripped from anyone’s CDs (with the possible exception of a smattering of DRM-ed CDs).
But, like it or not, in Apple’s business model, the iTunes Store is the handle and the iPods are the razor blades. Apple gets you in the door with that neat iPod all the kids are talking about and then wants to lock you in by getting you to buy your music off of iTunes.
Even so, it’s a rather velvety lock. You can always burn your songs to CDs and re-rip them.
The Macalope finds it odd that the people who complain about how restrictive the iTunes Store and the iPod are don’t complain at all about subscription models. Or, for that matter, the Zune, which apparently doesn’t play PlaysForSure (antler tip to Daring Fireball).
The iPod bonanza, which has seen Apple sell 1.5 billion tracks online, is not going to last forever.
Hmm, yes, well that’s certainly setting the bar a little high. But the Macalope seems to remember this other company that’s held a lock on the PC operating system market for over fifteen years. No, that’s not an eternity, it just seems like it.
There are countless rival players that do not carry the same restrictions, and Apple has been slow to bring a portable video player or musical phone to market.
Uh, Apple release a portable video player almost a year ago. Called the iPod. Don’t let that whole thing about it not being the “true” video iPod fool you. It was, in fact, a video iPod.
And Apple is widely expected to release a music phone in 2007. As for that being “slow”, the Macalope remembers similar statements when Apple first released the iPod. But just like the MP3 player market in 2001, no one owns the music phone market right now.
The company could come badly unstuck if it tries to lock people into its video downloads when there are plenty of other sources available.
Yes, it would be a shame if Apple uses the same highly successful model with video that it uses with music.
If it starts to be perceived generally as being guilty of anti-competitive practices, it could lose some of the momentum it has gained over the past five years.
Ah, yes, the Macalope remembers when that happened to Microsoft and people took their copies of Windows to the ocean and threw them in to show their…
Wait a minute…
The Macalope is just a little uncertain why so many people think that what made Microsoft so successful will make Apple a failure. But they sure do think that a lot.
The silly cherry on top of this silly post is when Clive closes by commenting how fun it would be if Apple licensed OS X.
Fun for you, maybe…
Paging Robert Morgan
That convergence you ordered ten years ago is here.
For those who don’t remember Robert Morgan, he wrote a rumor site ostensibly aimed at investors and then a column for MacWeek before it became eWeek. He preached the convergence of computers and consumer electronics in long, sometimes rambling posts. But these were some of the rumors the Macalope was weaned on when he was but a young Mac buck.
Morgan wrote around the time of the original iMac’s introduction when the rumor mill heavily bet that it would be a set-top box. Witness this CNet article from 1998 which is both astoundingly wrong and accidentally prescient:
Apple Computer (AAPL) is working on portable and TV set-top entertainment devices that offer Internet access and play everything from music CDs to DVD movies, as the company refashions itself for the convergence of consumer electronics and PC technologies.
The top-secret project could throw the computer maker back into the limelight of the high-tech industry if, as planned, the company combines a WebTV-like Internet access device with a CD or DVD player to create an easy-to-use, low-cost computing device, sources close to Apple said.
Apple declined to comment, but one source said the convergence project is code-named Columbus.
Columbus turned out to be the iMac. On the prescient side, the article notes:
“Studios need critical mass. It’s hard to justify new channels (for distributing) content if the subscriber base is small,” said one entertainment industry source.
Which pretty clearly describes how it’s Amazon and Microsoft that face the uphill battle here in 2006.
So, it’s been a long time coming – and it’s still not actually here yet – but the Macalope will be hefting a flagon of mead to Robert Morgan along with the modest portion of crow he’ll be eating tonight.
Because the Macalope was certainly wrong about wireless video vs. wireless audio. Judging by Gizmodo’s specs, it appears the “iTV” doesn’t have a hard drive (although Gruber speculates it has one for caching) so it is, in fact, receiving streamed video from a Mac and, for smaller content, from the iTunes Music Store. Certainly the “TubePort” was also wrong, though, and simply based off last night’s crop of rumors. No dongles and no “iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.”
And no “true” video iPod. We’ll just have to soldier on with these “fake” video iPods.
HD video requires transfer rates of 25 mbps and regular ol’ fashioned non-extreme Airport and mixed Airport/Airport Extreme environments only get up to 11 mbps. So, while the Macalope hates to say it, it’s time to ditch that stylish but antiquated key lime iBook.
UPDATE 9/13 – Correction: 25 mbps is for uncompressed HD. Commenter Jeff notes you could copy the movie file over 802.11b in less time than it would take to watch it, so you should be able to stream it. He also points out the use of the term “802.11 networking.” Is that because it’s 802.11b and 801.11g or because it’s 802.11a?