Apple Music Stations

[MacRumors]

Spymac reports that Apple will be featuring their new music service in special kiosks at Apple Stores:

Although the iMac-powered kiosks will double as information and showcase displays, customers will be able to purchase music and take it home with them, provided they bring along an iPod or purchase a disc to burn.

Payment details are unknown at this time.

[chewbaccapits]

I definately try now that I placed my order for a pod......Finally, after 5 months!

[MrMickS]

As sold Apple don't allow you to pull music off your iPod. If you downloaded music from an AppleStore to your iPod it would only be usable on it or via iTunes on it.

Unless you can burn a playlist from your iPod (not able to try that atm) this seems like a pretty dumb thing to do.

I've had my iPod mysteriously reset itself once (deleting all of the content) and have had to revert to a previous software version once (deleting all of the content). This seems too much like throwing money away to me.

[maxterpiece]

This is not all that exciting for me, but seems like a good idea. Obviously anyone with a mac capable of running iTunes 4 and a high speed internet connection will opt to download music at home, so this severely limits the percentage of people in the apple store that would care for this. As far as downloading onto an ipod goes, because you can't upload from your ipod onto your computer, it seems kind of silly (unless it's a lot cheaper). THe only ipod owner who might be interested is the windows user (at least for the next 7 months or so)... otherwise it just makes more sense to download at home. It seems like a nice thing just as a way for apple to demonstrate in-store how easy the music store is to use and to show those who might be hesitant around in it.

As far as practical uses - that is buying a bunch of music and burning it because you feel like it, this doesn't seem all that practical (although it doesn't sound to bad for 99 cents a song... if I was planning on buying 4 different CDs at the CD store across the street, but I know that on those CDs there are only about 15 songs that I care to listen to, $15 sounds a lot nicer to my pockets than the $50-$60 I woulda spent on the CDs). It would be cool if Apple had some CD-stomping software running off the computers too. Maybe apple should include that software in iTunes 5. I think if apple had implemented all this technology to just have kiosks, it would be a dumb idea, but since the infrastructure is like 99% there already, implementing it is virtually free. It's a win-win situation. Another thing that they could do would be to allow people to burn the actual AAC files to a CD, then go home and register their home mac (or the one that they are buying) under the account that they used - go for a shopping spree at the apple store with their high speed connection, then bring home 20 songs. I don't know... it's not something that's exciting for us computer nerds with fast internet. We all had iTunes 4 installed by monday evening and had at least experimented with the Apple store. Not everybody's as curious or technologically adept I guess. It might piss off CD store that's across the street though.

[MrMacMan]

I hope you can pay in cash...

[donshank]

and when you get home and plug it into your computer iTunes will erase the songs on your ipod that arent on your computer when it syncs.

phtht!

[whfsdude]

Now if only Apple sold porn like they sell music.


Really I think the selling Music in the Apple Store is a good idea. Just gear it towards teens.

Turn the apple store in to a hangout.

[Mr. MacPhisto]

Originally posted by whfsdude
Now if only Apple sold porn like they sell music.


Really I think the selling Music in the Apple Store is a good idea. Just gear it towards teens.

Turn the apple store in to a hangout.

Best to purchase the domain www.appleporn.com while there's still time.

I can see it now: people performing their favorites scenes in front of a white background while singing BOW-CHICKA-BOW-WOW

[The Shadow]

Originally posted by whfsdude
Now if only Apple sold porn like they sell music.


Really I think the selling Music in the Apple Store is a good idea. Just gear it towards teens.

Turn the apple store in to a hangout.

That's the second dumbest idea I've ever heard!

An AppleHomies store.

Yep, then they'd really move some stock off the floor. (Just that noone would pay for it, it'd just somehow mysteriously disappear.)

[pretentious]

Why don't they just rent kiosks out at malls around the country?

It'll be able to show off the greatness of Macs, and it'll be cheaper than Sam Goodie right next door. They'll give you a CD-R and mix or buy and entire album right there just 9.99!
This would be great!!

All they need is a small kiosk maybe one or two Apple guys and a couple Macs and Internet of course, cheap and easy no need for a full Apple Store everywhere, it would be great advertisement for the store and for Apple in every city.

I can see this becoming really big.

[The Shadow]

Originally posted by Macrumors
Spymac reports that Apple will be featuring their new music service in special kiosks at Apple Stores:

Payment details are unknown at this time.

Presumably this service is still not available outside the US, which if I remember my geography correctly, means not available to MOST OF THE WORLD!!

Ummm, yep, pretty sure that's RIGHT!

Can we have some PERSPECTIVE please, in the reporting? I'm just getting a bit frustrated with the "World Series Baseball" mentality (the World meaning the US).

[elo]

In baseball, "World Series" means the world. There are non-US teams, and there is no reason why other non-US teams couldn't join the major leagues.

[mymemory]

When I was studing multimedia in Orlando FL in one of the curses we talked about a system that would use ATM like machines to burn your CDs, the reason of that was to save place of record store because they have a huge volume of useless space in CD's, some of them with several years on display and the "ATM" machines would be networked to transfer the material to each other. Of course in those times mp3 didn't existe and DSL wasn't avalible, that was around 1996.

So, Apple is doing just that and better, no need of huge record stores, at list not that many any more and I'm capable of getting the music from my own computer legally.

[lmalave]

Originally posted by elo
In baseball, "World Series" means the world. There are non-US teams, and there is no reason why other non-US teams couldn't join the major leagues.

No, if it was a "World" series, you'd have national teams like with the World Cup. That way it could be U.S. vs. Japan vs. Korea vs. Latin American countries vs. anyone else that plays baseball.

[Mudbug]

I like the business model of the mall-kiosk for music distribution. Is there any reason you couldn't do this now, with the software available? I haven't read the information about the rules governing burning the music, but if you use your Apple ID to download a CD full of music off the net legally, charge a reseller fee to your customer, then burn them their custom CD, then remove the original downloads from your copy of itunes, is there anything illegal in that?

I'll explain, if that was confusing.

[Macmaniac]

I bet if you download a song from a Kiosk at an Apple store to an iPod, some kind of tag will id it and allow it to be transffered to your computer. They did way it would be using a modified version of iTunes.
So when you plug your iPod in it would automatically transfer music you bought to your computer.
That makes the most logical sense.

[iAlan]

Originally posted by Macmaniac
if you download a song from a Kiosk at an Apple store to an iPod, some kind of tag will id it and allow it to be transffered to your computer.... when you plug your iPod in it would automatically transfer music you bought to your computer..

I was thinking the same. No way would Apple set up a kiosk for you to download songs to your iPod just to have them erased. Unless you can customize a play list of say 10 songs for $2 just to listen to while you walk around and before replugging your iPod and they get erased. Don7t knw if this would be popular, just a thought...

[Rocketman]

Apple seems to be dabbling in retail Point Of Sale (POS) hardware so one might expect them to have a kiosk with card swiper for the music distribution scheme. One problem I see is the process of selecting and gathering music is time intensive so a kiosk might need 2-4 stations on it to be practical during surge demand.

With the POS toys they have made for thier own stores, maybe they will come out with a POS solution for retailers generally. There are plenty of small retail stores with only 2-4 access points for their POS system. Some of those could be headless or special purpose macs.

The notable thing about kiosks is they can be installed in shopping malls essentially immediately nationwide since those positions are almost always available unlike a full storefront. Also the capital investment is tiny as compared to a store so growth and penetration is not a problem for a well funded firm like Apple.

The figures I saw for margins were 65 cents to the publisher and 35 cents to Apple for the distribution function. On a direct sale basis with a client server model, that is high margin.

Rocketman

[Mudbug]

I don't know the thread #, but there was something about a larger enclosure in one of the rumors. What if that was for an in-store display system for retail vendors, instead of for the consumer market - like a commercial-sized ipod. That would give you a larger version of the screen with a true itunes interface (that wouldn't be too hard to do), with a credit card swiper built in.

why not? That would allow for the kiosk idea, in all sorts of retail settings, even outside of apple stores.

[hansumgent]

Having it not delete your music once you got home would be easy to implement. Since (as of now) the only way for an m4p file (paid for track) to get on your iPod is through the Apple store download OR when you synch your iPod to a computer that has mp4's on it (and thusly authorizing this iPod to use it), they could just do a blanket update FROM the iPod TO the music collection if both are authorized to play songs belonging to the same user.

I'll give this a try later today by downloading music to my iPod then synching my iPod to my second computer to see if the m4p's get copied over. Of course it will ONLY copy over the m4p's because it's the only files that can be linked to a user.

[macmax]

Originally posted by MrMickS
As sold Apple don't allow you to pull music off your iPod. If you downloaded music from an AppleStore to your iPod it would only be usable on it or via iTunes on it.

Unless you can burn a playlist from your iPod (not able to try that atm) this seems like a pretty dumb thing to do.

I've had my iPod mysteriously reset itself once (deleting all of the content) and have had to revert to a previous software version once (deleting all of the content). This seems too much like throwing money away to me.

there is a way to get your ipod music to another computer, email me

[abdul]

does anyone know how many people signed up for the service in the first hour/ steve said there would be more people signup for this service in the first hour than anyother service..... was he right?

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by macmax
there is a way to get your ipod music to another computer, email me

but it's not an apple supported method.. that is, as of now apple doesn't have a way to do this, so unless there's something in the music store files that allows them to be transferred, then this type of kiosk wouldn't work quite as well...

[Mudbug]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
but it's not an apple supported method.. that is, as of now apple doesn't have a way to do this, so unless there's something in the music store files that allows them to be transferred, then this type of kiosk wouldn't work quite as well...

But why not the kiosk burning a CD? You could then take your new music home and encode it any way you see fit.

[dxp4acu]

Originally posted by lmalave
No, if it was a "World" series, you'd have national teams like with the World Cup. That way it could be U.S. vs. Japan vs. Korea vs. Latin American countries vs. anyone else that plays baseball.

I think you're referring to the Olympics???? The World Series really is the World and not the U.S. Have you seen who all is in the Majors? Guys like Sammy Sosa, Alfonso Soriano, Hideki Matsui, Ichiro, etc. Of course, there are a few guys left in the rest of the world that could play in the majors, but they wouldn't even make up 1 team!!! The MLB has the MVPs from all these different countries, so yes, it is the world series!!!