Apple Sells 275,000 Songs in First 18 Hours

[beatle888]

Re: Errors on the first day

Originally posted by Bob Knob
As to all the access errors on the first day (in the first few hours) I have a very limited inside connection (in QC in a somewhat related division) that said the rollout was tied so close to SJ's announcement that they were literally uploading/onlining stuff as he spoke, and (no surprise) the demo SJ ran was completely off a server backstage. The reason I was given for the tight schedule wasn't necessarily because things were running behind but actually do to the fear of leaks before the announcement. I was told that sections were upped/onlined according to genres (alphabetical), and that "World" actually wasn't completely up till about three hours after the end of the announcement.

oh man that sounds ridiculous. im sorry but i dont think apple had to "upload" anything to a server. hehehe. im sure they had all the songs ready on their server and when the time came, all they had to do is plug it in. what makes you think they couldnt populate their servers with the product before making it live? i think your friend is toying with you.

 

[makkystyle]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
Why? I've pretty much got everything I've wanted, 7000 songs or so, and didn't feel compelled by anything on the Apple site (or any other for that matter)... If people really wanted the songs that badly, they would have aquired them by now.

When I was in high school and had nothing else to spend my money on I was buying upwards of 3-5 CD's a week. Now I'm in college and don't plan on buying any new CD's till I have a job. But when that day comes believe me there are literally thousands of records I'd like to buy, and I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. And if I can set up my computer to download them all for me, encoded in good quality with all the track info in the right places rather than go to the store and buy hard copies, i'd end up encoding myself anyway... come on, easy choice.

And for all of you talking about they should have had the windows iTunes already out, it should be released in other countries, etc. Have you not been reading anything about this? This was and still is a HUGE gamble for the record company and artists (at least they see it that way). The only reason they are doing this project is because Apple has a very well rounded product with good DRM and owns the complete value chain (from encoding the song to playing it on a consumers iPod). THIS IS A TEST!!! There is no way that the record companies would have licensed their music without first making sure this is not going to backfire. Windows will come. Other countries will also come. It just takes time. I know everyone nowadays wants instant gratification, but the real world doesn't work like that.

 

[jholzner]

Originally posted by hacurio1
Me too. The fist day I bought only one song, but today i got like five. Who knows tomorrow. Well.....I better control my self or else I will have a big credit card bill by the end of the month. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I didn't buy anything the first day...or the second for that matter....but I did buy two albums on Wednesday. I think the numbers for the first week of operation will be very impressive indeed.

 

[AndrewMT]

I'm sorry, but Apple really needs to put more resources into the PC version to get it completed faster. According to other rumors, they are just now hiring. That is unnacceptable. Can't they see that whatever capital they put into the windows versions of itunes and the Apple store will be nothing compared to the profit?

 

[aguaone]

Happy but could be better

So far I think this service is a success. I bought an album that would have cost me 18 dollars at tower because the group is from Argentina. Saved at least 8 dollars. Would buy a lot more albums but so many of the albums on the store are incomplete. Hope this improves. Should always be an option to buy whole album.

 

[GeneR]

I think it's brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant. The idea of using AAC (part of the MPEG4 code?) as the basis for a new online service is absolutely smart.

Now, I wish I had a few more bucks to buy some AAPL stock!

RE: Profits
Well, let's face it: Apple is making this money on Apple-only people right now so projections like the ones made about the year really may not be so valid. We still have the PC market to consider. If this is an indication of things to come: if they meet the PC world before the other companies (translation: bring up the release date for the PC version of iTunes) then we're really going to see Apple do what it didn't do for its original OS: Take the PC market by a storm before M$ or some other company can get their grubby hands into it.

I'm sure it's not that simple. But I hope they do this before others do. Hopefully they will have the bandwidth and the server infrastructure to deal with the first few days of PC-users downloading to their iTunes.

What a great, great strategy.

Now, let's all pray and go "Ommmmm!" and hope for the best!

 

[NavyIntel007]

Originally posted by csimmons

BTW. Apple sould make Windoze users pay for iTunes.

Amen, unless they buy an iPod it should be a $50 program with 5-10 downloads from iTMS. iTMS should put a few Apple banner ads up as soon as the windows world comes on so that they can see everything they are missing.

 

[beatle888]

Originally posted by AndrewMT
I'm sorry, but Apple really needs to put more resources into the PC version to get it completed faster. According to other rumors, they are just now hiring. That is unnacceptable. Can't they see that whatever capital they put into the windows versions of itunes and the Apple store will be nothing compared to the profit?

if your talking about the monster board rumor, its not a rumor. the ad is there. its also on apples site. and as a previous poster mentioned, what makes you think their just now starting developement for the windows version just because they have an ad for another engineer? could this also mean that they need additional help to speed up the COMPLETION of the project? not to START the project?

 

[MorganX]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
Amen, unless they buy an iPod it should be a $50 program with 5-10 downloads from iTMS. iTMS should put a few Apple banner ads up as soon as the windows world comes on so that they can see everything they are missing.

They'll make their money selling razor blades (songs) not razors (iTunes). Apple needs to seize the market as soon as possible. This means charging for iTunes would be a mistake. And the ridiculous amount $50 a joke.

There are too many alternative media players in PC land that cost nothing, including WMPlayer.

 

[Waluigi]

What exactly are you buying?

I'm still a little confused. Are you buying the rights to the song itself, or just the file? Can you sell your downloaded music collection the same way you can sell your used CD collection? What happens when ACC is no longer the standard audio codec, will you be able to get all your songs you bought in the new format for free, or do you have to pay all over again, thus making all your ACC songs worthless?

--Waluigi

 

[Bonte]

Originally posted by bokdol
yeah i thought it funny if i did not hear it straight from the lead singer..... but on a najor radio station in DC he said the band get 10 cents per song played. MC hammer got screwed by his record company. and that was back in the early 90. lots of people were getting screwed. ( before people realized how much it really cost to produce cd's. ) i dont know how but he also mention how some old dude who wrote songs long time ago was still getting paid because they play his stuff on the radio.

That?s intellectual rights paid to the writer of the song, this has nothing to do with the performer unless MC Hammer 'wrote' it all by himself. :/

Those payments come from CD-r and cassette royalties and the payments are based on radio station play lists. To bad those stations play a lot of ****.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by AndrewMT
I'm sorry, but Apple really needs to put more resources into the PC version to get it completed faster. According to other rumors, they are just now hiring. That is unnacceptable. Can't they see that whatever capital they put into the windows versions of itunes and the Apple store will be nothing compared to the profit?

0) You have no idea what resources Apple is putting into the PC version of iTunes, so really have no business declaring that Apple isn't putting enough resources on it!

1) If you are referring to the logo compiance sr engineer position advertised, I can assure you that I've responded to such "design and develop" ads (no, not this one in particular ... not ready for a job change right now ) and they are quite often for a product that is 75-90% complete. Most software development houses add resources as a product nears completion (a smaller team does better with the initial design and proof-of-concepts phases), and these are almost always advertised as "design" positions even though most of the product is already designed and coded. It is, in fact, very rare for an established company with in-house resources (and, yes, Apple has Windows developers in-house!) to externally advertise for a position on the initial development of a new product; if at all possible in-house resources will get the product to the "viable" stage, then help called for when the product is known to be viable and nearing completion.

2) iTunes for Windows will likely share a majority of its code with iTune for the Mac. In fact, much of the hard work will have been done in transitioning iTunes from OS 9 to OS X (OS X, as a development platform, is about 95% identical to Windows, excepting the UI and a few bits here and there). The major bits of code to write for Windows are the UI glue bits and platform-specific performance optimizations.

3) I have heard that iTunes/Windows has been under development in fits and starts since the original iPod was developed, and that the switch from iTunes to MusicMatch was a fairly last-minute change. If this is true, then, again, what is left to be done is the "finishing work" of polishing interfacesand tuning performance.

 

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by makkystyle
And if I can set up my computer to download them all for me, encoded in good quality with all the track info in the right places rather than go to the store and buy hard copies, i'd end up encoding myself anyway... come on, easy choice.

Remember these two words -
"back up".

I've got 87 CDs worth of mp3 back-ups. That's better than re-ripping the batch, but it's still a lot of nerd time pulling them back.

When I was 85% of the way done transferring my CD collection (400+ at the time) to my computer, the belt snapped on my CD carousel. Never got it fixed or bought a replacement, but I had OSX crap-out on me (taking my whole system with it) and for the week (yes!) it took to get everything back to normal, I had to pull out my CDs and play them through my DVD player. Yuck.

It would be nice if the option was offered to get a high quality PDF of the cover and liner notes when buying a whole album. A shockwave or flash file would add a whole new element to it, complete with sound and motion. Artists need to exploit the benefits of distributing directly to a multi-media machine. 99¢ for the song or $1.99 for the video!

If people are going to pay for something as simple as controlling the auditory experience (nothing physical aquired), then the value will need to be upped a bit. It will be interesting to watch all these kinks get worked out... - j

 

[MacFan25]

I'm glad to hear that the sales went so well! The music service will probably also make people want to buy iPods too!

Go Apple!

 

[jayscheuerle]

Re: What exactly are you buying?

Originally posted by Waluigi
I'm still a little confused. Are you buying the rights to the song itself, or just the file? Can you sell your downloaded music collection the same way you can sell your used CD collection? What happens when ACC is no longer the standard audio codec, will you be able to get all your songs you bought in the new format for free, or do you have to pay all over again, thus making all your ACC songs worthless?

--Waluigi

Even with CD's, all you were really buying was the rights to listen to the music. It's a copywrite issue. Technically, you shouldn't be able to buy a CD, tape it or rip it, and then sell it (either directly to a user or a used CD collection)- unless you destroy your copies of it. That was really enforced well, eh?

We bought CDs of all our old albums didn't we? You may be able to convert formats as you need to do now if your mp3 player doesn't accept ACC files.

Speaking of which, how 'bout that Nomad Jukebox Zen with 60 gigs of storage for $100 less than the 30 gig iPod? Firewire too!!

 

[mymemory]

More math for Apple

If in the first 18 hours there was 250.000 songs downloaded...

Remember, not every one with a Mac in the US had iTunes 4 installed at the time.

Just imagine that each of the people with iTunes 4 at the time downloaded 3 songs average.

If you divided 3 songs (average) between 250.000 you are gonna get = 83.333.33 users.

Now lets make an estimate of 500.000 Mac users downloading 3 songs each = 1.500.000 songs downloaded in an average day.

Another thing to consider is that if you want to create a CD you will need at list from 12 to 20 songs in AIFF format. That represent the new volume of music you will have to download + there is now the chance to audition a huge amount of new artists from home. May be some lating music, some hard trance, country music (that only song you like), etc.

So, the potential of the software is huge again.

 

[backdraft]

All I can say is...

Apple ROCK'S!

 

[wdlove]

Netscape has a Fortune article on Apples Music Store "Songs in Key of Steve"

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,447333,00.html

 

[vitrector]

I think the service rocks, but
1. Need option of higher quality (currently paying almost same price as CD can be legally purchased for but getting lesser quality)
2. Selection needs to improve, this will happen surely, no sweat
3. Prices need to come down a little to reflect what you are buying. These tracks are lesser quality (see above), and they have no resale value. A CD has a resale value of anywhere from 10-70%, typically around 20-40% of the original purchase price. A collection of AACs becomes worthless (unless you are willing to sell you apple ID and password with the AAC - how safe would that be???). This discrepancy needs to be reflected in the price.

Whatever the details, Apple is proving that there is a market for online purchases. More refinements (and inclusion of Windoze customers) will dramatically expand that market. Hope Apple has the pedal to the metal on the Windoze iTunes development, 'cause I'd hate to see them loose that market to an imitator company...

 

[BaghdadBob]

I'm still excited, and some people are still idiots.

(not you, jethroted)

Originally posted by jethroted
The article talks about how this is only on the mac platform, but that is not even just the missing market. The service is also only available in the States. Even if they just offered it through out the world it would mean huge $$$ for everyone. If this music could subsidize apple enough, we might even see the hardware fall in price in the future!!

Yeah, not just that, but also only mac users using OS X. How many Mac users with OS X are there in the US? And they probably don't have half the songs a lot of people are looking for (if that) which will be largeley amended between now and then.

This could be a major, major cash cow. I am so damn impressed.

These people have some nasty and ignorant things to say about the service:

Apple commanding 35c per song is outrageous, and will be savagely undercut in time... The musicians literally get a few cents!

I look forward to the day when we can just go to the musicians website via a simple search and download the track/s using the same technology for much much less than 99c per song...foregoing all the sucking middlemen like Apple and the Big 5 ...

Yes, and some day I will be able to make metal glass and wood fung shui-compatible furniture and distribute it nationally via a revolutionary freight delivery system developed by some multi-billion dollar trucking company so I can cut out those sucking middlemen in the furniture store business.

Same guy:

Isn't it ironic that the producers of music are going the other way with adoption of vastly higher quality 96k/24bit, yet all you people get suckered into raving about the'quality' of AAC

Has this guy listened to AAC? I now have 11 hours of music ripped and downloaded at 128Kbps, and they take up about the same space as one audio CD, all while having virtual CD quality sound. And yes, I am an audiophile -- I own a $120 pair of headphones for no good reason but that I like the way they sound.

But wait -- I thought he was looking forward to the day when musicians themselves would use this technology? This kind of duplicity usually points to a predetermined starting point...hmm...

Still the same idiot:

A fool and his money are soon parted...Expect to pay much less in the future once competition cuts these leaches down to size!

Last time I checked, there was competition and it sucked. And you can definitely expect to pay much less for a Ford than a BMW now that Ford has cut those leaches at BMW down to size. Not that there's a difference between the two.

SOS, JADI:

I think Apple are exploiting the loyalty and curiousity of Mac users.

I'll bet that in 12 months time, this rip off will have changed through user choice and good old competition. Buyer beware.

Sounds like Steve Ballmer trying to spook people away from Linux . Other services seem to have the same (or worse) pricing structure and less technology. Plus, what these last-minute-morons fail to understand, since they seem to know what they know about the service thanks to the headlines of the last two days, is that the Big 5 don't just give this **** away for anyone to distribute. Let the "competition" (HA!) develop technology that they are satisfied with, and then talk.

But let me get to the point. The naysayers all seem to be people who have not used the service. That's one.

And finally, I think this raises the specter of what I have not seen in a while, the bashing of Apple by people who simply resent the fact that they exist, and resent the fact that some people actually love their computer.

And as far as loyalty goes...I don't think anyone here isn't willing to call crap crap when they see it, even if it comes from Apple. The implication that we all follow Apple like sheep shows how very little the more ignorant of the PC community know about us.

Did I mention I pulled these quotes using my beautiful tabbed browser? SUCKAZ!

 

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by Mudbug
I think this is exactly why it will work. With the trust of all of the big 5, there's stability for the service. I hope that those record companies are smart enough to realize that a stand alone company producing software like WINTUNES (or whatever) as a piece of software doesn't have the corporate stability or ability to pull this off like apple.

Yes, and some of the buzz around how this came about is on account of Steve's special relationship with the entertainment biz people. They trust him, and that trust will be hard for anyone else to duplicate. The Mac-only/U.S.-only initial roll-out also appears to be deliberate. Keep in mind that Apple's been working on this project for a year now. They're probably ready to take this to the next level (Windows) whenever the records companies are ready.

I can see Apple easily generating $12-15 million in revenue from the music store in the rest of this calendar year alone, even if nothing changes. That ain't exactly sneeze money for a company that's just barely been breaking even recently. With Windows users in the mix, we're talking more like $200-300 million a year in the U.S. alone. IOW, Apple's music business is poised to outstrip their computer business in terms of profitability.

I wonder how long it will take the analysts to add this up and to realize that Apple may very well have tapped into a gusher.

 

[beatle888]

what do you mean the aac is of lessor quality? its suppose to be BETTER than cd quality. can you explain or were you wrong? i think you are but not sure. all ive heard is that the AAC's are actually better than (when working from the master studio recordings which supposedly some are) or just as good (no quality loss) of the cd files. your point of no resale value is a good one. i dont think anyone brought it up yet. i wonder how that would work. personally i will use the service for single track purchases. if i want a new CD, say the new janes addiction HYPERSONIC (out in july), there is no WAY i will by it from an onli ne music download service. i want the cd and i'll encode it myself.

 

[Qball]

Re: but what are we really getting...?

Originally posted by thrice


Second, doesn't it bother anyone that Apple has essentially placed a store on YOUR computer!!!! The iTunes Music Store is built into YOUR copy of the program, what other info can Apple retrieve from it. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist normally, but does anyone know if Apple can/cannot read/determine what type of music YOU are listening to. Obviously they can track your purchases, but what else can they track. Is there anyway to monitor this on your own machine?

I believe you can disable the store, so it doesn't appear in the program. Look in Preferences.

 

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by dongmin
quick math:

$270,000 a day

$98.6 mil a year

$34.5 mil in revenues for Apple

Not bad, but not great. The Mac market, for the most part, is just a preview of the real money to be made in the PC world.

3 Mac users to every 97 PC (& others)

Fully saturated market with Apple Music taking over the world:

$1.1 bil in revenues for Apple!!!

you can't expect apple to sell that many songs every day.

expecting the apple daily songs downloaded is like watching a balloon deflate, great for a couple days, but then dies out.

They will make money, but not that much.

 

[Qball]

The only bad thing about AAC is that it's difficult to say. "AAC" doesn't roll off the tongue like "MP3." I guess you could say "Double-A-C" or better yet, "Two-A-C." Any thoughts?