iTunes Music Store Has Sold 20 Million Songs

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by eazyway
The speed is usually a function of your computer , the connection traffic (ie time of day) , connecting device and so on ...

Nope. I don't know about the other guys but I'm not talking iTMS. I'm talking the App itself. It’s slow. But as someone else stated it’s acceptably slow. But then I open up Music Match and the GUI and responsiveness of the GUI is at least, by eyeballing it, about 1.5x the speed of iTunes. I’m running iTunes on a 866Mhz laptop, with 512MB of RAM. There is zero excuse for any app that does only music to not run at a decent clip on such a device. This is pure speculation but I’m guessing that Music Match takes advantage of Direct X and iTunes does not. *shrugs* again it works acceptably fast enough but it isn’t blazing.

 

[jxyama]

Originally posted by kingjr3
But stating that building PC is easy is an understatement. You need to understand CPU/Motherboard compatibility, Bus types (ATA,SCSI,etc...), PCI/AGP/LMR, etc... You can't just go buy any hard drive or CPU and expect it to work.

worse than that, average user wouldn't know what components you need to make a functioning computer. will CPU/Mobo/HD be enough? video card? etc. etc.

 

[DeusOmnis]

Originally posted by spaced
Wrong. When Jobs announced iTunes for Windows he also stated the goal of 100m tracks. Then he said, and I quote "In order to reach this goal, we are going to give away 100 million songs" via the Pepsi promotion.

Can't you people please check your facts before you open your mouths?

The pepsi promotion can help the goal without necessarily counting towards it.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by jxyama
worse than that, average user wouldn't know what components you need to make a functioning computer. will CPU/Mobo/HD be enough? video card? etc. etc.

Said it before and will say it again. Building a computer isn't as 1337 as it use to be but it still takes some brains to do it.

Building a custom PC is not for the weak. You need to know how to set the various speed settings on your mobo. Everything from your bus speed, to your CPU speed, to correctly setting the multipliers. I’ve seen someone accidentally overclock their CPU when they didn’t intend to. So his normal CPU heat sink wasn’t enough and consequently ended up with one nasty mess.
You need to know what mobos fit in what cases. You need to know what mobos are compatible with what CPUs. You definitely need to know about ESD. You need to know the master slave relationship on IDE devices or how SCSI chains work if you are dealing with SCSI. You need to know how to read a mobo manual. (It sounds funny but you'd be surprised how confused people get with connecting the correct wires to the correct locations on the mobo or settings the BIOS setting up for the first time. Unlike shake and bake systems like Dell there are a heck of a lot of settings in a off the shelf mobo.)
You should have an understanding of what the 3 types of plugs on a power source are and what they go to. (Granted you can muddle your way through this with round peg fits in round hole type of thing.)
Most importantly you need a firm grasp of how to troubleshoot a problem and this DOES require an understanding of the computers components. If you don't know the components you won't know where to look when the system beeps three times on initial boot and nothing is displayed on screen.

 

[JDOG_]

I'll second iTunes being rather slow on most PCs under 1 ghz. My roommate & I both have sub 1 ghz. machines and iTunes rips at maybe 4x and burns at 5x. Visualizations also run really slow.

But on my new iBook it runs like hot butter

 

[ITR 81]

To say we are close minded because the sys is close don't mean a damn thing to me. I for one worked on, built, and programmed on PC's for over 6 yrs before I went to Mac.

Also to say Mac user don't build their own sys. you should see some of lowend businesses in Japan taken old 1980 Mac shells and given them new internals via the iMac and eMac and also OS X and Panther. So yes, if you know your sh*t you can do this too and yes it's alot harder then say a PC upgrade which I've always love challenges like these.


As for reaching a 100 million by April I think they are on the right track right now. Because est. they sell 1 million songs a week that would put them at right about 25 million right now. Now think about how many iPods are selling for Christmas. All those new iPods given on the 24-25th will all get used on those days....which means I expect a spike of downloads following the week of Christmas. Also if any new store is annouced over in Jan. then at that point we should see atleast additional 250-500k or more of DL's per week. Also combinding this with new Ads and promos we should hit 100 million pretty easy I would think.

I wonder now how many tracks are on iTunes Music Store now?? It has to be close to 500k now.

 

[mjtomlin]

iTunes for Windows

I'll second iTunes being rather slow on most PCs under 1 ghz. My roommate & I both have sub 1 ghz. machines and iTunes rips at maybe 4x and burns at 5x. Visualizations also run really slow.

But on my new iBook it runs like hot butter

Well you didn't expect it to run as well as it does on the Mac, did you?

That's the incentive of running out and needing to get a Mac. ... It's the same app, yet it runs so much smoother under Mac OS X. So there must be something wrong with Windows?

It's a simple, common strategy geared toward consumers who wouldn't know any better; get them to love the app/interface on Windows, then get them to long for the speed/performance on OS X.

The odds of that person becoming a switcher just got better.

 

[MCCFR]

Originally posted by themadchemist
Yeah, sales are going to slow now that everyone and his mother is opening a music store. But the market will thin out by this time next year and THEN it will be interesting to see who's still standing and who's in the lead.

Actually, no they will not!

1) Everyone and his mother is opening a WMA-based store.

2) iPod doesn't play WMA and all of the other players won't play Fairplay-protected AAC.

3) iPod shows all of the signs of retaining the Number One digital music player title for a considerable period of time, although the market share might decline over time.

4) Other news today from one of the research companies forecasts that the market for digital music players (particularly hard-disk based systems) will grow by a considerable degree.

Take all of these points and what it actually means is that the WMA stores are the one who have a problem - too many storefronts chasing too few consumers.

If iPod retains a de facto leadership - normally defined as 35% marketshare - iTMS will probably retain at least a 20% share of the downloads market whilst 20, 30, or even 100 other storefronts fight over the other 80%.

 

[nitz]

iTunes Europe

Does anybody know or has anybody heard how Apple is going about trying to secure the licensing deals in Europe? Are they trying to do it European-wide or country by country? It would be great to have on European iTunes Store but getting all the countries' different licensing and royalty schemes to play nice with each other must be a pain in the ass. On the other hand, if you had a iTunes Germany, and iTunes France they could all do it their own way and they could all be happy. Legal can o worms for sure.

 

[Java]

a little lopsided

Did anyone notice in the article that they had a link to a Napster article that talked about how sweet Napster is by giving music to colleges?

Anyway, I am really curious how the other 12 or so stores (if we count WalMart and buycokemusic.com) are doing with their sales. So is Napster or buymusic.com up to even 1 million yet?

 

[El Dandy]

Originally posted by ~Shard~
This is great news – it’s nice to see the service being successful and bringing in some extra revenue for Apple. Are there any figures out there that show how Apple’s ITMS sales have been since this competition started up though? What about Napster, et al? Have sales slowed at all? Those will definitely be interesting figures to see in the New Year, once the plethora of other online stores start up. Then we'll see who will stand the test of time....

No, that's taken out of context. A goal of 100 million songs being downloaded wouldn't make any sence if they were giving away 100 million songs. That's like saying my goal is to get rid of 10 million $1.00 bills, and then leaving them on your front lawn, obviously someone is going to take them. Jobs said the Pepsi campaign would help the ITMS's goal of 100 million and it will. It is expected that after having the ability to use it for free through the Pepsi promotion, many users will go back and begin to download songs on their own, thus the Pepsi promotion helps Apple acheive their goal of 100 million downloads without the freebies counting.

 

[TeknoTurd]

Does anyone know when the Pepsi iTunes promotion will start? I can't wait to load up

 

[TomSmithMacEd]

Originally posted by the_mole1314
Here's a question, how many has Napster and Musicmatch sold?

Very good question. I havn't heard anything about these numbers... 20 million is nice seeming they are giving away 100 million songs... They will make the 100 million mark. I know I am going to break my policy of no pop when Pepsi starts giving away free songs.

 

[TomSmithMacEd]

Originally posted by El Dandy
No, that's taken out of context. A goal of 100 million songs being downloaded wouldn't make any sence if they were giving away 100 million songs. That's like saying my goal is to get rid of 10 million $1.00 bills, and then leaving them on your front lawn, obviously someone is going to take them. Jobs said the Pepsi campaign would help the ITMS's goal of 100 million and it will. It is expected that after having the ability to use it for free through the Pepsi promotion, many users will go back and begin to download songs on their own, thus the Pepsi promotion helps Apple acheive their goal of 100 million downloads without the freebies counting.

Pepsi is paying for the songs, Apple is getting full price for it.

 

[vitrector]

Sales/time

Here is a graph of the sales on iTunes Music Store over time, seady growth, but not exactly exponential or anything. We'll see how things progress over teh next 6m-1year....

 

[El Dandy]

sorry, for some reason it was quoting the wrong thing, i was trying to quote Spaced saying:

" Wrong. When Jobs announced iTunes for Windows he also stated the goal of 100m tracks. Then he said, and I quote "In order to reach this goal, we are going to give away 100 million songs" via the Pepsi promotion.

Can't you people please check your facts before you open your mouths?"

(See above for response)

 

[El Dandy]

Originally posted by TomSmithMacEd
Pepsi is paying for the songs, Apple is getting full price for it.

I realize Pepsi is paying Apple for the songs, but the goal of 100 million downloads when there are 100 million basically garaunteed by the pepsi promotion (assuming not too many people thrwo away their bottle caps) would still make no sense. the promotion is intended to help iTunes reach their goal of 100 million downloads w/out the pepsi promo songs actually counting.

 

[winmacguy]

Originally posted by howard
well if they sell an average of 1,000,000 a week since itunes for windows came out then they will sell at least 20 million by end of april. total being 40 million, thats if the average stays exactly the same, which i'm sure it won't with all the deals and ads! i think they have a real good chance at 100 million thought they will have to kick there average up to 3 million during the next 5 months

lets not forget that they havent mentioned how many people are actually using the service at this stage. It is probably only a select group. Considering the potential population base that iTMS could reach after Christmas and with both marketing campaigns out there I would say that 100 million songs should be easy to reach considering even 40% of the US population ( the 50%-60% of users who have windows 2000 or windows XP who havent started to use the service yet) then throw on iTMS international.......

 

[winmacguy]

Originally posted by eazyway
Building a PC is really very easy but to build a good solid working PC is quite a diffferent story. I have put together a lot of PC's and to make it work well you have to find out what pieces work the best with each other.

Thanks for that comment

 

[winmacguy]

Re: iTunes Europe

Originally posted by nitz
Does anybody know or has anybody heard how Apple is going about trying to secure the licensing deals in Europe? Are they trying to do it European-wide or country by country? It would be great to have on European iTunes Store but getting all the countries' different licensing and royalty schemes to play nice with each other must be a pain in the ass. On the other hand, if you had a iTunes Germany, and iTunes France they could all do it their own way and they could all be happy. Legal can o worms for sure.

That is what I am expecting to hear about from the MWSF conference Jan 05 when SJ makes his big announcements

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by kingjr3
Actually I disagree, the "average" computer user may not know enough to build a PC. That doesn't mean they cannot learn it (Just like I could learn how to maintain my car). But stating that building PC is easy is an understatement. You need to understand CPU/Motherboard compatibility, Bus types (ATA,SCSI,etc...), PCI/AGP/LMR, etc... You can't just go buy any hard drive or CPU and expect it to work. You need to have a good understanding of hardware, like punter said, and know if the components you bought are going to work together.

Correct. This is "6-weeks of ITT training" sophistication. Joe Sixpack isn't going to throw together a working PC without some sort of training, but anyone who's got an Engineering degree (of any discipline) should be able to figure out what he needs to look up and how to check compatibilities (hint: they're most often listed right on the friggin' box!) I suspect even an English major should be able to figure it out on their lonesome

Your car analogy is halfway decent: it's brain-dead easy to figure out which weight of oil to use and lookup which filter your car needs, but most people wouldn't be able to change their car's oil without assistance or at least a good amount of nervousness. On the other hand, a good number of people who do know how to change their own oil still bring their car in to Jiffy Lube because the half hour spent gathering supplies and then under the car is worth more than the $30 for the oil change.

Generally, articles talking about the relative "technical sophistication" of Mac vs Windows users are talking about the relative education levels. Mac users tend to have a higher level of education (more college and grad-school graduates) than Windows users. This doesn't mean that they know more about how the IDE channels in their computer work; it means they are able to prioritize and choose the right tool for the right job

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
This is pure speculation but I’m guessing that Music Match takes advantage of Direct X and iTunes does not. *shrugs* again it works acceptably fast enough but it isn’t blazing.

DirectX wouldn't help. It is possible Apple isn't taking advantage of SSE and SSE/2 (SSE/2, I believe, wouldn't apply in your case ... only P4+) ... but I doubt it. I suspect iTunes just has some bottlenecks.

 

[winmacguy]

Re: iTunes Music Store Has Sold 20 Million Songs

Originally posted by Macrumors
CNet reports on the iHollywood Forum's Music 2.0 conference that took place on Monday.

According to the article, Apple's is up to 20 Million songs sold via the iTunes Music Store. (Apple was at 13 million songs as of October 16th.) Peter Lowe, Apple's Director of Marketing, also reported that 45% of songs from iTunes have been in the form of albums.

Some interesting statistics from the NPD Group showed that the average iTunes customer bought 49 songs during the first four months of the iTunes Music Store's operation, which comes out to twice the purchasing pattern of the average teenager over the same time period.

Shipments of MP3 players to double in 2003
Noting that Apple's iPod and iTunes Music Store has energized the music industry, Jupiter Research today announced that it forecasts that U.S. shipments of MP3 players will almost double in 2003 to over 3.5 million, and will continue to grow almost 50% per year for the next three years: "Demand for MP3 players with hard drives will outstrip demand for those with flash memory starting in 2004. By 2006, the installed base of MP3 players will top 26 million, establishing a critical mass of users that will help spur digital music sales." Based on a new forecast and an October 2003 consumer survey, it says that nearly 60% of consumers in the market to buy a music player will be shopping online for the holidays.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Said it before and will say it again. Building a computer isn't as 1337 as it use to be but it still takes some brains to do it.

The last time building a computer was 1337 was when you at least had to solder DIMM chips onto the motherboard if you wanted that fancy RAM thing. Building your own computer has been grunt work for more than a decade.

Building a custom PC is not for the weak. You need to know how to set the various speed settings on your mobo. Everything from your bus speed, to your CPU speed, to correctly setting the multipliers. I’ve seen someone accidentally overclock their CPU when they didn’t intend to. So his normal CPU heat sink wasn’t enough and consequently ended up with one nasty mess.

Hmm. Last time I did a custom computer all that was quite clearly spelled out in the motherboard documentation. They had a table with one column being CPU speed, then four or five DIP switch settings.

Yes, it takes brains to do it and a reasonably unmuddled understanding of cause/effect and spatial relationships. Your average left footed monkey wouldn't be able to do it.

But it's far from an "1337 skilz".

It's all about reading the instructions and following directions. To me, it's way too cookie-cutter to be enjoyable, and too time-consuming to be worth it.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by DGFan
Apple made it clear that the Pepsi downloads weren't counting toward their goal of 100 million. Of course, it's possible that with the Pepsi freebees lots of people will go out and buy some songs which would count.

Just so you know you're not alone, that's the impression I'd gotten from the iTMS/Windows launch as well. Others, including Arn, vehemently disagree; I don't think it was really clear one way or the other, which means that in April the story will be shaped to fit the circumstances