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iTunes Anniversary Conference Call
- Thread starter MacBytes
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i'm somewhat displeased with the idea of any price hikes in the iTunes service, or any online music download service. my theory is that people purchase music through services like iTunes for the convenience [in a variety of ways]. in the case for iTunes users, they use it because 1) they own an ipod, 2) why shell out 17.99 at tower records, when you can get the same album for 9.99 at iTunes?
admittedly, there are some notable advantages to purchasing cd's off of retail shelves i.e. sound quality, packaging, and quite possibly some extra dvd features... but as i have come to purchase aac's 128kb formatted singles and albums, i don't find the $8 price difference redeeming (the dvd extras, better sound quality, lyrics, etc.). as an audiophile, i can tell the difference between cd quality and 128kb aac's, but the average joe won't know the difference. only if you punch up the bass and volume up significantly to domestic disturbance level would one notice a difference in quality between downloaded music (itune's aac) and off the shelf cds. but anyone who would go that far with sound settings would logically hit towers or best buy b/c they need to, or know, or whatever. i myself am quite happy with the aac compression; the sound is pretty damn good. it's good enough for me to rock off to in the subway, and not realize that there's cd quality available out there... yet i could go get it... but what does my wallet think?
...got lost there. know what i'm saying?...uh..maybe not
admittedly, there are some notable advantages to purchasing cd's off of retail shelves i.e. sound quality, packaging, and quite possibly some extra dvd features... but as i have come to purchase aac's 128kb formatted singles and albums, i don't find the $8 price difference redeeming (the dvd extras, better sound quality, lyrics, etc.). as an audiophile, i can tell the difference between cd quality and 128kb aac's, but the average joe won't know the difference. only if you punch up the bass and volume up significantly to domestic disturbance level would one notice a difference in quality between downloaded music (itune's aac) and off the shelf cds. but anyone who would go that far with sound settings would logically hit towers or best buy b/c they need to, or know, or whatever. i myself am quite happy with the aac compression; the sound is pretty damn good. it's good enough for me to rock off to in the subway, and not realize that there's cd quality available out there... yet i could go get it... but what does my wallet think?
...got lost there. know what i'm saying?...uh..maybe not
4th Gen iPod on the horizon , NO iPod Minis till Sept.
4th Gen iPod is on the horizon. Would be release Tuesday, Wednesday, if not definitely at WWDC.
And,
There is NO iPod Mini updates until September / October. Today's MAX capacity on a Microdrive is 4 GB, and thats currently in the iPod Mini. If you check the prices of that 4 GB Microdrive, you will see the price of the iPod Mini is NOT EXPENSIVE AT ALL, cheap indeed. Thats explains part of why its sooo popular
Regards
4th Gen iPod is on the horizon. Would be release Tuesday, Wednesday, if not definitely at WWDC.
And,
There is NO iPod Mini updates until September / October. Today's MAX capacity on a Microdrive is 4 GB, and thats currently in the iPod Mini. If you check the prices of that 4 GB Microdrive, you will see the price of the iPod Mini is NOT EXPENSIVE AT ALL, cheap indeed. Thats explains part of why its sooo popular
Regards
rspress said:
Sad as it may seem, I have an Excel spreadsheet with all of the milestone announcement data for iTMS loaded, and using two different models for predicting where we'd be on Wednesday returned a number between 70.0 and 70.1m excluding Pepsi promo.
I doubt that the promo numbers will be released until the end of the quarter; it's Pepsi's promo not Apple's and the promo redemption isn't up till Friday - hence the change in strategy as to whether the 100m included Pepsi or not. My theory is that when the dust has settled, Apple will be looking at around 20m redemptions.
rspress said:
Try using the shopping cart. You can add a song to your shopping cart as you browse, but this does not confirm the purchase. You can then go research it or whatever you plan on doing, and return to buy it.
rspress said:
Almost all tracks are .99c. HOWEVER, some tracks that exceed a certain length of time (I think 7:00) are priced higher, but I think that is a valid reason.
I am hopefull for 85-90m on April 28th.
Does anyone know if this call will be streamed over quicktime on the Apple Site?
Also, my prediction for announcements is that this might be a good time for iTunes 5? Not a big enough event for a major product, but enough attention to announce new software.
Steve is spending a lot now ...
He, he, I'll bet Steve has spent his own $ 100 Million on downloads just to match his own prediction a year ago
He lovez muzic, after all ...
dontmatter said:
He, he, I'll bet Steve has spent his own $ 100 Million on downloads just to match his own prediction a year ago
He lovez muzic, after all ...
MCCFR said:
i certainly hope you have your reasons for this....
if you're right, it's lower than I thought, however I think when they set the 100 mil they were expecting:
a) a much better organized and more 'promoted' pepsi promotion --one of the worst i have ever seen. I don't think I would have noticed it at all if I weren't a machead
b) a significant input from the european (and other countries) iTMS, which I think were planned to start a while ago.
if think went right, 100 mil would have been an easy catch.
rspress said:
Unavailible music, be it the artists greatest, or the songs they promote in the artist's facts, is unavoidable. They're just trying to stike what deals they can with the labels. It certainly doesn't help the store, but it's not crippling it majorly.
The bookmarking and sending links would be great features, and apple should make them. But, they are extras- not the reason people are or are not going to use the service, just something that sweetens the deal. I expect apple will figure this out and add things like this soon, but I'm not worried about it until then.
The prices. There's no frickin' way they can change them. Not only would absolutely any price increase be enough to tip the scale between the value of buying CDs and the value of itms. There is even less flexibility because .99 vs. anything 1.x9 looks huge, and makes the psychological difference. Even more than that, if prices are inconsitant, that's a major minus. People aren't going to check itunes to see if this is a good deal and that's a rip off-they'll go to the record store instead. people have got to know exactly what they're getting before they even go shopping. Apple's stretching it enough by not always having full albums and not having all albums at 10 bucks, or buyable by the track. But that is OK, because those that I've seen still fit within never more than 99 cents a song. Break from that, though, and I see trouble.
Could you tell me a few of the songs that were more thatn 99 cents? I'd like to see for myself.
Yeah, I wouldn't mind if itunes and the music store did ogg and flac.
Lastly, whatever the news, and however miniscule itms sales are compared to acutal CDs, knowledge of itms is becoming ubiquitous. http://www.theonion.com/infograph/index.php?issue=4016
Prices
As I've said, price increases could particularly suck because it's that much worse to break a dollar. 1.09 would be a much more negative change than .89 could be positive. That barrier makes a big difference. and, a 50% price increase, or something of the sort, would REALLY kill sales.
But... supposing these rumors to be false, and the record companies get teh same amount of dough, then i imagine with apple selling in SO much more bulk than expected, costs per item must have dropped. If the quantity has made it enough cheaper, and apple is actually turning a profit, I think they should use the one year anniversary to drop the price to 89 cents. The profits, at this point, are puny, at best. But, give them up, and undercut the competition by ten cents, and it would become EVERYBODY's standard, because it's the cheapest and the best, and nobody would be willing to leave that to play in wma. Meanwhile, Apple is the only one selling in quantity. So everybody else currently selling at .99 would make the same zero profit as apple at .89, but apple would further increase market share.
That's just my little dream. Fax it over to somebody at apple.
As I've said, price increases could particularly suck because it's that much worse to break a dollar. 1.09 would be a much more negative change than .89 could be positive. That barrier makes a big difference. and, a 50% price increase, or something of the sort, would REALLY kill sales.
But... supposing these rumors to be false, and the record companies get teh same amount of dough, then i imagine with apple selling in SO much more bulk than expected, costs per item must have dropped. If the quantity has made it enough cheaper, and apple is actually turning a profit, I think they should use the one year anniversary to drop the price to 89 cents. The profits, at this point, are puny, at best. But, give them up, and undercut the competition by ten cents, and it would become EVERYBODY's standard, because it's the cheapest and the best, and nobody would be willing to leave that to play in wma. Meanwhile, Apple is the only one selling in quantity. So everybody else currently selling at .99 would make the same zero profit as apple at .89, but apple would further increase market share.
That's just my little dream. Fax it over to somebody at apple.
dontmatter said:
I'm glad you posted this. I was thinking of doing the same. My personal favorite:
"Why are more Americans buying music online?" -- excited to see what level of excellence Wal-Mart will bring to the indsutry
dontmakemehurtu said:
Apple wouldn't want ms on the ipod. And, that's the problem-we aren't getting ogg, and worse, we ARENT playing it in itunes. But it's a superior format.... that's why apple should introduce it. So we can play with less lossyness.
AndrewMT said:
I'm not sure about this, but I don't think the Chief Financial Office (CFO) would do anything concerning any products Apple provides. He bascially handles the financial stuff. This is not a financial conference call. Maybe someone like Phil Schiller would do this, or some one else in charge of marketing. If Steve Jobs is doing this then there must be an announcement of some kind.
Don't panic said:i certainly hope you have your reasons for this....
if you're right, it's lower than I thought, however I think when they set the 100 mil they were expecting:
<-snip->
if think went right, 100 mil would have been an easy catch.
Sadly, promotions are always designed to promote the big number (in this case, the $100 million giveaway) but are always geared to a much lower rate of redemption, sometimes as low as 2.5% to 5%.
So, 25 million is actually a really high number for any of these promotions given that you have to be interested in the basic concept to redeem, and you have to have a computer, really need a broadband connection and should have iTunes installed.
mklos said:
I doubt if it's much of an announcement, probably more a gloating 15 minutes of facts and figures.
My vision of it will a basic "Fsck you and the horse you rode in on" to the likes of Dave Fester, Glaser, Thurrott and the rest.
70 million tunes, 3 million iPods, x million copies of iTunes, possibly the announcement of iTMS UK/Germany/France/Japan.
Personally, since the current iPod is still a strong seller and there's really no real competitor, I don't think a new generation iPod should be released, maybe more storage is OK. A different class of iPod (video, etc) is a different story.
i doubt there will be new ipods... those maybe during the next macworld
i think they'll go over 100million with the pepsi promo, whether they count that or not is another story, i don't know how those things work
where are you finding $2.50 songs? i havn't seen any... i'd like to check that out. if its really true i'm kinda horrified... thats way to much for a digital song
i think they'll go over 100million with the pepsi promo, whether they count that or not is another story, i don't know how those things work
where are you finding $2.50 songs? i havn't seen any... i'd like to check that out. if its really true i'm kinda horrified... thats way to much for a digital song
Another possibility: Maybe an artists' promotion?
With Apple recalling the store ads for iPod, I wonder if Steve will be announcing some new additions to the roster. Seems like I remember reading that Dave Matthews Band was going to be putting their catalog online sometime in the spring, and the Beatles are ripe for the picking.
I think some great, big-name content would go over better than new iPods right now.
With Apple recalling the store ads for iPod, I wonder if Steve will be announcing some new additions to the roster. Seems like I remember reading that Dave Matthews Band was going to be putting their catalog online sometime in the spring, and the Beatles are ripe for the picking.
I think some great, big-name content would go over better than new iPods right now.
fener said:
If this were Slashdot, I'd hope this was modded to the top...
It's impoirtnat that people know that 4GB is the max that they'll be seeing in an iPod Mini for a while. The HDDs are expensive enough, and if you can get one in a larger capacity, it's only going to cost more. Unless you want drop a ton of bling on a Mini (the Pink is hard to resist, I know) don't count on it.
Besides, I thought the 1,000 songs was the "sweet spot."
Screw That!
At which time I rip all the FairPlay track I have into nonDRMed tracks and go back to P2P sharing. Screw the RIAA if they are going to continue this raping of the customer. I like iTMS as much as the next person but I'm not going to bend over for the RIAA. They can watch a renewal of P2P sharing if they dink around with current prices. Just when I thought the industry was starting to get their crap together this price increase thing pops up. Someone stop the insanity and let Apple do their thing without being hogtied by greedy ind execs.
fpnc said:
At which time I rip all the FairPlay track I have into nonDRMed tracks and go back to P2P sharing. Screw the RIAA if they are going to continue this raping of the customer.
I like iTMS as much as the next person but I'm not going to bend over for the RIAA. They can watch a renewal of P2P sharing if they dink around with current prices. Just when I thought the industry was starting to get their crap together this price increase thing pops up. Someone stop the insanity and let Apple do their thing without being hogtied by greedy ind execs.Do your part to up the total for free!!
Go to benjerry.com, take the oath to vote and get a free itunes song. I just did it at 11PM Mountain time and think I got one free song, but it is a bit ambiguous. It says in big letters: "You have qualfied for a free music download from iTunes." which implies I am one of the first 50,000 to get a free song, but if you read under that is says: "If you are one of the first 50,000 valid entrants, you will receive an email with instructions on how to claim your music download in the next 24-48 hours." I guess I just have to wait a day or two and see. I know this was supposed to start on the 27th, but if they go by Eastern time I guess it started at midnight there. I signed up my wife too...a bit of dishonesty there given she is Japanese and can't vote here
Go to benjerry.com, take the oath to vote and get a free itunes song. I just did it at 11PM Mountain time and think I got one free song, but it is a bit ambiguous. It says in big letters: "You have qualfied for a free music download from iTunes." which implies I am one of the first 50,000 to get a free song, but if you read under that is says: "If you are one of the first 50,000 valid entrants, you will receive an email with instructions on how to claim your music download in the next 24-48 hours." I guess I just have to wait a day or two and see. I know this was supposed to start on the 27th, but if they go by Eastern time I guess it started at midnight there. I signed up my wife too...a bit of dishonesty there given she is Japanese and can't vote here