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Apple to Launch Subscription iTunes?

I think I am just repeating what has been said many times already, but add another vote for me.
1. This is not for music because it does not fit with the drm free announcement.
2. Netflicks competitor would be a good idea if it works for your computer/appletv/ipod/iphone.
3. Subscription television is the big deal here. A-la-cart tv has been requested for years and you could even imagine a netflix style pricing for movies and tv. $25 a month for 3 tv shows at a time? Or maybe $50 for 3 shows and 3 movies? Or maybe even something like 3 shows or movies for $25 a month.

edit
Could the apple tv's HD hold three full length movies in 780p?
 
BiTurboMunkie said:
i don't know if i'm missing something... but, can't you do the same on ipod? i.e. music > genres > artists > albums
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no you are not. if you just have artists which have an complete album this is a good way. but for the artists from which you just have one track this is not a good way.

example:

jazz/misc
folder/playlist

and in there 150 tracks by different artists

that means in your music > genres > artists > view on your ipod 150 more artists to scroll through.

know what i mean?

I see it on my 20gb ipod photo.
I can't use no other option than playlists because in the other view options there are so many names to scroll through becaus of the one song artists.

if only ipods would support folders like iTunes does... :(
 
I'd say this is unlikely, but if it's true...man, Steve-o really put his foot in his mouth. Wasn't it him that said "people don't want to rent their music?"
 
Not much of subscription fan when it comes to music, but when it comes to movies, I prefer the "rental" model. As big as they are, It's better to have just a couple movies you actually want to hatch than a bunch you don't taking up most of your hard drive.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing a Rental/Subscription hybrid.

- I want to own my music DRM Free first.
- I want to be able to rent movies I would never buy or watch a second time.
- For movies I would watch over and over I want to be able to save them and watch them over and over.

The kicker for me is that I'm not interested unless I get at the minimum 720p HD with true Dolby Digital 5.1. My TV is a native 720p set so it would down convert anything in 1080p back to it's native resolution.

When I buy a movie, I buy it either because it is a great movie or it sounds amazing. Without DD 5.1 or higher I'm out. I'll buy the dvd.
 
GregA said:
Yes. A movie will be about 4GB for 720p (assuming 5Mbps and 106mins).

So you could hold 8 full length movies (plus no music and no photos!)
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Yes well my iphoto and itunes library would already fill the Apple TV. But... Could anyone see this incorporating that movie in a movie patent to have a dvd quality video rental service complete with special features. Or could they even add special features to tv shows if they are sold in the same way?
 
MattG said:
I'd say this is unlikely, but if it's true...man, Steve-o really put his foot in his mouth. Wasn't it him that said "people don't want to rent their music?"
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'Subscription' and 'rental' are not the same thing.
 
Voidness said:
But such a subscription service wouldn't work without DRM. Isn't Apple's future strategy is to try to move away from DRM?
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Not necessarily. eMusic is a fine subscription service that works without DRM. They give you 192 kbps MP3 files for a flat monthly rate, and you can keep them by the way, even if you end your subscription.

I haven't read the whole thread, apologize if this has already been mentioned.
 
Love it…

For Movies and TV Shows! I wouldn't bother with Music, as I still buy my majority of music on CD, but I never use the TV and Movies option because I haven't seen enough value in it. Netflix rocks in that way, but they also rock cuz of their HUGE selection. iTunes needs that selection before it can compete. Hopefully they will reach that, because not waiting for new DVDs to come in the mail would be great.
 
Let me first say that I am not a Mac fan boy, but a frustrated PC user who would be interested in trying the Mac once leopard and the new macs come out.

Most people here seem to think that this may be for TV or movies and not music and that they would not use a subscription service for music. Well all I can say is that they have never used a music subscription service. I think it is wonderful!

I used to have a Rio Karma (fantastic sound quality!) and onced vowed never to own an iPod. Once subscription music became available though, I jumped to Yahoo! and bought a Creative Zen Micro to play the subscription music on. For $50 per year (at the time) for all the music you can download, why not? After all its a mere three albums cost. Now I have to say that the combination of the Creative Zen and early PlaysForSure Subscription music was a bit of a disaster. Buggy would be an understatement. As a result of this I learned how to strip the DRM out of the subscription music so that it played like a normal MP3. Because I am no longer shackled by WMA DRM I was able to explore all music players out there especially after the Zen died on me.

So I got an 8GB Nano for Christmas along with the Drive+Play for the car and I am converted. I still subscribe to Yahoo! although the cost is more now, but it is a whole lot better than those early days. My process to remove the DRM is now very slick, but I keep all my "subscription converted" music away from the stuff I actually own. If I stop paying my subscription I can easily delete the converted subscription music I have.

Will I stop my subscriptions? No, but in the few years the service has been available I have spent about $250 on subscriptions and I have accumulated around 14,000 songs - many of which I still have not listened too. Thats a lot of music. In the same time, I have not purchased a single song from iTunes, also I have never downloaded pirated music from a P2P service.

I would now rather not subscribe to Yahoo!, not go though the hassle of removing the DRM so that I can play the music on the Nano. I would be happy to switch to iTunes and pay up to $15 per month for subscription music and have a seamless easy connection between subscribed iTunes music, the iPod and my car.

If I wanted to own music I would be interested in purchasing from iTunes but only when they offer the music on DRM free Apple Lossless. Subscription for compressed AAC is fine, and I am fine with subscription music being DRM'd, after all you are renting it, but for purchases it has to be lossess and DRM free.

So perhaps I am in a minority here, but if Apple was to start subscription music of their full catalog (or at least 80% of it) then I would definitely switch if it was $15/month or less. Otherwise Apple will not get a cent out of me for music.
 
Small White Car said:
For music? Yuck. I'll pass and I'm sure Apple will too. It hasn't been successful yet as a business.

For movies? Yeah, I'd pay for that. No question. It would compete with Netflix and Blockbuster. Clearly lots of people DO want to rent movies even though they don't want to rent music.
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perhaps you are right, good point.
 
Diatribe said:
Movie rentals would be awesome. I think a lot of people would do that. And it would definitely boost appleTV sales.
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Netflix has been beta testing their download service for a while now. Though, it's NOT available on for the Mac thus I haven't tested it. Being Netflix, they will have a huge leg up on Apple if they get a major rollout of the service working well, quickly. If Apple is going to do it, they need to do it now. And yes they should MOST DEFINITELY do it. Without the iTV it would have been nice. With the iTV, it's a perfect fit --- because as so many of us have already stated, the iTV is basically useless as it is now (without hacks, which will obviously never catch on with the major public). But an iTV with subscription TV/Movies, they'd have a billion dollar revenue stream in their pocket.

I will never buy a movie or TV show from the iTMS, it's a total ripoff. Subscription is the only way they'll ever get money out of me and I'd assume most others.
 
kerryn said:
in the few years the service has been available I have spent about $250 on subscriptions and I have accumulated around 14,000 songs - many of which I still have not listened too. Thats a lot of music. In the same time, I have not purchased a single song from iTunes, also I have never downloaded pirated music from a P2P service.
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I think that there are two types of people. Those that listen to the latest music and those that slowly accumulate album by album music that they find to be of a certain quality and enjoyable to listen to across many many years. No type of person is better than the other, just as with books - some read the latest smashes and some read the classics. There clearly is a market for both model types, but I think that the subscription service sounds like DRM hell, and not everyone is as tech minded as you - what happens to the man in the street if his MP3 player is "buggy"? If Apple can get a subscription service that serves the needs of people like Kerryn (minus the tech skills) then why not - but it would be a huge mistake to migrate completely over to this model. I personally would only download music that I then own.
 
tribulation said:
Netflix has been beta testing their download service for a while now. Though, it's NOT available on for the Mac thus I haven't tested it. Being Netflix, they will have a huge leg up on Apple if they get a major rollout of the service working well, quickly. If Apple is going to do it, they need to do it now. And yes they should MOST DEFINITELY do it. Without the iTV it would have been nice. With the iTV, it's a perfect fit --- because as so many of us have already stated, the iTV is basically useless as it is now (without hacks, which will obviously never catch on with the major public). But an iTV with subscription TV/Movies, they'd have a billion dollar revenue stream in their pocket.

I will never buy a movie or TV show from the iTMS, it's a total ripoff. Subscription is the only way they'll ever get money out of me and I'd assume most others.
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I'd love a 4 / 6 / 8 movie rentals per month subscription or for example a 3 / 4 / 5 TV show subscription.

There are a lot of things they could do that would make many people drop their cable.

Edit: And Apple has the huge advantage of its customer base that Netflix doesn't. So Netflix would need a big head-start.
 
For music? No. Music is cheap and we can listen to it everywhere, many times. That's what music is for. Even if there's subscriptions for music I won't use it.

But buying movies and TV shows? Especially at the current prices and resolutions/bitrates? Absolutely not. I don't care how many they've sold so far either.

Besides, people are already used to the fact of paying a monthly fee to have lots of TV shows sent to them directly. Do the same thing for the TV shows on the iTunes Store at a decent price and I'm dropping my cable immediately. Even if it ends up costing me the same thing, at least I won't be missing the shows I follow, unlike cable where I have to be at home at the right time at the right channel. And hope nobody calls me or something in that hour. PVR is out since it costs too much.

If we can rent movies at about the same price as renting DVDs, I'm in too. I already have this with my digital cable, but the movies are dubbed in french (which is normal since I'm Quebec) and are only available in 4:3, no widescreen (which is dumb). :rolleyes:
 
a456 said:
I think that there are two types of people. Those that listen to the latest music and those that slowly accumulate album by album music that they find to be of a certain quality and enjoyable to listen to across many many years. No type of person is better than the other, just as with books - some read the latest smashes and some read the classics. There clearly is a market for both model types, but I think that the subscription service sounds like DRM hell, and not everyone is as tech minded as you - what happens to the man in the street if his MP3 player is "buggy"? If Apple can get a subscription service that serves the needs of people like Kerryn (minus the tech skills) then why not - but it would be a huge mistake to migrate completely over to this model. I personally would only download music that I then own.
Click to expand...

I agree with this statement. I believe Apple could do well to supply both markets.

I only listen to music in the car on my long commute. I like variety and radio in our area is appalling :( . So I use subscription (rental) music to explore new music that I would never be exposed too otherwise. I fill up my Nano with a mixture of favorites (about 10%), general music that is rated okay (2 stars or more - about 30%) and unrated music not played in the prior 2 weeks (about 60%). I then listen randomly to the music. Gradually over time though rating I weed out the music I do not like and find the music I do. This way I have discovered artists I would have never heard off before. :)

With the rental option you can risk free explore new music. If you do not like it you can delete it off your system, if its average you leave the track on your system and it may play every few months - with 14000+ songs it takes a long time to repeat tracks, and if you really like it, you can support the artist and buy the CD or purchase the track on iTunes (lossless DRM free of course! :p)

If Apple was to offer all three models of music service:

1) Per track purchase as they do now -m but perhaps in 3 tiers a cheaper .79c 128 DRM AAC, .99c DRM free 256 AAC or, $1.39 DRM free Apple lossless
2) Subscription Purchase - x amount of tracks per month for $? per month
3) Rental - all you can download with DRM time out (which is resync'd with iTunes synchronization)

then I think Apple would cover all corners of the market and have a big win on its hand. Perhaps they would finally convince some of the 95% of people out there that do not use iTunes for music purchasing/obtaining.
 
Yvan256 said:
Do the same thing for the TV shows on the iTunes Store at a decent price and I'm dropping my cable immediately. Even if it ends up costing me the same thing, at least I won't be missing the shows I follow, unlike cable where I have to be at home at the right time at the right channel. And hope nobody calls me or something in that hour. PVR is out since it costs too much.
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I doubt very much that iTunes will be cheaper than cable plus a DVR for a similar amount of content.
 
I can guarantee you that if Apple offers a subscription service, whether for movies, TV or music, it won't be cheap.
 
I would be glad to use a sub model for movies. I am considering going with netflicks because they will offer streaming movies at some time in the future. If I could get all I need in a one stop shop music to own, movies to watch on demand then I am in.
 
Apple... PLEASE... I really support this. I spend, at most, $3 a month for songs via individual downloads. I have no problem paying you $10 a month for a subscription!
 
I'd drop my cable service for an iTMS TV/movie subscription service. Well, I'd do it in a year when my TiVo service is up, or as soon as I found someone who would assume that contract in exchange for getting the box... Figure a CHEAP cable plan is $35 and TiVo adds $13 more making $30 for an unlimited TV show package a good deal. Throw in an option to get some free movie rentals via iTunes for an extra $10 a month and I can drop the $18 a month Netflix account. Give me a $10 per month add on for music as well, and I'd take that too.

Even better would be adding an Apple TV lease program... subscribe to a plan and pay $5 per month for your Apple TV which Apple would own if you cancel the service, etc.
 
twoodcc said:
if they give you a choice between subscription and regular, then this might not be a bad thing
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And a discount for subscribers too. I'm a Rhapsody subscriber and they charge 89 cents (with NO sales tax unlike iTunes...one of the big reasons I avoid iTunes purchases as often as possible) for songs and $8.99 for albums. I have recording software so I typically record stuff that I consider worth owning. :D
 
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