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Apple's 500 Million iTunes Store Accounts Offer Significant Potential for Growth in Services

monaarts said:
It is unimportant until it isn't NFC anymore and it is called something like "SafePay" and allows you to simply carry your iPhone around and pay for everything you need to.

If Apple launched an NFC service all retailers would be strong armed into adopting it because they wouldn't be "cool" to the 100's of millions of users otherwise.
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I know you meant it ironically, but it is true to some extent. NFC is pretty unimportant until there is widespread adoption by users and retailers.

Ironically, in your hypothetical scenario, after Apple goes through all the work to popularize the feature and actually make it useful, we'll still have to hear how someone else did it first and Apple isn't innovative at all. :D
 
I have a question to "google is evil for using your data to sell targeted ads" people: what do you think of Apple potentially doing it?

#trickquestion
 
monaarts said:
It is unimportant until it isn't NFC anymore and it is called something like "SafePay" and allows you to simply carry your iPhone around and pay for everything you need to.

If Apple launched an NFC service all retailers would be strong armed into adopting it because they wouldn't be "cool" to the 100's of millions of users otherwise.
Click to expand...

I believe that to be a key component going forward with payment management systems. Apple is in a great position to launch such a service.
 
Four oF NINE said:
I believe that to be a key component going forward with payment management systems. Apple is in a great position to launch such a service.
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Exactly. Timing IS EVERYTHING!

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BaldiMac said:
I know you meant it ironically, but it is true to some extent. NFC is pretty unimportant until there is widespread adoption by users and retailers.

Ironically, in your hypothetical scenario, after Apple goes through all the work to popularize the feature and actually make it useful, we'll still have to hear how someone else did it first and Apple isn't innovative at all. :D
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That isn't necessarily true. Do you ever hear people say that the iPod wasn't the first music player? No - because it is the only relevant one. ;)
 
springsup said:
The thing I really noticed with Cook's interview and language in general is that it's no longer hardware and software; it's about hardware, software and services.

He's been really careful to add that mention of services every time.
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I think that's a very good point. But he needs to stop mentioning it and start delivering it then. I still love Apple hardware. I love, or at least like a lot of their software, but not all of it. I am quite unimpressed with most of their services. Pimping out my user data for targeted ads that I have to bother to opt out of would not create a better impression.
 
rmwebs said:
Three areas Apple sadly has failed at with every single online service launched so far.

(and no. This isnt a silly 'fanboy/fandroid' troll attempt - I'm being realistic based on...well...facts from what we've seen of Apple online services)
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Absolutely correct and that is why I don't use any of their "services" despite all Apple since 1984.

It seems that they can't make up their mind of what they want to offer. Then change mid-game and leave people hanging.

Also, they are not on the cutting edge of services.
 
This has about as much relevance to the typical user as it does to my cat. Apple really must up their game this year and start being innovative again. Instead of adding icing to a stale cake. Smaller iPads. Less specified iPhones. And devolving the look of IOS will not get new users. 2013 is the make of break year for Apple. And I fear it will be the latter going by their "performance" in the last 12 months. All laurel resting and daft changes (the lightning connector) for changes sake. Damn you (post Jobs) Apple! Please stop Tim Cook-ing the books now!

Thanks
 
So tired of reading how poised Apple is to dominate the mobile payment market. Yes this is theoretically true but they need to actually do it and there needs to be an actual market. McDonalds and a few subways do not count.

Just a dream for now, and an extremely disappointing one at that.
 
monaarts said:
It is unimportant until it isn't NFC anymore and it is called something like "SafePay" and allows you to simply carry your iPhone around and pay for everything you need to.

If Apple launched an NFC service all retailers would be strong armed into adopting it because they wouldn't be "cool" to the 100's of millions of users otherwise.
Click to expand...

Precisely. NFC is a non-thing unless Apple does something with it.

Companies are not going to cooperate in a serious way with fragmented NFC implementations
 
MacRumors said:
With hundreds of millions of credit card numbers on file, Apple could easily turn iTunes/App Store accounts into a payment service.
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That is very misleading. You don't need a credit card to set up an Apple Account ID and buy content from iTunes. I just used an iTunes Gift Card. I wonder how many of that 500 million have done the same.
 
Shaun said:
That is very misleading. You don't need a credit card to set up an Apple Account ID and buy content from iTunes. I just used an iTunes Gift Card. I wonder how many of that 500 million have done the same.
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Not misleading or inaccurate in the slightest.

Pretty sure Apple has mentioned the number of accounts linked to credit cards previously, and it was a substantial fraction of the total accounts.

Even if it's only 51%, that's 250M accounts and well into the "hundreds of millions" figure you quoted from MR.
 
rmwebs said:
Three areas Apple sadly has failed at with every single online service launched so far.

(and no. This isnt a silly 'fanboy/fandroid' troll attempt - I'm being realistic based on...well...facts from what we've seen of Apple online services)
Click to expand...

Why do some people seem to think that "services" are solely defined by areas that Google excels in? Services is a broad term. iTunes and the whole online storefront happens to be a pretty significant service that all of Apples competitors have yet to come close to matching. Not just in terms of scale and reliability, but the whole negotiation process of setting the rules and securing content from content owners (which is the most challenging part).

Apples push notification service is another thing that has done a pretty fantastic job. All these different apps sending billions of notifications every single day, calling on Apple push notification servers to do this. Remember, Apple was first at the gate here in terms of applying push notifications not just to mail, but any third party app that wanted to send an update or an alert. And they've scaled the service very well and competently.

Can Apple improve? Always. But lets not kid ourselves and act like Apple is completely incompetent. I'd say they're doing a much better job than most of their competitors. Everyone acts like Apple is so clueless just because ONE of their competitors has a broader lineup of excellent services (but not ALL of their competitors).

I imagine mobile payments will once again be an area where Apple dominates the competition when Apple decides to launch. Will all the bashers come back and praise Apple then when they do launch a new service and set new rules for the industry? I doubt it. They'll just be there to complain about Maps or Siri for not being flawless. Yet they'll never praise the things that Apple DID do right. Just look at Google Maps new update. They've taken a page out of Apples maps design, and made POI's on the maps look remarkably similar to how they do on Apple Maps.
 
iChrist said:
.

Wow. Imagine how much money apple could have made if their online services were done really well.


:apple:

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Hey kid, this is not likely given the state of their online services.
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It's also very telling just how poorly apples competition is doing. Apple has such poor online services and they're the most valuable tech company (and sometimes company) in the world. Hopefully their competitors are taking notes.
 
monaarts said:
If Apple launched an NFC service all retailers would be strong armed into adopting it because they wouldn't be "cool" to the 100's of millions of users otherwise.
Click to expand...

And apple could so the same thing with a barcode/QR code system. Not unlike what Starbucks has with their rewards program.

In fact if companies would just use Passbook they would be half way there. I'm amazed at how slow companies have been to support Passbook. Some even still use paper coupons etc for stuff they could send by email and let someone put in passbook
 
monaarts said:
If Apple launched an NFC service all retailers would be strong armed into adopting it because they wouldn't be "cool" to the 100's of millions of users otherwise.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you're trying to be funny.....but you're probably right.
 
Shaun said:
That is very misleading. You don't need a credit card to set up an Apple Account ID and buy content from iTunes. I just used an iTunes Gift Card. I wonder how many of that 500 million have done the same.
Click to expand...

Last year at the iPhone 5 event Apple revealed that they had more than 435 million iTunes account linked to credit cards. It's not hard to imagine that with the holiday season this number is now close to or over 500 million.

http://allthingsd.com/20120912/84-million-ipads-400-million-ios-devices-and-more-big-numbers-from-apple/
 
Apple could dominate with NFC and mobile payments if they:

1. Obviously had an NFC phone.
2. Weren't so damn greedy with the % of the sale they take.

Granted they're doing pretty good now with itunes and apps..but if they keep holding the line in the sand with a 30% take on every sale, their market share is bound to fade as competitive services flood the market.
 
Winni said:
500 Million accounts is an impressive number. So they actually have more iTunes/AppStore customers than they have sold iOS devices and Macs...?
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They don't mention that you should divide that by 3 to 4 because so many of us have multiple accounts thanks to not being able to merge them :p
 
An :apple: Wallet capable phone might be a good thing when you are in a jam and all you have to pay for something is your iPhone.

I just don't want to have to pay a 30% :apple: Tax for that privilege. ;)
 
smithrh said:
Not misleading or inaccurate in the slightest.

Pretty sure Apple has mentioned the number of accounts linked to credit cards previously, and it was a substantial fraction of the total accounts.

Even if it's only 51%, that's 250M accounts and well into the "hundreds of millions" figure you quoted from MR.
Click to expand...

Casiotone said:
Last year at the iPhone 5 event Apple revealed that they had more than 435 million iTunes account linked to credit cards. It's not hard to imagine that with the holiday season this number is now close to or over 500 million.

http://allthingsd.com/20120912/84-million-ipads-400-million-ios-devices-and-more-big-numbers-from-apple/
Click to expand...

Well if they said it I guess it must be true then.

7% of the world's population has a credit card linked to iTunes.

Yes I can believe that /sarcasm.
 
Shaun said:
Well if they said it I guess it must be true then.

7% of the world's population has a credit card linked to iTunes.

Yes I can believe that /sarcasm.
Click to expand...

What's so hard to believe that the biggest publicly traded company in the world which happen to have the biggest app and music stores have more than 400 millions accounts?

Are you saying that Apple is lying?
 
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