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What's the bitrate on that offline sync? If you're listening to pop music, not a big deal...but with most of the stuff I listen to, anything less than 256kbps sounds like it's being played through a steel pipe into a trash can because of the wide dynamic range of actual instruments.

I've got nothing against streaming services, but there is always a need for me to own music.

Qobuz has lossless subscriptions.
 
Those are some pretty misleading charts. Just because the app store has exploded doesn't mean a mature market like iTMS is in trouble by comparison. The actual decline in iTMS has been a few percent, nothing too serious, and easily explained by the fact that iTMS wasn't going to dominate forever as many, many new companies enter the market. iTMS will still be a popular, successful business as the market reshapes itself.

I'd much rather Apple focus on video. That's where the revolution needs to happen.
 
I prefer to buy music. I buy at least one new album a month from iTunes. I don't like streaming services for a variety of reasons. Buying is the only way to guarantee that music will be yours forever. Otherwise you're just renting. But I'm a music junkie and I think these days most people aren't remotely passionate about music. It's a commodity, to be tossed aside the minute the next best song comes along. Call me old fashioned, but I want to buy an album and listen to it from start to finish. The idea of buying (or renting) individual tracks is not interesting to me.

I think Apple should drop the price of music. I think most people still want to own it, but all you can eat streaming for $10/month is too hard to resist. If albums cost $5 instead of $10, more people would buy. And the artist would still probably make more money than on a streaming deal.
 
If you expect to pay your rent with iTunes and Spotify royalties you need to reevaluate your career in music ;)

I don't expect to pay rent with it, and of course I'd be extremely lucky if I were ever able to.

My point was that in an ideal world, a business as difficult as music would have a model (like iTunes or traditional record stores) that is built to support content creators. I can say from my own experience that Spotify and the other streaming services are not built in this way.

If you enjoy not paying directly for music now, you certainly won't when you're favourite artists aren't able to justify pouring years of their time and money into making it.
 
Only way iTunes will survive if they start streaming movies like Netflix or Amazon Prime or allow Amazon Prime on Apple TV and they allow streaming music like Spotify also drop the deal with Beats music, no one wants to hear 100 hours of mainstream music.
 
I agree. iTunes is too expensive when it comes to rentals. Not sure why they think they can command such a premium when I can get the same thing from Netflix, Amazon or Torrent for cheaper. I'm not going to pay $7.99 for one rental. Nor am I going to buy movies from iTunes until Apple fixes their appleid problems. I don't want a huge library attached to an "ID" that can never change and is nothing but an email address. No thanks.

I have not seen a rental for $7.99 on iTunes...and I've never paid more than on Xbox, Amazon, or anywhere else for the same thing on iTunes. Both of those are attached to an ID as well...
 
I also feel like I'm in the minority, but ever since iTunes has been around, I've been buying my music. I've considered using streaming services, but it comes down to the fact that I like to own my music to have it for offline use, as well as it keeping the play counts of them all accurately (I'm a little funny about that, but oh well). iTunes Radio is nice, but I prefer just shuffling my somewhat large library instead of hearing random songs I don't know at all much of the time.

None of these options are going to "beat" the other, at least not any time soon, because they cater to different needs and different people.
 
I did not say I was buying new releases, and I'm sure you could still find 40 if you looked at ALL of them anyway.

Every single month? Are you crazy? I hit the point where there was virtually nothing of real value left to buy unless it was a new release before MP3 even came along.

----------

Such arrogance. Its no wonder that iTunes sales are declining.

Right, because that guy is a customer service rep for Apple...

It's no wonder that people like you hate Apple, you think anything said comes right out of their mouths.
 
Youtube and Spotify WON the streaming match, Game Over

buying a 4th tier streaming system with 110k users

not to mention past the fad headphones (no one even steals them anymore)

terrible vision :(
 
Only way iTunes will survive if they start streaming movies like Netflix or Amazon Prime or allow Amazon Prime on Apple TV and they allow streaming music like Spotify also drop the deal with Beats music, no one wants to hear 100 hours of mainstream music.

This makes zero sense, if they put Amazon Prime on Apple TV, it will not help iTunes in any way whatsoever.

And yes, the mainstream wants to hear 100 hours of mainstream music, that's why it's called mainstream.
 
Music died years ago. Thanks to Simon Cowell and his ilk. Naturally there's less to choose from unless you like singer songwriters who enjoy a bit of autotune on the side. Apple finished music product years ago. So albums went the same way as music. No original groups are encouraged now. No rebellious innovation. Accept it. And just go on YouTube and search for Old Grey Whistle Test and pretend you've gone back in time 35 years. Sorted. And. You'll save money too!:D
 
Rdio's $5/month Web-only basic service is more than enough for my needs, I was never a big track purchaser since I never know what to get and whether I'll like it or not - streaming without owning is a decent compromise for me.
 
Why buy music from iTunes when I can stream whatever I want for a small monthly fee with Spotify?

Well, for once, to have my music perfectly organized with correct tags, to have play counts, to have different masters of the same song, to sort by composer, by album artists, to have BPM included in each song, to have lyrics displayed on the song, to have ratings on each song, etc.

I understand 99% of people do not care, and that's fine, but never generalize.

To me the solution is pretty obvious, inn the end, music will be subscription only, in 4 - 5 years, but meanwhile, Apple should have both traditional downloads and an APPLE, not beats, but apple subscription service, with the best catalogue and iTunes Plus AAC 256 kbps quality.

And if they want to keep the iTunes Store alive, they should offer 24/96 ALAC files, but for the same price, if they plan on charging an extra dollar, believe me, it would be a failure in the long term, if they offered HD tracks at the same price, combined with the Mastered for iTunes bagde, believe me the iTMS will completely survive a good 3-4 years.

As for iTunes Match, raise the price to $99, but match the 24/96 songs and raise the limit to 99.999 songs, that way they get even more revenue and the iTMS will be the definitive place to buy music, killing CD's completely.
 
Every single month? Are you crazy? I hit the point where there was virtually nothing of real value left to buy unless it was a new release before MP3 even came along.


Not really every month, because it was too much work.

But that is what I would have to buy, to match my Deezer usage.
 
Because when you stop the subscription, you have nothing to show for all those payments.


nope, you only lose the ability to play the music in a playlist. spotify will let you stream radio and artist shuffle for free.

and the same can be said for buying music. once you stop buying you can only listen to what you have. and then only if it's on your device at the time
 
My purchases from iTunes are down too... Why? Because technology has progressed to a point where music can be distributed in a high quality lossless format, and movies & music videos can and should all be in full HD...

Does Apple provide 24bit 48k (or higher) lossless audio? No.
Does Apple provide HD music videos? No.
Does Apple provide 1080p movies? No.

I'm an avid Apple fan - Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc., but my purchases are way down because Apple has failed to provide the products I want for about 2 years now. Their lack of advancement has forced me to begin shopping elsewhere.

All iDevices should have double the storage capacity that they do now (flash memory is cheap folks) at the same price, and they should all support 24bit audio. I'm crossing my fingers for the forthcoming iPhone 6, along with iTunes improvements... It will be Apple's last opportunity to keep me as a media customer.

Totally, HD audio is what Apple needs to do to stay relevant and kill of CD's completely, and that revenue would be for Apple now.
 
This makes zero sense, if they put Amazon Prime on Apple TV, it will not help iTunes in any way whatsoever.

And yes, the mainstream wants to hear 100 hours of mainstream music, that's why it's called mainstream.


I meant Amazon Prime will help Apple TV sorry not iTunes and as mainstream music not everyone listens to mainstream just because it is mainstream.
 
can you say 'overpay'
there simply is no way Beats is worth billions.
If Apple is this intent on cornering the market on music than this does not bode well. Music is extremely low margin, extremely high volume, and there are a dozen slices to that pie in terms of royalties, publishing etc.
The entire global music industry is roughly $15 billion a year.
Spending $3 billion to capture a tiny slice of that pie is idiotic.

Keep in mind that the slice of the pie includes the most profitable headphone buisness in the world.
 
My purchases from iTunes are down too... Why? Because technology has progressed to a point where music can be distributed in a high quality lossless format, and movies & music videos can and should all be in full HD...

Does Apple provide 24bit 48k (or higher) lossless audio? No.
Does Apple provide HD music videos? No.
Does Apple provide 1080p movies? No.

I'm an avid Apple fan - Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc., but my purchases are way down because Apple has failed to provide the products I want for about 2 years now. Their lack of advancement has forced me to begin shopping elsewhere.

All iDevices should have double the storage capacity that they do now (flash memory is cheap folks) at the same price, and they should all support 24bit audio. I'm crossing my fingers for the forthcoming iPhone 6, along with iTunes improvements... It will be Apple's last opportunity to keep me as a media customer.


Very true at what you said I am amazed that no music videos are available in HD the ones that I bought with the album are SD 480p it least and as for HD music another set back and as for 1080p movies very true not sure why Apple has not considered improving that yet even moving to HD audio heck 4K movies are coming out slowly even 3D. So much room for Apple to improve iTunes not sure what is going anymore.
 
In what universe?

Apple has been offering movies & TV shows in 1080p for the last couple of years...

That would be nice! Maybe you could explain how that every HD movie I've purchased in iTunes have all been 720p...
 
iTunes needs to fight back with HD track downloads and a decent Windows app.

Period.

I agree but it's not the total answer. HD downloads would triple the size of the files. Not plausible for people with 16GB devices and no SD storage.
 
If they want to catch-up with the streaming it shouldn't cost that much. If they pay the music industries just for 1 billion for the rights to stream music through iTunes they can have the best music streaming service. I'm sure Lovine and the fake doctor shouldn't be worth 2 billion. This 2 will come to Apple campus richer than Tim and eveybody else. This could be a big mess their head will get bigger, Dre already brags about it even before they were acquired by Apple. Apple already makes better sounding and cheaper headphones.


They would also be buying a business that will probably do 1.5-1-6 Billion dollars in revenue next year.
 
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Those numbers are a little eye-opening. The average iTunes account is spending about $13 dollars a year combined on ALL content. Given that there some people who spend A LOT, I'm guessing the median and the mode spending are ZERO.

I think what these numbers show is that consumers are unwilling to pay for content of any type, other than a small minority of customers. Sure, Apple has the high-spenders, but all the recent growth in iOS usage has been from customers who spend NOTHING on content -- in other words, just like Android customers.

Both good news and bad news for Apple. Little growth potential for online revenues, but hell, Apple could lose a ton of market share, and still have developers flock to the platform (assuming they kept the big-spenders).

Also, all those consumers currently spending ZERO on content -- I don't see them all of a sudden paying $10 per month for streaming rights. Forget it about it. No money to be made from music.
 
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