Apple's Music Service... This Month?

[arn]

Originally posted by nichrome
I agree with the previous post. arn, with all due respect, it doesn't sound like you thought the thing through before labeling AInsider's claim as suspect.

Firstly, converting AAC to MP3 is not at all odd, since most CD players that support MP3 CDs do not support AAC CDs; and none of the current portable MP3 players support AAC.

Perhaps...

As for the quality reduction... my point is going from one lossy format to another is not recommended. It's possible people may need/want MP3 CD's... but I still have my doubts about this report due to this detail.

I've removed the reference from the news-item as some do feel it is possible.

arn

 

[DGFan]

Re: Re: Re: Apple's Music Service... This Month?

Originally posted by arn
MP4's should not be "ripped" into MP3's... transcoding from one format to another is not something that should happen. I doubt Apple will allow it.

As for converting to MP3's to allow it to be burned to a CD. This also makes no sense. an MP4->MP3 conversion would cause a fidelity loss. CD's are in a raw audio format... if iTunes can play MP4 AAC to the speaker, then it can burn that information to CD.

arn

No...no...not audio CD's but MP3 CD's (you know, a data CD filled with MP3 files that can be played by many CD players).

Besides, disallowing ripping directly to MP3 isn't exactly going to prevent public posting of these files. All someone would have to do is burn it to an audio CD and then rip it from there. And it only takes one person to do that right?

Personally, I wouldn't use the service if it didn't allow me to rip directly to MP3. And the limitation on file use had better be based on some kind of account (like my .Mac account but probably not limited to that) so I can listen to the same purchased song on multiple computers. Otherwise it's useless.

 

[DGFan]

Originally posted by locovaca
My only question is this: What happens if you loose your hard drive or need to reinstall OS X and reformat? Are they going to keep track of what songs you download, or will you be able to back stuff up? If you do back stuff up, do they have some sort of license associated with the file? How do they associate the file with your computer? I know there's been some speculation on it, but for me this would really make or break this. Let's just assume that they have some sort of authentication with the serial number on your computer- does that mean you can't listen to the file on another computer that you own (say between a PM and a PB)?

Questions, questions...

If it's a Microsoftian "product activation" type situation where it is linked to my computer I won't bite. It'll have to be linked to an account. No way would I spend money on music that could only be played on one computer. At that point it's easier to just go find it and download it.

Also, there sure as heck better be a way to preview music. Prior to the RIAA getting nasty I usually downloaded music to "try before I buy". Apple would have to offer the same. Otherwise I'd end up in the same boat as before - spending money on songs that suck.

 

[xDANx]

the following are my demands...

for me to get at all excited about this a number of things have to somehow all come together:

1) the songs should be linked to an account not a computer...i'm wary of this whole DRM thing making the service extrememly restrictive in ways unproportional to questions of property rights...i hope that apple is too.

2) that account should not be .mac but something separate...if apple uses this as a way to encourage .mac subscriptions i will be very uninimpressed.

3) the account should be free...is in, not subscription based

4) the fees involved shouldn't be on a per song basis, but on some kind of '$/unit of time' setup...i can't see people being willing to pay the same amount for a 20 minute long classical song and a 1 1/2 minute long punk song (and yes, people listen to both...!) as another example...a typical grindcore* album has about 25-30 songs that are all about 42 seconds long...that makes for a very expensive album on a per song basis.

5) the service has to reach out to all sorts of indie labels...if it's just the same old top 40 ****e then why not just use limewire or acquisition?

to be honest, i'd be much more excited about hearing that an OS X version of Soulseek is finally fully functional. i have much more faith in being able to find the music i'm interested in with that network than this rumored music service.

[* - grindcore is extremely fast, noisy metal with drumming that sounds almost inhumanly fast and usually incredibly high pitched screaming vocals or super low pitched guttural vocals....just in case anyone didn't know what i was referring to.]

 

[Vroem]

Originally posted by arn
Perhaps...

As for the quality reduction... my point is going from one lossy format to another is not recommended.

Indeed. And I think Apple would rather make all its software mpeg-4/aac compatible than providing a "downcoding" option to the older mpeg-1/layer III format.

 

[Foxer]

I for one do hope they tie it .Mac - I'll feel like I'm getting something other than an e-mail address and a nice but pointless anti-virus program for my money.

It goes without saying that many of us hope that the catalogue is broader than your average mall music store. The only songs I'm dying to download are the ones I never can find on Limewire.

Fees? For some reason I suspect that they'll follow the model that my cellphone uses for downloading ring-tones. Something like $2 for one, $10 for 6 $20 for 20, etc. and you pay in advance. A flat fee for unlimited downloads, I think, would be unlikely because of the risk (I should say, the inevitabiity) that some idiot will slowly download the entire catalogue. At best, there will be a subscription service giving you unlimited downloads for a specific period, but even then that would be costly.

However it works out, I want it to get here - if only for iTunes 4 and the new iPods!

 

[xDANx]

.mac attack

Originally posted by Foxer
I for one do hope they tie it .Mac - I'll feel like I'm getting something other than an e-mail address and a nice but pointless anti-virus program for my money.

that's exactly why i don't want it tied to .mac...i don't feel that the current list of services warrants the yearly fee that apple levies, and adding this possible music service, which has the potential to be useless to me in so many ways, doesn't really sweeten the deal that much. if they do go the .mac route they better have a way for people to see what they'd be getting without having to sign up for a .mac account. if it turns out to be a good service then the combination of e-mail, idisk, and music service could conceivably sway me. i'm just worried that apple will announce the new music service and tell everyone, 'sign up for a .mac account to try it out.' doing that also means that they have no intention of targeting PC users, which seems like a waste if they're creaing a service that has no inherent need to be mac only.

 

[twelve]

illegal file sharing has done more for the popularity of the internet then any other activity except email. what apple should do is release a os x version of soulseek so that apple will become more popular.

 

[m3djack]

Originally posted by twelve
illegal file sharing has done more for the popularity of the internet then any other activity except email. what apple should do is release a os x version of soulseek so that apple will become more popular.

That's seriously the densest comment I have heard this week.

 

[Rincewind42]

Originally posted by paulc
That being said, I'd be willing to bet you that this "service" is going to be all about Britney, XXXtina, the Backhoe Boyz, essentially all the "big" sellers. I would doubt they'd have a classical section or a jazz section. This is going to be mainstream stuff.

I seriously doubt that this service would be all mainstream only. Think about it, the cost of acquiring and storing new music is small compared to profit potential. All you have to do is look at the costs. 200GB HD is $300, drop the machine with it onto the network and post the new songs available. At $1 a pop it would probaby only take about 1000 downloads to pay for the new drive - any 1000 downloads. Yet the new drive could easily hold over 10 times that many songs, even with multiple quality variants. And the additional drive costs them hardly anything in the long run, since they will likely only pay licensing/royalty on sold tracks.

As for .Mac, I can see this as a 'free' service if you own .Mac and a small (<$10) subscription fee if you don't. The fee lets you browse and stream tracks before you buy. Prolly a limited try before you buy intro period too (only streams 30 seconds or something).

It we see this, it could be very cool

 

[locovaca]

Originally posted by Rincewind42
I seriously doubt that this service would be all mainstream only. Think about it, the cost of acquiring and storing new music is small compared to profit potential. All you have to do is look at the costs. 200GB HD is $300, drop the machine with it onto the network and post the new songs available. At $1 a pop it would probaby only take about 1000 downloads to pay for the new drive - any 1000 downloads. Yet the new drive could easily hold over 10 times that many songs, even with multiple quality variants. And the additional drive costs them hardly anything in the long run, since they will likely only pay licensing/royalty on sold tracks.

As for .Mac, I can see this as a 'free' service if you own .Mac and a small (<$10) subscription fee if you don't. The fee lets you browse and stream tracks before you buy. Prolly a limited try before you buy intro period too (only streams 30 seconds or something).

It we see this, it could be very cool

Storage, IMHO, will not be an issue. What will be is bandwidth. Bandwidth isn't cheap. Additionally, there will be many machines, and many hard drives with the same data on it, because you can't get 5000 streams from one hard drive.

It may sound like simple economics in practice, but in reality there are a lot of factors that go into it. Combined with the fact that the largest revenue stream IS pop music/ top 40, you have the conclusion that they'll have to include that. Additionally they may have other genres, but I guarantee you that storage is not the primary cost here- bandwidth is.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by locovaca
[Regarding why back catalogue items wouldn't be offered]

Storage, IMHO, will not be an issue. What will be is bandwidth. Bandwidth isn't cheap. Additionally, there will be many machines, and many hard drives with the same data on it, because you can't get 5000 streams from one hard drive.

Um, nope.

Bandwidth charges are a per-download charge, and I can guarantee you that whatever Apple sells each download at, the bandwidth charges will be covered. Downloading Britney Spear's latest schmaltz will not cost Apple any less bandwidth than downloading an old BB King cut. Granted, you then get into old 22-minute Floyd cuts and the paradigm might shift, but in general ...

The only place where selection affects bandwidth is in the "catalogue" itself, were Apple silly enough to force all users to periodically download the entire list of all music available (as opposed to a search-based or categorized system with differentials being downloaded).

Having a wider selection of available content affects storage, pure and simple. More back-catalogue offered, you need more space to hold your masters.

As for duplicating selections on multiple disks: I would suspect that Apple would use a caching system which would place the "popular" selections on all disks while 90%+ of the catalogue remains on a centralized server or two. Of course, this is assuming that the mass of downloads are from a relatively small portion of the total catalogue, and that one can thus reasonably predict which songs will get the majority of requests.

 

[jettredmont]

I missed the more salient point regarding back catalogue items: licensing.

The killer for all to-date music services is that they haven't been able to round up the licenses for all those wonderful 20-year-old tracks for electronic distribution.

That, IMHO, is going to continue to be the determining factor regarding breadth of selection. Of course, Apple would love to be able to sell every song ever recorded on their service, and would be more than willing to attach a price to every possible item. However, sometimes you just can't get licenses in order. There's a huge stockpile of old songs that just can't be re-released because licenses can't be had for them!

On the other hand, more likely than not, if you have seen the track in stores or in TimeLife collections on TV, licensing can be arranged for it, and I would hope that Apple will put the effort in place to license these less-popular but highly-desired items as well as the usual cattle feed.

 

[Awimoway]

I'm confused...

The first time MacRumors posted about a possible music sharing program, everyone was saying that if it were part of .mac, they would finally buy in. Now everyone's decrying the possibility. What changed? Maybe it's the rumor that it will cost money on top of a .mac membership. While I think they would have to charge something to keep people from downloading every song ever published for just $70 (.mac discount has been extended), it ought to be really cheap--like $.15 per song--for .mac members.

Anyway, Apple is very committed to .mac. It's failure is due to its price, thus far. They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't make the music service a major benfit of being a member. OTOH, some of their other services--photo album printing, for example--do not have all that great of a discount for .mac members, so maybe this will be more of the same.

 

[Rincewind42]

Originally posted by Awimoway
The first time MacRumors posted about a possible music sharing program, everyone was saying that if it were part of .mac, they would finally buy in. Now everyone's decrying the possibility. What changed?

I think it's just different people complaining . Personally, I'm not too worried about it. I get the feeling that if Apple does associate it with .Mac, then .Mac people will get some goody because they are .Mac subscribers and everyone else will have to fend for themselves. But I doubt that the services would be .Mac only.

Anyway, Apple is very committed to .mac. It's failure is due to its price, thus far. They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't make the music service a major benfit of being a member.

It would definately be nice if they gave .Mac users some bonus with this service, and I think they will. But as for it being a failure, I think you have to look at it from Apple's point of view. In that view 200k * $100/yr >> 1.1m * $0. One pays for the service and the other doesn't .

 

[Qball]

Re: Backing up hard drives

Originally posted by IndyGopher
<rant>Every time this subject comes up, people want to know what happens if they have a hard drive crash... well, what SHOULD happen? You should restore from your current backup. Be it tape, an external hard drive, whatever... and if you don't HAVE a backup? Just whose fault is THAT? Why should they have to babysit you and let you download it again? Take some responsibility and back up your own data. At least 3 or 4 times a week I have someone come running into the shop frantic about either a machine or its data. My personal favorites are the ones that start with "This is the [n]th time this has happened!" Doesn't anyone make backups anymore?? </rant>

Well put. Hard drive failure is not a matter of "if," but "when."

 

[RLB]

Looprumors is reporting that the music service may be released within 3 weeks.

Link

 

[centauratlas]

Backups

>Well put. Hard drive failure is not a matter of "if," but "when."<

I agree. As someone who has been using Apple's since the Apple ][, it is definitely going to happen, it is just a matter of time.

This is yet another area where Apple has a chance to shine.

Apple needs a program like "iBackup" or "iData" or something like that, making backups as easy as iPhoto and iMovie make photo's and movies. That is the easy answer as to "why people don't backup their data"...they don't know how to do it simply and easily.

 

[Awimoway]

You mean like this?

http://www.mac.com/1/iTour/tour_backup.html

 

[comrade]

Originally posted by requies
hi! my name is ken. now you know somebody who can't find what they want on current p2p networks. come on, man. you live in seattle. support some indie music. a lot of the music i like isn't even particularly obscure and it is very hard if not impossible to find on those networks. and if there aren't 35 copies to choose from then if you do find one chances are it's crappy.

whatever. i think it's a good idea and i think the numbers will show it. we'll see!

irc people....irc....