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Apple Branded Music Sharing Service...CONFIRMED??

jholzner

jholzner

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 24, 2002
1,387
26
Champaign, IL
Hey everyone....take a look at this article over at the macobserver.com. According to the article both the LA Times and San Jose Mercury News today publised an article abot an Apple branded music sharing service....maybe Apple is going to announce it later today!! Guess we'll find out soon enough

http://macobserver.com/article/2003/03/04.6.shtml
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2003/03/04/confirmation-of-apple-music-service-rumors/
I discussed this about 3 months ago in the apple.com disussion boards for the new itunes 4 if there was a new version coming.

I wanted a windowsmedia.com type system where people can listen to music for nothing of the net
 
Yowzers!
thanks for that!

Looks like maybe they've done an 'ATI' on Apple? I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for a new iTunes!
 
AAC, too

According to the article, Apple will be using AAC for the encoding! Hooray for all you AAC kooks!
 
.....

If its got a good repetoire of hard to find songs, i have no problem paying for that.
 
Several comments based on the article...

Sony's real sticking point is probably that it's heavily invested in Windows?

If Apple can't get Sony to sign on, will they kill the whole program? As everyone has mentioned, selection is critical to success.

The article only mentions the big five. If Apple does not seek them out, will smaller labels be able to join the program of their own initiative? Will enough of the smaller labels bother?

The article says the new program will come out in a month in an updated version of iTunes. Will this be iTunes 3.1 or the next major upgrade, v. 4, with Rendezvous?

Now that we know it probably will happen, who thinks that the program will be part of .mac?

The article is right in pointing out that Apple OSs have been largely overlooked with current pay-for-download services. This is further evidence that Apple isn't waiting around for third-parties to fill the gaps anymore.

I don't know much about the "Advanced Audio Codec" format. Will older/current iPods be able to play them?

(My apologies for cross-posting this from the older news thread on this subject, but my sense is that all of the discussion will move here now.)
 
I don't see why an older iPod would have problems with acc, its just a codec. There will need to be a software update for iPod, but that's quick and painless.
 
samples?

I just hope that there is a way to preview/sample music. Something like being able to listen the first 30 seconds, or the whole song with some sort of noise watermark. It would be a shame to download a song (and pay) and then realize it's not the version you were looking for. Samples also make it possible for you to discover new music.
 
this is a good step for the record companies... Hollywood already uses Apple to display all of their newest movies with quicktime, so why not use itunes to do the same with music.

I just hope Apple stays strong and doesn't resort to DRM (it's stuff like this that made me stray from the MS flock)
 
I don't think it will be a part of .mac, but rather iLife as they want it to be easy to to get into for every user.
 
apple saves music industry

well not quite
but the ever complaining record companies can only benefit
it won't stop copying or sharing but at least there'll be an extra amount of people paying for music
$ .99 is not much
downloading a full album would still be cheaper than getting it in the store

I just hope it's not a .Mac service
I don't want .Mac
 
.mac

I'd imagine that the service will be available to everyone, but perhaps the subscription price will be drastically reduced, if not free, for .mac subscribers....

I might just reinstate my .mac membership if that is the case :)

-Rob
 
Does anyone realize that this alone might be the trump card for Apple to get switchers in droves???

This is pretty revolutionary, and mainstream revoluntionary enough that the public can understand it (unlike, say, the newton or cube)

haha

"we're gonna innovate our way through the slump"

Steve-o was right on.
 
I'm convinced it is for .mac people cheaper or something. They need an easy way for the payments and this can be accomplished by extending .mac.
 
Re: .mac

Originally posted by robMaurizi
I'd imagine that the service will be available to everyone, but perhaps the subscription price will be drastically reduced, if not free, for .mac subscribers....

I might just reinstate my .mac membership if that is the case :)

-Rob
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be free. It's not like .mac cost that much a month. Barely over having voicemail.

The hook might be.

"Sign up for .mac and every month get 5 free songs!!"

I know it won't be for .mac only. Apple may even roll the service out to PC users. Ubiquity is key here.

I think it's a somewhat good idea but it will matter on how "portable" the audio is.

I'm convinced it is for .mac people cheaper or something. They need an easy way for the payments and this can be accomplished by extending .mac.
Click to expand...


The problem with that is .mac has 20% on a platform that has 3% total penetration of the market.

Apple would need to roll this out to everyone. Not just Mac users. or .mac user. Business 101 here.
 
We can speculate that this will be a Mac OS only service, so even the Windows iPod owners will be left out. One more reason to switch!
 
Originally posted by Moxiemike
Does anyone realize that this alone might be the trump card for Apple to get switchers in droves???

This is pretty revolutionary, and mainstream revoluntionary enough that the public can understand it (unlike, say, the newton or cube)

haha

"we're gonna innovate our way through the slump"

Steve-o was right on.
Click to expand...

well no, since non-platform-specific pay-per-song services are already starting to appear, like on AOL. I'm sure as soon as Apple has any sort of successful with this, plenty of others will follow suit.

Apple, of course, could make things super user-friendly. Like integrating song search into Sherlock. And building in some sort of streaming sampling service into Sherlock/iTunes where with one click of a button, you buy the song and it's downloaded automatically to your HD and added to your iTunes library. Could be pretty sweet. The whole DRM thing could be tricky, but $1 a song doesn't sound too bad to me.
 
beneficial to only .MAC and iPod owners?

First of all, if an already small amount of .MAC users are to only benefit from this, wouldn't it be foolish to think it would work? I'm sure the record companies are not going to go for it if it involves the, what, 300-400 thousand subscribers of .MAC (not sure of the correct amount)only and the X number of iPod owners. Remember, Apple accounts for only 3% of market share in the world. Limiting to an already SMALL, but bright, pool of computer users would be dorky...My question is would the Windows ipods be LOCKED out of using this service?
 
Not for .Mac

The adoption rate would be minimal at best if it were limited to .Mac members only. Only a small percent of Mac users use .Mac - another small percent would use this service.

I would venture to say this will debut with new iPods and TWO version of iTunes. iTunes Pro and iTunes Lite

Lite will remain free and gain rendezvous/AAC support - Pro will have those features + "napster" and "editting"/"mixing" built in with new realistic types of visuals
 
I won't be paying for music any time soon. Sorry, but when it's available for free, how many people do they expect to pay for it? This seems like a waste of time, and apple will drop it like a sack of potatoes when hardly anyone buys music from them.
 
Re: beneficial to only .MAC and iPod owners?

Originally posted by chewbaccapits

Remember, Apple accounts for only 3% of market share in the world.
Click to expand...

No that's 3% of sales for every quarter the actual installed base is somewhere around 11%
 
Originally posted by jethroted
I won't be paying for music any time soon. Sorry, but when it's available for free, how many people do they expect to pay for it? This seems like a waste of time, and apple will drop it like a sack of potatoes when hardly anyone buys music from them.
Click to expand...

Yeah and some people though Apple was "crazy" for developing an MP3 player.

I'm still a fan of the CD myself. I'd just like to see them come down to an avg price of $7 and I'd be in Silver Platter Heaven.
 
Originally posted by jethroted
I won't be paying for music any time soon. Sorry, but when it's available for free, how many people do they expect to pay for it? This seems like a waste of time, and apple will drop it like a sack of potatoes when hardly anyone buys music from them.
Click to expand...


More than 80% of those who download music say they would pay reasonably if reliable, affordable, unrestricted, easy to use service were launched.

If the service would be gauranteed to have even HALF of what Napster was at it's peak, I would gladly pay $7.95 a month or 79 cents a song.
 
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