Just wondering...does the 250 million include the free weekly singles and the Pepsi song downloads?
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iTMS Tops One Quarter Billion Songs Sold
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I would buy from the Apple itunes store but at the moment I won't. The reason is, and like many of us, I'd rather Apple started supplying Lossless versions of the file that we can compress or turn into CD's ourselves.
For me, and many others (see the various campaign websites) I can't stand the degredation you get with 128 compared to the original retail CD. With reasonable hi-fi equipment the difference is quite noticable and on high end hifi / studio reference montiors it really is chalk and cheese.
With this in mind and the fact that some artist CD's (certainly in the UK) can be bought cheaper when buying the entire Album, it is something Apple should carefully consider. I wouldn't even mind paying a premium if the increased file size was a cost issue in terms of their bandwidth etc..
Best
Jonathan
For me, and many others (see the various campaign websites) I can't stand the degredation you get with 128 compared to the original retail CD. With reasonable hi-fi equipment the difference is quite noticable and on high end hifi / studio reference montiors it really is chalk and cheese.
With this in mind and the fact that some artist CD's (certainly in the UK) can be bought cheaper when buying the entire Album, it is something Apple should carefully consider. I wouldn't even mind paying a premium if the increased file size was a cost issue in terms of their bandwidth etc..
Best
Jonathan
iTunes is great, even if all I use it for is to preview songs, then download them from allofmp3.com. Still great though, and iMixes are fab.
Fishes,
narco.
Fishes,
narco.
logical001 said:
I used to be like this once, then at a school fair I took a hearing test, for a laugh, now the laughs on me
Never could use those speakers/amp of mine at any decent level, as the neighbours would have been knocked off the chairs...for me the listening quality is good enough, the real experience is the ease of use, getting to hear other types of music I wouldn't normally find,it doesn't take anywhere near the same room and I don't have to trudge round the shops getting stuck in the traffic.
I guess it's each to their own.
I don't think so. Apple said "music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 250 million songs". I don't think they consider freebies purchases.chimerical said:
narco said:
you know, i'd be a little careful of what you say or else you might fall in the 'dumb criminal' category.
as clearly you're admitting to illegal behavior and you haven't exactly taken steps to hide your identity (hello, whois on narco-ism.com)
unless that's bogus info on there, someone could sue you without breaking a sweat.
if it is bogus, then shame on you anyway.
Misplaced Mage said:
Interesting theory but I think many people would like to see some scientific proof. I remember seeing an article a while back that looked at how lossless the Apple Lossless format was. It not only looked at file sizes by going from AIFF > Apple Lossless > AIFF but also used an audio program to compare the two waveforms to prove the re-encoded AIFF contained the exact same information as the original AIFF. But I can't seem to track that article down. I think it would be very interesting to see a similar approach to analyze AAC > AIFF > AAC.
Zoboomafoo said:
I totally agree with you, but have you checked the website. Good luck trying to understand it. I believe it's from eastern Europe. Nonetheless still shame on him. What is the policy on songs downloaded illegaly from foreign countries. Last I heard they were cracking donw on people who shared their music.
umm
i had an orginal 5g ipod before the music store first opened ..i was actually wondering if itms it self was turning a profit
JGowan said:Yeppers. They help sell iPods. Where have you been during all this "Music Stuff"?
i had an orginal 5g ipod before the music store first opened ..i was actually wondering if itms it self was turning a profit
24C said:I used to be like this once, then at a school fair I took a hearing test, for a laugh, now the laughs on me
I guess it's each to their own.
No I do agree with you about the ease of use. I guess it would just be nice to have the a high-end option bearing in mind the number of Pro users on the Mac such as audio engineers. Downloading 20MB audio files won't be for everyone though. And one day, I also won't care, probably only hearing in mono and with an ear trumpet at that.
In my case I had to grab a sound track off iTunes to overlay on a TV commerical for an audio edit. When were sat in the studio using a 128 version till a CD turned up with it on. The difference was quite shocking though and the audio engineer really pulled a face and started checking all his frequency meters. But then most London SOHO audio places go up to and beyond subsonic ranges.
logical001 said:No I do agree with you about the ease of use. I guess it would just be nice to have the a high-end option bearing in mind the number of Pro users on the Mac such as audio engineers. Downloading 20MB audio files won't be for everyone though. And one day, I also won't care, probably only hearing in mono and with an ear trumpet at that.
In my case I had to grab a sound track off iTunes to overlay on a TV commerical for an audio edit. When were sat in the studio using a 128 version till a CD turned up with it on. The difference was quite shocking though and the audio engineer really pulled a face and started checking all his frequency meters. But then most London SOHO audio places go up to and beyond subsonic ranges.
Hm. Bet that wouldn't make a difference for US commercials, because the US broadcasts clips the low end and much of the top end of the audio...
I know... just giving you a bit of ribbing. I, too, joined the iPod Ranks early with my 1G 5GB iPod being purchased on November 12, 2001,... two days after the initial release. I waited the two days on purpose as the 12th is my birthday -- what a great gift I got for myself that day.Redpoetsociety said:i had an orginal 5g ipod before the music store first opened ..i was actually wondering if itms it self was turning a profit
One thing that marred that day, though, was hearing that a plane had crashed in a neighborhood of New York (state I believe) and thinking it was another terrorist attack. Turned out to be just a crash with no terrorists involved. It's funny how news like that can stick with you.
Interesting maths
According to my calculations, this will be the first quarter that Apple posts more than $100 million in iTMS sales, with the possibility of $125 million being the actual figure for this quarter.
Given that it's a non-holiday quarter, Apple should ship around $1.0 billion of iPod sales, $125 million in iTMS, and around $125 million in Mac mini sales.
That's $1.25 billion alone, which means that Apple "only" has to get another $1.0 billion in other items to beat the 15% year-on-year growth target that Peter Oppenheimer talked about the other day. By my reckoning, Apple can achieve that by selling around 700,000 CPUs (excluding Mac mini), which should be a cakewalk given all of the positive attention Apple is receiving at the moment.
However, the introduction of a significant PowerBook revision (even a difference in fabrication and slight architectural changes) might increase that 700,000 to anywhere between 850,000 and 1 million. Even the lower edge of those numbers could see another $300 million in revenue, which would see Apple reporting $2.5 billion revenue for Q2 - a 30%+ increase from Q2/04.
According to my calculations, this will be the first quarter that Apple posts more than $100 million in iTMS sales, with the possibility of $125 million being the actual figure for this quarter.
Given that it's a non-holiday quarter, Apple should ship around $1.0 billion of iPod sales, $125 million in iTMS, and around $125 million in Mac mini sales.
That's $1.25 billion alone, which means that Apple "only" has to get another $1.0 billion in other items to beat the 15% year-on-year growth target that Peter Oppenheimer talked about the other day. By my reckoning, Apple can achieve that by selling around 700,000 CPUs (excluding Mac mini), which should be a cakewalk given all of the positive attention Apple is receiving at the moment.
However, the introduction of a significant PowerBook revision (even a difference in fabrication and slight architectural changes) might increase that 700,000 to anywhere between 850,000 and 1 million. Even the lower edge of those numbers could see another $300 million in revenue, which would see Apple reporting $2.5 billion revenue for Q2 - a 30%+ increase from Q2/04.
ipedro said:
I use allofmp3 as well but lets be honest here. At best it falls into the legal grey area due to the way the Russian RIAA structures things at worse you are actually funding the Russian Mafia. This is the going rumor.
At any rate I still purchase my tracks off of iTMS and then download them again off of allofmp3 so no one can say I'm not giving my pound of flesh to the music industry.
Simply the quality is better on allofmp3 and at that price I'm more then willing to pay twice for an album without DRM and 256kb/s AAC. Yes there is some work involved finding coverart and correctly labeling the metadata since allofmp3 does a piss poor job but its a small price to pay for a higher quality file.
Steve said himself...
Even Jobs pointed out that there's no money to be made in selling music online. iTMS is there to sell iPods. Those companies whose sole profit is their online music sales will probably fail.
Even Jobs pointed out that there's no money to be made in selling music online. iTMS is there to sell iPods. Those companies whose sole profit is their online music sales will probably fail.
AppleFoussa said:
Way to be open minded. Did you even look at it long enough to click on the English option in the upper left?
Mac users. Its based out of Russia and it IS a legal site as far as Russian law and their version of the RIAA is concerned. The question is not if its a legal site. The question is do the laws from that site based in that country apply to those in another country. The web is funny that way.
There are serious gray issues in that regard and something the RIAA never considered.
Doctor Q said:
Although when ever I download one of the free songs, I go through the same procedure of using my password. Then several days letter Apple sends a message acknowledging my purchase, indicating the cost $0.00. Looks just the same as when I do make a purchase.
logical001 said:
i agree 100%. i'm a HUGE fan of iTMS & have bought a lot of stuff from there (including the audiobook i'm listening to right now), but it's never my favorite bands. if it's someone that i KNOW i'm going to like, i still buy the CD. if it's a new band or recommendation, i'll put up w/ the 128kb encoding.
c'mon steve, you give us enormous 60GB hard drives and mediocre size/quality files. i know giving people quality options makes the iTMS just that much more of a hassle to maintain, but when you've sold 250M songs & have $$$$ in the bank, i think you have the ability to spring for the cost.
sinisterdesign said:
I doubt seriously that this is solely Steve's decision. I bet the RIAA has something to say about offering uncompressed tracks.
I have changed my thoughts on that site a little bit. It appears that it may actually be reasonably legal to buy from them (in the US). Apparently it's legal to import music recordings into the US for your own personal use, which is a plausible interpretation of what you're doing when you buy from allofmp3.com--you (legally) buy the songs in Russia and then (legally) import them into the US (IANAL, of course).SiliconAddict said:Way to be open minded. Did you even look at it long enough to click on the English option in the upper left?
Its based out of Russia and it IS a legal site as far as Russian law and their version of the RIAA is concerned. The question is not if its a legal site. The question is do the laws from that site based in that country apply to those in another country. The web is funny that way.
However, for me the most important issue is whether buying from allofmp3 is ethical, and specifically whether any of your money gets back to the artist. And here I think the answer is a lot clearer: NO. Your $0.05 per track or whatever goes into the site's bank account and stays there. That's the whole reason why they can sell so cheap--Russian copyright law allows works to be "performed" (something like that) with zero compensation for any copyright holders.
Now, one could argue that as a customer of a legal business you simply "expect" that they will operate ethically, and if they don't, well, that's not your problem. I suppose that's okay if you can do that and still sleep at night
, but I would rather buy a CD or off of iTMS and know that I'm doing the RIGHT thing, as opposed to just the technically legal thing. IMHO, buying from allofmp3 is no better than downloading from Kazaa or whatever--and perhaps worse, because you have the illusion of doing the right thing and compensating the artist without actually doing so, and you may or may not be supporting some shady Russians.You mentioned that you buy things from iTMS and allofmp3, and I suppose that that addresses most of the ethical issues, aside from the possibly-supporting-the-Russian-Mafia thing.
FWIW
WM
