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iTunes for Windows... and AOL?

Re: New iPods, AAC Strategy

Originally posted by tcmcam
I still have a major problem with the AAC strategy, here's why....

MP3 in iTunes let you use your Mac, an iPod, and ANY OTHER MP3 player to play your music. This enabled things like the TurtleBeach AudioTron (for your home stereo) or the PhatBox (for your car) to use all the MP3's you ripped in iTunes. So I buy a CD at Amazon, and rip it in iTunes (all legal) and can play it on multiple devices.

AAC complicates this. Yes, the store is great, but right now the only AAC players (with the logic for all the DRM) is the Mac platform, and the iPod (and most likely Windows/MusicMatch in the future).

Well, all the iPod enhancements for home stereo or car, well, basically, they STINK!

For my home stereo, Apple PLEASE make a mini (hard drive free) iPod that is BLACK, like my stereo, uses Airport, or 10/100 Ethernet to Rendevous with my iTunes 4 Mac so I can hook it up to my home stereo. It should have a DIGITAL OUT (S/PDIF or Coaxial) so that I can have a high-quality DAC playing back the music. The DAC in the iPod is great for headphones, but is pretty weak for a home stereo.

For my Car, Make a great "Docking Station" for the Car, it should plug into the lighter and have direct audio lines (no cassette or lame FM situation) so I get high-fidelity audio.

Right now, I can't see getting away from MP3 because AAC just isn't pervasive enough. So I won't use the store much because everything is AAC which means I can't play it on my home stereo (unless I burn a CD, eeeek, isn't that what iTunes was trying to get rid of?)

Hopefully some very cool company out there will ship these products.
Click to expand...

Except that AAC is a lot better than MP3 at the same size. This may expand to other players over time. I also believe you can downgrade songs to MP3, so there may be an option there. Fact is, the AAC format may make current MP3 players (other than iPod) obsolete. I never invested in an MP3 player because I didn't like MP3 quality at all - my CDs were much better. Now I'm glad I didn't invest.
 
how much does bandwidth cost?

Hardly, they have to pay for bandwidth and staff support.
So far i can't find any Pavement or anything else i deem good.

26 million people exposed by AOL. How many PC users exposed? Probably more than 26 million, let's say 52 million. How much music does the average person buy? I don't know but let's guess that it's say 3 cds a year, or around 36 tracks a year. Say only 25% of the people do this it comes to: 954 million dollars annually. I think they'll have the cash to cover the bandwidth. But hey I'm just hacking this whole thing mathmaticly anyway, but it's enough to get the point across I think.
 
As a folk artist with self produced music, I'll take $0.65 per track. Wonder who I contact at Apple to get them to handle my tunes?
 
"Wonder who I contact at Apple to get them to handle my tunes?"

Good luck. Not to single your music out particularly for poor quality, but if you saw the live broadcast, Jobs must've mentioned 'poor quality' and 'uncertain quality' and 'no quality control' in some form or other about a million times when saying what was wrong with all the free services. Translation: quality control here will likely be high, meaning the threshold for inclusion will likely be high.

Now we can debate what constitututes 'quality' music all we want, but that's not what I'm saying. After all, digustibus non disputandum est.

All I'm saying is that Apple will likely make it difficult to get indy stuff up there, which IMO is a shame. I hope I'm proven wrong.

TM
 
The Apple Music Store is going to be bigger than Amazon, much bigger: same hype but less overhead and a lot more substance--selling music online is better-suited for previewing than books or Segways or "Turducken"s and it provides instant satisfaction.

It is going to make Apple a bundle of money, and that is fine with me.

I don't care if Apple wants to port iTunes to Windows and AOL. In the end, this will only strengthen Apple. This will be the ONLY iApp they port, so this will only serve as a gateway drug. Heck, before I switched QuickTime alone exerted a lot of pull on me. And if Apple can position itself as THE source for online music, then it will become a stabler company and have more cash for R&D.

It's such a beautiful way to run a company--believe in your customers. If they are missing out on a product, go get it for them. And in the process, Apple has discovered a vast new ocean of profit for itself.
 
Originally posted by anthonymoody
"Wonder who I contact at Apple to get them to handle my tunes?"

Good luck. Not to single your music out particularly for poor quality, but if you saw the live broadcast, Jobs must've mentioned 'poor quality' and 'uncertain quality' and 'no quality control' in some form or other about a million times when saying what was wrong with all the free services. Translation: quality control here will likely be high, meaning the threshold for inclusion will likely be high.

TM
Click to expand...

I think what steve was implying (and yes were on a first name basis - me and my good buddy steve 🙂 ) was trying to say was the quality of the music file and not necessarily the music itself, how does apple know what quality music is. No one does, its a matter of taste and opinion.
 
Originally posted by anthonymoody
All I'm saying is that Apple will likely make it difficult to get indy stuff up there, which IMO is a shame. I hope I'm proven wrong.

TM
Click to expand...

That is the one major flaw in this new product (well, that and the exclusion of all foreign customers--I feel for my "barbarian" brethren). All other major concerns I heard voiced have been dealt with satisfactorily, IMO.
 
Originally posted by anthonymoody
"Wonder who I contact at Apple to get them to handle my tunes?"

Good luck. Not to single your music out particularly for poor quality, but if you saw the live broadcast, Jobs must've mentioned 'poor quality' and 'uncertain quality' and 'no quality control' in some form or other about a million times when saying what was wrong with all the free services. Translation: quality control here will likely be high, meaning the threshold for inclusion will likely be high.

Now we can debate what constitututes 'quality' music all we want, but that's not what I'm saying. After all, digustibus non disputandum est.

All I'm saying is that Apple will likely make it difficult to get indy stuff up there, which IMO is a shame. I hope I'm proven wrong.

TM
Click to expand...

Maybe I was listening to a different broadcast than you, but the one I was listening to Jobs used the words "quality" and "quality control" synonymous with fidelity to the source (ie, quality of encryption/transmission), not the subjective quality of the music itself. I mean, Mariah Carey and Kelly Clarkson are on there ... 🙂 (ducks)

You will likely not get yourself listed on the front page or anything, but I'd bet Apple will (eventually at least) sign up indie artists without any reservations.
 
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-998590.html#

on the indy tip, look for the quote from the MTV news person.

From my meager understanding, indy and smaller labels are the only record companies who are seeing growth nowadays. All the while, the largest companies are imploding under the weight of their own missteps and stumbling for other reasons.
Apple would do well to set up some form of liason/ method of contacting. And, putting up an indy section would be a great big step for too many reasons. I mean lets face it, buying indy artists' music would really be supporting the music, now and in the future. Sure, there is a lot of crap that is indy, but, hey, someone might like it, so mo' power to everyone.
Heck, if there is an active push to exand the catalog greatly and quickly, I wouldn't complain so much about how narrow the service roll out is. It is certainly accessible to less than 3% of all the computer users. Mac OSX is minimum requirement? 4-5 million users of OSX...am I being generous or stingy with that number?
 
MP3.com

is owned by UMG. Maybe a partnership between Apple & MP3.com? They aren't quite what they used to be but they have indie content. Maybe 1/3 of the best MP3.com stuff - audio quality must be the determining factor not "opinion".

Lot's of options down the road...
 
What have Apple done?

As far as i'm concerned, Apple have done nothing. Yes, nothing. No revolution, nothing.

Until they support the rest of the world, and offer music services to the rest of us, then I'm really not impressed.

Its useless to the majority of the world.
 
amen. and i feel for ya.
perhaps when they roll it out to the rest of the world, they will also include XM radio with the iPod. That would truly take the cake if you could get XM radio, outside of the car/PC and take it with you anywhere. That. is the revolution I thought they'd include in this plan.
Don't know what the technical requirements are for accessing XM. but, having ability for the iPod, and as a part of the iTunes music store revenue stream would be great for Apple and for switchers. Sure XM is a subscription thing but, so is AOL...
 
I'm not really going to be interested in this music service until indie labels are on board (and by indie i don't mean someone recording a bunch of **** on a tape recorder in their garage...i mean well established labels that are not owned by a major corporations and that cater to specific genres of music or have specific philosophies on putting out music). Oh, and I'm in Canada so there's that whole thing... But I'm fully aware the Apple never intended for people with similar musical tastes and habits to mine to get excited. They don't care that I'm not interested. I'm over it, moving on, water, bridges, all that stuff. But it would be nice if a few of the labels that I really like (Trustkill Records, G7 Welcoming Committee Records, Revelation Records, the list is too long...) could be included (assuming that they'd be interested). It would really make that catalog a whole bunch more exciting. Sheryl Crow? Ugh.
 
AOL has Winamp and pays good money for it. If *anything* involved AOL was to happen, it would involve Winamp. They pour money into that program and give it away for free, so they're not going to just put it on the side and not use it.

However, I don't see an AOL-exclusive as a likely future for PC users, to be honest.
 
Re: movie downloads next?

Originally posted by unreg
QuickTime is also used for video streaming and playback.
Click to expand...

Actually, I was looking at that as well. iTunes lets you organize your songs to listen to, iMovie lets you edit films.........Apple doesn't have a good, easy to use program to manage & organize video, and to play back....nothing like iTunes. Of course, most people don't have huge volumes of video either.

Also, notice Apple now has Music as a main tab on their site. They include iPod, iTunes, iTunes Store, and Emagic under it.

What if Apple was to remove the Quicktime tab, and replace it with Video? FinalCut Express/Pro, Shake, DVD Studio, iDVD, iMovie, QuickTime, and possibly a new video organization app & download service.

Has anyone else noticed the parallels?
 
win tunes

You apple guys are funny as hell, c'mon guys...itunes and the iapps as a switcher bait? C'mon thats what they said about the ipod and lets not forget windows users still found a way to use an ipod on a PC. iTunes on pc is a good idea to really flesh out the whole deal. Personally I luv macs but the price of admission is what's keeping me out really...till then I'll chill back with my classic pod and hope that ipod update for pc includes playlists on the go 😉
 
Bandwidth Costs?

If Apple and AOL have a partnership, the bandwidth costs are virtually non existant. The only cost would be a fiber optic line between Apple and AOL's servers. All that traffic that flows between's AOL's servers is free, (free as in only fixed costs) so if I view an AOL member website, and I am an AOL member, AOL didn't have to pay anyone for bandwidth, because it is their lines in between the server and the user. If Apple and AOL had a partnership, the Apple/AOL coalition would own everything between the server the song is stored on and the user's PC, and Apple/AOL would only be left with fixed costs.
 
Smart Move

The risk of offending the Mac user base buy porting iTunes to Windows seems neglible compared to the possibilities of driving revenue. It would encourage wider adoption of QuickTime, as noted above, it would sell more iPods (on each of which Apple makes as much profit as a Mac, according to the Fortune article), and of course it would expand the customer base for the iTunes Store. I think all that would be great for us Mac users.

It makes sense that AOL would want to use the store for its own customers. As part of the same company as one of the five big record companies, it would have had the same difficulty getting content from the other companies that each of their efforts have had.

By the way, I bought 5 songs from the iTunes store today, but I would like to see a lot more indie stuff on it.
 
Mac user discount

If this becomes a success to the Mac and the PC world, then Apple could give a discount to Mac users, causing maybe millions of switchers! And if each mac costs about $1000, a million switchers would make Apple $1 billion more. (not including expenses)
 
Re: What have Apple done?

Originally posted by Stella
As far as i'm concerned, Apple have done nothing. Yes, nothing. No revolution, nothing.

Until they support the rest of the world, and offer music services to the rest of us, then I'm really not impressed.

Its useless to the majority of the world.
Click to expand...

The mere fact that you've taken your time to post this refutes that fact that you feel it's useless. In time it will be rolled out abroad. Laws are different in every country.

iTunes for PC is a natural choice. Partner with Musicmatch? Why? The key to maximizing profits is not to license another product when you have the technology. Apple's been working on this for a while. That's obvious. I have no doubts that a port of iTunes to PC is well under way.

Let's face it. A PC user is not going to switch to Mac because of an MP3 player. There are dozens of players available on the PC side. Apple needs to develop a robust PC iTunes. This app will directly reflect on the perceived quality of Apple. It needs to function correctly. The more profits Apple can make the more your chances of seeing Macintosh hardware at better pricing. Apple is trying to explore additional revenue areas and this looks to be a winner. Cheaper Mac prices mean more sales..which means more marketshare. That's important to us all.

AOL could be huge. Even if you only get 10% of them buying music regularly that's 2.6 Million people.

Apple should start courting the most successful Indies and move there way down. There is still much work to be done but eventually iTunes Musis Store will contain 5x the songs it does now. It's only a matter of time
 
Switcher bait

If Apple makes iTunes for the PC, it will kill the other players assuming it is not crippled. If it is crippled to get you to switch to a Mac to get a non-crippled iTunes, then Windows users will not bite because it is asking too much, and other music players will move to fill the gap. If it is a full-function player and begins to dominate the others, Microsoft will not stand for a threat to Windows Media on their OS. Since, I assert that Apple will do this, then it will mean war.

If Apple wants to convince people other than the easy switchers (ones that have been looking for Windows alternatives) , they need to do more than make a great product and hope a crippled version for Windows will make them pull up roots and move to Mac. They have to know how good it can be on a Mac in a way that a competitor can't do by filling the gap of a crippled Windows iTunes. They also have to care about the reasons to switch.

Switching also has to be cheaper somehow. I mean the only reason most Windows users even looked at Linux is because it was free to try on their existing hardware. Plunking down at least as much as a good PC costs for a low-end Mac is looked at as a total risk. This is because people think that switching to a Mac is an all-or-nothing affair - that you change your total computing system over.

The real switcher campaign should be an ultra-cheap Mac that is an information appliance that is used as an audio/video appliance rather than the primary machine. This way there's no scary conversion of your computer life to the Mac, but you get to try one out. The "appliance" just happens to be a full-up OS X box that people can play around with without needing to immediately find replacemens for all their PC things. The problem as always is price. I'm thinking that this unit has to cost less than $1000. Maybe $999 for a superdrive capability, $599 for something with a CDRW/DVD-ROM (others can comment on what they would pay). Think an iMac derivative without the screen (and maybe even AppleWorks, but definitely keep the iLife stuff) designed to hook up to a VGA monitor that most switchers have or could get for $100. Give it a remote control and maybe a TV out that displays a video menu. The unit is not thought of as running "Mac stuff" or use "Mac formats" if it takes in industry standards (Firewire DV, Analog A/V, CD, DVD, etc) and puts out those same standards. Basically decouple it from the need for it to be compatible with your PC data like Windows media and Word files, but it will be compatible with standards like MP3 files.

In other words, it will not require a PC home to "convert" - it will just enable them to do the "iLife" stuff better. Like my TiVo - it didn't require I spend loads of time converting my VHS tapes to "TiVo format", nor did it need to play VHS tapes. It just slid in there and does what it does very well: record and playback TV the way I want. The VCR now does what it does very well: play my old VHS tapes and archive the occasional show. As the "appliance" Mac users discover it can do some of those "computing" tasks their Windows box does (convenient, pleasurable browsing with Safari, etc.), they can try them out at their leisure without uprooting their Windows world and having a jolting experience not being able to initially do what they used to. Then buying a full-on Mac to replace the PC later will be an easier decision, and the "appliance" Mac can still do its Role.

Apple's fallback plan can always be to just be a vendor of very good PC software at least as long as Microsoft allows them to be.
 
this move should be good for Apple. there is (probably) no way that they will make the other iApps available to Windows users as this is a main selling point of Apples.

get Windows users a taste of Apple, then get them doing 'X'. 😉 😀 😀
 
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