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iTunes Share of U.S. Music Sales Reaches 25%
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I still buy a lot of CDs but they all get ripped right away and put in a closet after that.There goes Apple's opening statement for the Media Event.
"iTunes now accounts for 25% of all music sales" (3 people audience say "Wow!" while most people say "yeah, we read that on Macrumors two weeks ago."
CDs still account for 65% of music sales??????????????
Wow! I thought CDs had disappeared several years ago. I have a CD player in my car and whenever I change the CD, my friends look at me like it's an ancient 8-track or something. Hmmm. I didn't realize they even sold CDs anymore.
So what does this say about me and others that haven't seen a CD in a store in ages? Are CDs obsolete, or have WE just hit a point in history in which half of society is living in the future and half of society is stuck behind living in with the past's ancient technology?
It's the latter. Those of us who hang around in Mac forums get the impression that everyone buys iTunes music, but much of the shift in the real world seems to be from buying CDs in stores to ordering CDs online. Downloaded purchases still have catching up to do.
I like services like iTunes and Amazon for downloading trracks. If I'm buying the album I want physical media though.
Maybe that's just me.
Maybe that's just me.
You kidding me? what store do you go in to? 7-11? walk in any store that has electronics and you can bet they have at least one aisle decaded to CDs. Theres more in that department then ipods.
CDs are not obsolete, they are just going out. Many cars still have a CD player. what do you expect to play when your on a road trip. Radio won't work because your in the middle of no where? Play your ipod? sure, but how? What if your car does not have the proper set up? sure you could buy that $50 cable, but not all cars have the proper set up. Some people may own cars from the mid 90s or older. (Not saying that I do, I dont own a car at all. I have my bike. Just making a point)
Society has always been that way. When TV went to color, it was just as huge as todays digital transation, and yet, many still wanted to keep their black and white TVs. If I recall, that was fine, unlike the digital TV switch where it was mandatory or you can kiss your TV good buy.
Same with older music formats like records, 8-Tracks, Cassettes. Back in the 50s and 60s, Transmitter Radios were a big thing. Every kid had one (ask your grandparrents if they are still alive, you can bet they had one), Once the new formatt came around, many moved on, but many stuck with the old.
So its not just today. It has been this way for years.
I still buy the majority of my music on CDs, the CDs get ripped immediately to iTunes and are then put away.
As far as car use, for that I burn lots of mix CDs from my iTunes libraries. That way, if/when something happens to one of the disk I can just burn another one (or create a different one). Even if your car has the USB/30-pin adapter, the chances are pretty good that your friend's car won't.
I still prefer CDs as well, something about having a physical representation of the music.
And, you have the ability to re-rip in the event there's a format shift and you can't convert your library (or want to use higher bit rates).
I have about 1500 lossless rips in my Windows Home Server, and the CDs in a about 6 boxes in the garage.
Whew, that's a big share. I don't contribute to those sales, of course, having no need for music, but it's really cool to see Apple being a major player in the transition from printed to digital.
Some may notice a quality drop, but I don't and I would hardly call it "huge". Besides, who exactly was buying 128k lossy compressed music for the "quality"? lol
You just enlightened me. Thank you.
I suppose I live in somewhat of a bubble. I'm not going to say where I live, but everyone around me has new cars, new smart phones, etc, etc. You are right. (thinking....) But I know several people with 1990s cars that have aftermarket stereos (basic, nothing fancy) but have headphone/input jacks on the front that they plug their iPods into.
Commenting on the stores, I was referring to Best Buy. They used to have two rows of ten aisles of CDs at one point (20 aisles). Now it's down to about two total aisles. I kept thinking it was still there for the senior citizens or something. (I'm sure it varies from store to store based on sales volume). We used to have three Tower Records stores within 20 minutes of my house. All are gone, obviously, and one still sits there as a vacant building, reminding everyone of the past. Remember when we used to go to Tower Records and spend an hour browsing music and magazines? Hmmm. That was a flashback.
8-tracks and cassettes.
My dad actually still has a working 9-track player and a box of tapes, and a record player and about 200 vinyl records ... sitting as a decoration next to his 1080 HDTV.
It's always fun when we go over to his house and get to listen to the 8-track. It's pretty cool.
(and by the way, I used to ride my bicycle to school every day. Nothing wrong with bicycles
)
this news is unacceptable!!!!! more proof of the monopoly that apple holds on the world!!!! the government must step in a do something about this!!!!
Be careful... the higher that number gets the more interest the DoJ will have in how Apple acts. They aren't there yet, but I don't the concerns are.
Your examples aren't very supportive of your case, as most are closed systems that serve a single purpose, and those that are open don't require you to ONLY go through the manufacturers store for a nominal fee of 30% of the App price.
i.e The Civic is to some point open, though yes it isn't cheap to get the tools require to reprogram it and should you do the reprogramming while under warranty you are most likely going to void said warranty.
When online sites and iTunes offer lossless music which is DRM-free, I will buy. Currently, I see no need to spend ANY money on an mp3 version, which, by pure definition, is worse than the CD Quality that has been around for 25+ years. Sure, I may not be able to tell the difference with heaphones or on a boombox, but on a quality stereo, it's quite obvious which is the mp3 and which is the lossless.
-Eric
-Eric
Let us get one thing straight:
The CD format is LOSSY by its nature.
It disregarded a ton of data when sampling the music from jump.
So when people say LOSSLESS, it means lossless relative to the CD.
Anyways, mp3's/AAC is here to stay. Period. It's the most versatile and mobile format for music ever. And that's exactly what people want: Their music to be mobile. They also want to mix and match their favorite songs as well, as it has since the days when I used to make mixtapes. The also want their format to play on a device of their choosing - just in case their device breaks and can't afford a new one at the time, they can go get a cheap model until they can afford their favorite device.
The industry tried selling us higher resolution music (DVD-A/SACD), but consumers really preferred mobility over sound quality. They don't want something that they have to sit at home to get the full effect. The first choice is mobility.
Since things are going digital and digital is here to stay, I can see how this will eventually stall music sales in the future. Once every thing is digital, it's just a matter of acquiring the file. And it's there forever (unless deleted, but easy to re-acquire). I don't and can't foresee another format taking its place. Well I do forsee a mp3 size file that contains the full bit rate of a CD (or higher quality form such as SACD or DVD-A). Imagine that, a 10MB music file contain full resolution.
The CD format is LOSSY by its nature.
It disregarded a ton of data when sampling the music from jump.
So when people say LOSSLESS, it means lossless relative to the CD.
Anyways, mp3's/AAC is here to stay. Period. It's the most versatile and mobile format for music ever. And that's exactly what people want: Their music to be mobile. They also want to mix and match their favorite songs as well, as it has since the days when I used to make mixtapes. The also want their format to play on a device of their choosing - just in case their device breaks and can't afford a new one at the time, they can go get a cheap model until they can afford their favorite device.
The industry tried selling us higher resolution music (DVD-A/SACD), but consumers really preferred mobility over sound quality. They don't want something that they have to sit at home to get the full effect. The first choice is mobility.
Since things are going digital and digital is here to stay, I can see how this will eventually stall music sales in the future. Once every thing is digital, it's just a matter of acquiring the file. And it's there forever (unless deleted, but easy to re-acquire). I don't and can't foresee another format taking its place. Well I do forsee a mp3 size file that contains the full bit rate of a CD (or higher quality form such as SACD or DVD-A). Imagine that, a 10MB music file contain full resolution.
My Sonos works perfectly well for me, never have to bother buying an mp3 from anywhere. The odd, occasional album I MUST have in FLAC I buy cheap and convert to FLAC for Sonos, and MP3 for the iPhone.
I hate iTunes with a passion, just cant get my head around its interface, and certainly wouldnt spend a penny on their inferior tracks.
Just wish I didnt have to have it for my iPhone...
I hate iTunes with a passion, just cant get my head around its interface, and certainly wouldnt spend a penny on their inferior tracks.
Just wish I didnt have to have it for my iPhone...
It may surprise you to know that most of the people that want to buy their music lossless are the same people that understand these quality concerns that some love to spout.
You say "mp3/aac is the most versatile format about", you meant formats obviously. mp3s play on every device while aac's certainly don't - especially if you want to consider drm. Probably the best lossless codec about is completely open, portable, drm free and can handle a source with any resolution you care to throw at it - which is great if you've got a media company handling the conversion from a master copy (not that they've got a track record with this sort of thing.)
How is an mp3 more portable than a lossless copy? Especially one with less restrictions than the mp3 format itself
A slightly increased file size is hardly much to worry about now or in the future, and the argument from the lossless side is as simple as "why would I want to buy a copy of something with reduced quality?" irrelevant of whether someone can tell the difference on some cheap earbuds. With the way things are atm anyway, these tracks etc are put on a computer first before being moved around, transcoding so you can fit 1000000 songs on a small player is something that could be done automatically before transfer (or before it's even downloaded) so that even the most ignorant consumer continues as he was.Easy to reacquire? All my music is, it's in my storage pool in lossless from the best source I can find. I don't use itunes, it's expensive, inconvenient (for me), locked-in and generally rubbish compared to alternatives, but I'm under the impression that once you've bought a track you don't have the right to download it as many times as you want? If you're somewhere without access to your media or you've lost the file for whatever reason, you need to buy it again? I'm not 100% sure on this, but it's wrong too. With the cost of storage and bandwidth for these media content companies, everything you've bought should be bought once for your lifetime and locked to your account.
Like a fair few others, I'll start buying into this 'new digital era' when it's less backwards than what I've been doing for years and years, open and I can see them pushing for the best quality possible - rather than just tailoring for an average joe that's bought into something he's seen on tv.
Only if you mean that music should be delivered on its original resolution. This would mean all analog recordings should only be delivered on analog medium (since all digital is lossy due to discrete sampling) and that some digitally recorded jazz pieces would require 24bit/192kHz medium.
We had delivery medium variety when some music was bought on LP and some was CD-only, but people in general did not want variety. One standard delivery medium makes it happen, we don't like format wars.
But you're right, all digital is lossy (whether being able to make perfect copies or not) and all music should be enjoyed LIVE