Though it would of been good for apple to make money on a McDonalds deal I would not worry about it too much. McDonalds is not really a good image to connect with apple anyway. Also through good advertising apple has made the iPod a social icon and with the iPod people use iTunes because of how easy it is to sync the 2. Before reading this post I did not even know sony had a online music store. Few people even eat at McDonalds anymore due to people being in this health craze and the whole no carb thing. Though sony might be able to get a bigger market share I dont think that apple will lose any. Right now some stores will be pushed out and leave only 2 or 3.
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McDonald's Switches to Sony?
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Wendy_Rebecca said:
Guess you didn't know. Sony's not using WMA they're using ATRAC.
The problem is some people prefer open standards driven by a group rather than proprietary formats controlled by monopolies. I don't see that as "choice" at all
nuckinfutz said:
dang... that's suicide. sony portable players are nowhere near where it needs to be to command its own proprietary format. i assume their portable players support mp3 (in addition to ATRAC), but considering sony goods are more expensive to begin with, i highly doubt they will be able to leverage their music store to increase the sale of their hardware. people will just ignore the music store instead...
apple was smart in establishing the hardware first, then the online service...
(i guess it will work with mini discs, but that's not very popular in the states...)
More:
Fosters down under
Pilsner Urquel (sp?) in Czech
Vodka in Russia
Guinness in Ireland
Sake in Japan
Bourbon in Louisiana
Moonshine in Tennessee...
For those non-aussies out there, it may strike you as strange that it is almost impossible to find/buy Fosters beer in many parts of Australia. Hardly anyone drinks it and most people think it is one of the worst beers in the world. Australia has probably a dozen brands more popular than Fosters (of course, Fosters the company owns half of them, and a million wineries too). Fosters the beer is pretty much an export-only beer.
Not much good for an Aussie iTMS promotion (when we finally get iTMS).
Wendy_Rebecca said:
Aren't Sony using their own ATRAC format though? ie. it only works with their player (on windows only) and their minidisc and digital protables.
if this is true, i think its terrible. arn said it earlier, if apple doesn't have a deal with mcdonalds, then someone else does. apple could be a big loser here.
i'm loathin it
Its simple maths, McDonalds wants the "me too" music download cool factor like Pepsi, but they don't actually want to pay for too many downloads as they are cheap and nasty at heart.
Solution - offer free music downloads (which are all the same as far as the average putz is aware), but use a service that noone will actually bother/be able to download from.
Oh, and keep the offer only for a limited time so punters don't get ropey!
Its simple maths, McDonalds wants the "me too" music download cool factor like Pepsi, but they don't actually want to pay for too many downloads as they are cheap and nasty at heart.
Solution - offer free music downloads (which are all the same as far as the average putz is aware), but use a service that noone will actually bother/be able to download from.
Oh, and keep the offer only for a limited time so punters don't get ropey!
I don't think Apple is the big loser here. The big losers will be all of those people who try to get their free music only to learn that they can't play it on their players. Anyone know what percentage of the players out there are Sony and can handle their ATRAC DRM?
e-coli said:
The sh-- is gonna hit the fan for Mickey Dee's very soon. They've already announced they are EOL-ing super size meals (which pisses off the beanpole thin junk-food groupies), there have been lawsuits, and a little documentary that took a top prize at Sundance about living on nothing but McDonald's for 30 days - and its consequences - should be hitting at least small theatres this spring. Nobody will want any part of them afterwards. I am amazed that BK has emerged unscathed by all the negative fast food press.
I. Lee
tex210 said:
I see it quite the contrary. I don't see other companies doing well against Apple. Nobody will adopt ATRAC3 in their players, however people will adopt AAC. This battle is going to come down to Apple vs. Microsoft. Apple has been preparing for this battle for twenty years you hink they are going to blow it. All of the other companies will fail. Wal-mart was number one on the Fortune 500 and they sold a handful of songs. Napster sold five million and thats only becasue they had the timing OK, but they are getting less and less dls. I waiting for MS to release their store, they been sizing up Apple for a year, the war will be long but with one victor: Apple. They've been playing by the rules (Sun Tzu); so expect good things from Cupertino.
slipper said:
McDs is strugling to bring in the demo that their commercials depict, McDs is popular with the 35 and up, mainly. They want the young demo but its been an up hill battle. But your right, it would have been a tremendous gain for Apple to get this deal.
e-coli said:
well, i wish i lived in your world. Sadly, one quarter 25% of the us population steps inside a mcdonalds (or any other fast food chain, for that matter) per day. Thats a hell of a lot of people. This deal is bad news for everyone.
EDIT: Statistic from "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser
This is what The Store @ Sony Music website says:
I really don't think people will like these restrictions that much, after they've seen what restrictions iTMS has. (And they probably have seen that by now, don't you think?!) Also, could it be that Apple bounced McDo as a possible partner instead of Sony beating Apple to it? Could it be that Steve himself was against it? I mean, after all he is a veganist. Maybe we will indeed see a partnership soon with a rather unlikely but truely great chain...
I really don't think people will like these restrictions that much, after they've seen what restrictions iTMS has. (And they probably have seen that by now, don't you think?!) Also, could it be that Apple bounced McDo as a possible partner instead of Sony beating Apple to it? Could it be that Steve himself was against it? I mean, after all he is a veganist. Maybe we will indeed see a partnership soon with a rather unlikely but truely great chain...
I just had a thought...
In most discussions about iTMS and it's rivals and about iTMS being the (main) driver behind iPod sales, people who suggest that the iPod should also support WMA get flamed almost without exception. Though, didn't Apple specifically state that iTMS is mainly meant as a means to sell iPods? Wouldn't it, thus, be teriffic if the iPod would support playing back WMA? If it would, people using other download services would also be able to use the iPod as their music player of choice. Who's the loser here? Certainly not Apple, if you ask me. Apple would clearly be the winner in that situation. The tricky part would be to actually support the DRM'ed WMA-format. But since other players are supporting it and most of those players are (also) based on the chip that drives the iPod I'm guessing it wouldn't be too difficult for Apple to build in the needed hard- and/or software. All in all, I think it would definitely be a Very Good Idea for Apple to include the ability of playing WMA in the iPod. And to include it in iTunes too, of course. Make playing music as transparant as possible so that users don't have to think about what player works with what download service. No, just have the iPod be the playback device.
Disagree? Why?
In most discussions about iTMS and it's rivals and about iTMS being the (main) driver behind iPod sales, people who suggest that the iPod should also support WMA get flamed almost without exception. Though, didn't Apple specifically state that iTMS is mainly meant as a means to sell iPods? Wouldn't it, thus, be teriffic if the iPod would support playing back WMA? If it would, people using other download services would also be able to use the iPod as their music player of choice. Who's the loser here? Certainly not Apple, if you ask me. Apple would clearly be the winner in that situation. The tricky part would be to actually support the DRM'ed WMA-format. But since other players are supporting it and most of those players are (also) based on the chip that drives the iPod I'm guessing it wouldn't be too difficult for Apple to build in the needed hard- and/or software. All in all, I think it would definitely be a Very Good Idea for Apple to include the ability of playing WMA in the iPod. And to include it in iTunes too, of course. Make playing music as transparant as possible so that users don't have to think about what player works with what download service. No, just have the iPod be the playback device.
Disagree? Why?
DGFan said:
Actually, assuming that Sony uses their proprietary ATRAC standards, you will be even mre limited in what you can do with songs you have downloaded from them than you are with any of the other online music stores.
Oops!
I just learned that AAC has become the format of choice to be included on DVD-Audio discs as a lossy addition to the real audio-contents on such discs (URL). Then I realised that a while ago WM9 was selected to become the standard format for DVD-Video discs (URL). Isn't it a possibility then that people will believe the WM9-formats to be the high quality and the MP4-formats to be the low quality ones? Has anything concerning the (new) DVD-Video standard been decided for real yet? Or could it be that the DVD-consortium rethinks it's earlier choice and goes with MP4 for the DVD-Video discs too?
I just learned that AAC has become the format of choice to be included on DVD-Audio discs as a lossy addition to the real audio-contents on such discs (URL). Then I realised that a while ago WM9 was selected to become the standard format for DVD-Video discs (URL). Isn't it a possibility then that people will believe the WM9-formats to be the high quality and the MP4-formats to be the low quality ones? Has anything concerning the (new) DVD-Video standard been decided for real yet? Or could it be that the DVD-consortium rethinks it's earlier choice and goes with MP4 for the DVD-Video discs too?
I don't think Coke/McDonald's would have cared if Apple had a previous deal with Pepsi, all they cared about was increasing foot traffic into McDs'. People that go into McDs have no choice of what Brand of soda they want with their Big Mac, they have to drink Coke (especially if there is a contest). That is probably not the reason that the Apple deal fell through. Apple probabl wasn't willing to burden more of the cost.