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iPod Research: Average 20 iTMS songs per iPod!

The interesting bit in that article is that 83% of people don't buy music downloads - so if the 20 iTMS songs per iPod is got by dividing the number of songs sold by the number of iPods, then it's going to be massively skewed by the 83% not buying and is substantially higher for those 17% of users using the iTMS.

Makes that iTMS-lock-in argument seem daft though...
 
How many people was this research conducted on?

I guess if it was an acceptable amount of people that 'figure' would have been mentioned in the article.

These BBC articles are getting all so predictable now. Sigh.
 
Applespider said:
The report isn't a BBC one - it's based on Jupiter Research's report who do have a good reputation for research/analysis.
Click to expand...

I won't argue with that. But i still retain my right to shake my fist angrily at the BBC.
 
Aye, newspaper statistics at their best. But I would not be at all surprised if the distribution of users was non-normal - that is, lots of very light users, like me, and a few very heavy users - pulling the mean average up substantially but not really representing reality.

I will wait for lossless downloads before making any serious investment. But I do like the odd freebie. :)
 
That number looks like it's simply total tracks sold / iPods sold worldwide.

January 2006, 42 million iPods sold; February, a billion tracks sold. That's about 23 tracks per iPod. But that's a useless number, because the store is only available in 21 countries, and there are also iTunes buyers without iPods. Bah.
 
But if the majority of users prefer to use their own content on their iPods, it does make you wonder where the video is going to come in.

Until video is as easy to capture/move to iPod as music is, I can't see the mass-market demand for a video iPod coming. The iPod-killer will be the first system that allows this to happen easily (and presumably does something to pacify the digital rights of studios).
 
I'd buy more, but I find the DRM is too strict. That's just my opinion, but I can't even convert the song file to MP3! Unless I use a special program, of course.
 
I would LEAP onto iTunes Music Store if it offered a subscription service like the Windows Media Player services, and furthermore if they started selling CD's at a competitive price as well. Online downloads aren't very good, period. But they are excellent for checking out what is out there. I prefer to control what I hear and rip, and if Apple understood that they stand to turn over a couple of thousand dollars a year off me.
 
i think paints a skewed picture...

I know people who have iPods that ONLY load their CD's on at extremely high bitrates... but the friends and family who DO buy from the music store have literally hundreds of songs a piece on their iPods from the store... I hear people all the time compaining about how addicitive it is.

I tend do buy busier music on CD and rip it at a higher bitrate, but even with the songs I do buy it's in the hundreds.
 
Ubuntu said:
I'd buy more, but I find the DRM is too strict. That's just my opinion, but I can't even convert the song file to MP3! Unless I use a special program, of course.
Click to expand...

I totally agree, the disadvantages (DRM, I have to use my _own_ resources to download, store and backup my purchase, I can't listen to the songs on my second MP3 player, which is an iRiver, I don't get printed covers, etc.) should be reflected by a lower price. Heck, certain albums are even cheaper if you buy them (physically) in a record store or at Amazon.
I don't see any reason why I should buy songs at iTMS (well, I still did so 4-5 times, though ;-)).
 
128kbps AAC and the stupid protection (can't encode to another format, can't burn the song more than a few times, can only listen to it on 5 computers and one iPod, etc, etc) for 0.99 is just ridiculous. Apple should give people lossless files, period, and an easy wizard so people can downsample them or whatever to ANY format.

iTunes Store is just too restrictive, I'm kinda loathing the direction Apple is taking, I mean chargin extra money to get the black color? (this happens in the new nanos and the macbooks), charging 4.99 for a game which is free on the net? (or has at least a trial), the constant cutting down of iPod bundles, I mean, we don't even get an software cd with the nanos... just the earbuds and the nano, next thing we know, iPod boxes will come with nothing but just the iPods and we'll have to buy our own earbuds and Apple will probably market it as an awesome feature just like the stupid iPod shuffle's lack of screen. Apple is getting greedy :mad:
 
Not surprised my library only contains 4 purchased songs out of about 600 and even they frustrate me. I cant convert...i cant do shizzle. It just sits there in iTunes and my iPod. Waste of money IMHO.

I'd guess majority of song buyers are celebrities and rich folks who cant be bothered to burn CDs and convert songs and all that geeky stuff.
 
I don't think that the average number of iTunes downloads tells us very much at all. There are many different types of iPod user with different patterns of behaviour. Almost all of my stuff is from my CD collection (because I have built up a large collection over many years). Other people I know just download stuff from the music store as they are just starting out with their music collections. No doubt there are many other kinds of user.
 
I have something like 4,000 tracks on my iPod. Perhaps 800 of them were purchased from the iTMS. Apart from the Complete U2, most are single tracks. Since I'm 44 and have years of way-too-loud music listening behind me, my ears can't discern much problem with the bitrate Apple uses. I converted my whole CD collection at the same rate. Virtually all of the new music purchases I make are from iTMS. Exceptions are those packaged incredibly [Tool's latest release comes to mind] or with a DVD [special edition of CoCa's Good Apollo].

So, what exactly is the typical iPod user?
 
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