The Billboard Daily Bulletin notes the apparent "overwhelming" success of the iTunes Music Store: "Observers are calling the launch of Apple Computer's digital music service the iTunes Music Store an overwhelming success. The service, which went live Monday, , which is expected by the end of the year.
by MacNN Staff
Comments
Jobs needs a new plane!
There are so many computers in America and the world, a computer company doesn't need to have 20% market share to make a good profit. Everybody scoffs at Apple's market share but they still have millions of computers out there. When they come up with a good idea (not an uncommon occurance), they stand to profit very well. Not that I think it will stop the critics from calling Apple names...
Who says you need 20% market share to make a good profit...
So I went and bought an iPod... To my surprise it wasn't the new one but and old one in the box. Everything else was to the new one, even the cradle was there and the manual etc. What GIVES!!!! I am off to New Zealand in 2 hours and I can't even make it back to tell them my mind!!!! DAMN IT!
New iPods aren't even on sale until tomorrow, so I have my doubts that you got an iPod in a new box, be it old or new.
of ferrari?
of BMW?
of mercededs?
of Ford?
Would you really like to be Ford?
how is that possible? no stores have them..... they won't have them in at all till Friday and are not ALLOWED to sell them until after 18:00. post sounds fishy to me
Truly effortless. I can acquire music legitimately now. Thanks Apple.
So, Apple sells 275,000 songs. That means their revenue is about $180,000 for those songs.
That's not much, is it?
One real test will be how many iPods they sell in the coming week(s)... I'm sure they make a good profit on iPods.
Did i read someplace that there ipods profits are the same amount that they make from the imacs ?
I'd like to net $1,000 per hour....24 hours a day....365 days a year....woo woo!
You're calling $180000 bucks in 18 hours *not much*?
How many hours are there in a year?
About 8760. Do the math.
apple does it again, leaving all the PC users drooling and in the dust!
Switch Now!
Windows Blows!
I sold my dell for an iMac and am so glad!
And now this just makes the switch even better.
I will never go back to Windows.
Sorry, I think the math's wrong. I understand that Apple spends 65 cents a song on royalties/charges. That means .34/song left over, not counting taxes:
.99/unit - .65/costs = .34/profit
.34/profit x 275000/songs = $93,500 profit/18hrs
Extimate for first 24-hour: 124,666.7
And if you want to strech your memory, remember the price of the first Apple I? $666.66. Just add $124K for songs!
Looks like karma-points to me!
where do you ger $180,000?
They took in over a quarter million in 18 hours...
that's nothing to sneeze at.
This has the potential to be a cash cow. Looking forward to what the average weekly income will be.
God bows to math, again.
my credit card got charged for signing up... that will certainly boost sales...
I think a LOT of you would benefit greatly from a basic business book; please read it before prognosticating about business issues.
Example: none of you have ANY clue how much PROFIT they made form the initial sales. Assuming the figure isn't inflated (which it probably is), that's 93.5 grand in REVENUE, not profit.
As far as BUSINESS goes, growth is more important than marketshare. They ain't growing. Period. Not when unit number decline quarter to quarter (i.e. tower units down 40% from year ago quarter).
No, stupid, they did not charge your card. That's a temp authorization, and it will eventually go away if you don't buy anything. I have one sitting on my card right now, too, but you don't see me whining about it, do you?
I bet it was Bill.
Can't wait for it to come here.
I calculate $272,250 in revenue ($0.99 * 275,000). The royalties they pay are an expense, so will be subtracted from their profits, not their revenue.
You don't think selling $275,000 (total gross) and making $96,250 (Apple's cut) in a day (not counting iPod sales, or computer sales) is any good?
Man, you need mental help. Or at least math help.
If it continued on that level (which it might, seeing how addictive it is -- I plan to expand rather than decrease my spending there over time, and I can't be the only one), Apple would see gross revenue of $8.25M (gross) per month -- and that's before we set up the international store, and before we let the Windows people join the fun.
Figure another $8.25M/month from the rest of the world once that's going, and at least $30M a month from Windows users. If we guess (and it's only a guess) that by January all those other markets are up and running, and you're looking at a achievable $50M/month (gross) business. That's $600M/year, of which Apple gets approx. $200M. Again, not counting any ancillary sales, and you know there will be millions of dollars in those.
Sure, compared to Apple's annual sales of $6B, $200M ain't much, but you're missing the point. This is not about money, it's about changing the world and making things better.
Apple will make a lot of money with minimal risk to themselves (all their expenses amount to bandwidth and servers and people to run that, a drop in the bucket which will probably be paid for by the end of the month). IOW, it is an incredibly sound business venture that will be hard-pressed to fail.
No it didn't ... you sir are a LIAR.
250k songs in 18 hours and this is with an OSX only app! Hey all you OS9 luddites will this make you jump to OS10?
That so far this venture is limited to:
1. People who own Macs.
2. Who run OS X on them.
3. Who even HEARD about this (a lot of people haven't).
4. Who want to buy music so much they DL's iTunes 4 and went.
5. Who found something they wanted to buy.
Given how tiny the above market must be (I was figuring about 500,000 potential customers tops), this is phenomenal and bodes well for when the program is expanded.
This is also another warning shot across the bow of OS 9 users: move up or go live in a cave.
No it won't make me switch to OS X. What will make me switch to OS X is when it runs worth a s*** on my 600MHz G4 with 768MB of RAM. I understand OS X is a great OS, and it's stable as h***... but the fact is i get more work done in OS 9 where a mouse click doesn't take 0.25 seconds to affect anything.
As for the music.... i'll stick to buying lossless formats (and vinyl, for that matter), and stick to stealing mp3's. it's much cheaper. and limewire runs great on OS 9.
Go on home then. Just what the Mac community needs...whiney thieves.
i'm at home already. running OS 9, SOUNDJAM (a better interface than that piece of s*** iTunes EVER had), and listening to stolen music!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
and you can all suck my c*** as a result!
I agree with the last poster, although he put it rather rudely.
The Apple iTunes store makes me, a devoted Mac user, seem like a second class citizen. I'm forced to upgrade to some DRM-laced piece of sh*t just so I can buy the top 40 hits I hear on the radio anyway?
I will not upgrade to Mac OS X until it is as fast and user-friendly as Mac 9.2.2. I certainly won't be excited about forced upgrades and big brother-controlled music.
Was it a week ago that everyone on this board was championing Apple as the music lover's company? What a sham.
I don't understand all this talk about OSX being slower ... I am running it on an OLD PowerBook G3 292 and it is like having a new machine ... unless I try to run Word or Quark through Classic ... but that isn' t and OSX problem ... try getting the right versions of software, managing your updates and just pay attention.
If you are scared of it, don't upgrade. Don't whine about how it is inferior or slow ... or you don't like the interface ... it isn't perfect, but it certainly beats the heck out of the "Now-you-see-it, Now-you-don't" OS9 ... If you want the new toys, you'll have to upgrade eventually ... but until then, sit back quietly and learn from our expereinces, and yes, miscues.
Oh ... and if you don't like something (or understand it ) that doesn't make it a sham or a scam or whatever you wish to yell.
If everyone had your fear/hatred of innovation we would have never even gotten out of DOS ... or to DOS for that matter!
Good Day.
no s***! it's about time someone stood up for us dedicated OS 9 users. Personally, i think 9.2.2 is S***** because of all the open transport c*** that bogs down and/or crashes my machine.
Long live OS 9.1!
(0>
hey jackass, i'm a computer engineer. i konw a thing or two about managing my upgrades, thanks.
in fact, the last time i used OS X was when i installed one fo their little "upgrades"... 10.2.3, i believe it was. totally tanked my machine. i'm back in OS 9 for good now.
when i buy an all new computer, i'll happily use X. but this is typical apple bullshit.... the software runs great, as long as you bought a new machine within the last 6 months.
OS 9 is still better, the more Apple comes up with silly gimmicks like a "music store" to try and bait people into OS X, the more they are admitting it to themselves.
There's plenty of room for everyone in the boat. If you prefer OS 9 more power to you. When you have the money and the desire OS X will be there although if you wait too long we may all be on OS XI. ;-)
What a bunch of OS 9 babies...
"The 10.2.3 upgrade tanked my system" Like when I went from OS 8 to OS 9
I'm sure you would say: "Well, my system didn't tank..."
My reply: "Mine didn't in OS X"
You being a Computer Engineer doesn't surprise me. They tend to be at least a year or two behind the time. Also, being such a hot shot, I would think that you might want to try using Unix... but I guess that's too old school for you.
You said: "the software runs great, as long as you bought a new machine within the last 6 months."
Ummm, I have the OS running on a G3 and it works like a charm. No Altivec, no Aqua Extreme, etc. etc. Great for basic applications, and it's WELL over 5 years old. Great Web server as well.
I will not upgrade to Mac OS X until it is as fast and user-friendly as Mac 9.2.2. I certainly won't be excited about forced upgrades and big brother-controlled music.
Hey, DRM-free music is just a few effortless steps away. Download music in iTunes. Burn Audio CD. There, you're done. You now have an DRM-free CD that you can make your precious thousand copies of and give away on LimeWire or whatever the h*** else you want to do with it.
"What will make me switch to OS X is when it runs worth a s*** on my 600MHz G4 with 768MB of RAM. I understand OS X is a great OS, and it's stable as h***... but the fact is i get more work done in OS 9 where a mouse click doesn't take 0.25 seconds to affect anything."
How fast do you need your OS to be? I'm only running a 450 mHz G4 with 768 MB of RAM and OS X runs perfectly. You will notice quite a difference if you were on a G3, but you should have no problem. You have to wait 0.25 seconds after a mouse click? Ouch. Man, that's rough. How much time do you lose when you're burning a CD and you can't do anything else? What about when you've opened 10 different programs and when you have to force quit one of them, only to have to reboot the whole machine? How many mouse clicks is that?
As for music... go ahead and stick with Lamewire. Steal all you want. I'm not going to call you any names, but at least you admit that you're stealing. I intend to frequent Apple's Music Store and support the artist's I enjoy. Maybe in between reboots, when you don't have Lamewire running, you can run out to Sam Goody and "steal" music that way. There's no difference.
OS 9 is still better, the more Apple comes up with silly gimmicks like a "music store" to try and bait people into OS X, the more they are admitting it to themselves.
That's right. Apple's whole music strategy, their on-line store, their iPods, etc, are all geared to one purpose: Get OS 9 users to use X!
Talk about being paranoid (not to mention a bit elitist, OS 9 ain't all that great).
Talk about being paranoid (not to mention a bit elitist, OS 9 ain't all that great).
we know OS 9 ain't all that great. we're just saying OS X is too damn slow.
and the earlier poster was right, a quarter-second is not that long... but i don't want to FEEL my computer working every time i click my mouse! i want it to be RESPONSIVE.
I'm sorry Mr. Computer Engineer ... I'm a lowly graphic designer who put OSX on a 5-year old powerbook (see above, G3 292) that I was ready to give away ... but now I'm learning about the new OS and the machine seems positively snappy ... not nearly as quick as my year-old G4 MP, but a lot faster than it was ... I guess I was supposed to have a lot more trouble ... maybe I can get my company's comuter engineer to come s**** it up the same way he's screwed up pur firewall, our e-mail server, our internet access ...
I can't imaging a decent comuter engineer upgrading a machine without knowing what might happen. At least test it on a machine that if it does flop, it don't mean diddly ... that's why my 5-year-old PB got Jaguar before my G4 ... it is my test machine, but I find myself using it more than I used to because it is definately faster than it was in 9.1 or 9.2.2.
What part of illegal don't you understand? Artists and music companies don't produce music for free. At first, I used to accept the excuse that no one has produced a system worthy of internet music purchase and distribution, but now here comes Apple Computer, laying it all out on a platter for you, and you STILL deny the industry its just payment! Get your brain checked, moron.
They are a gift from God. We love to get music and download it while we write killer apps.
"hey jackass, i'm a computer engineer. i konw a thing or two about managing my upgrades, thanks."
Kewl...
"in fact, the last time i used OS X was when i installed one fo their little "upgrades"... 10.2.3, i believe it was. totally tanked my machine. i'm back in OS 9 for good now."
I'm responsible for upgrading/managing four Macs at work, two here at home, and three elsewhere; all but the 8500/180 are running OS X, with all but two of them at 10.2.5.
No glitches, no disasters; users are all happy.
Too bad you're missing out.
"when i buy an all new computer, i'll happily use X. but this is typical apple bullshit.... the software runs great, as long as you bought a new machine within the last 6 months."
I have MacOS X running on several Macs, including an iMac 333, iBook 466, B&W G3/400, two Sawtooth G4/500DP, and three TiBooks; 667DVI, 867MHz and 1GHz. Only the last two are less
than 6 months old, and the oldest is pushing four years...they all run the OS more than adequately, at the most recent levels of OS X, with current iApps and third-party software.
Perhaps if you installed some RAM in the machine?
and the earlier poster was right, a quarter-second is not that long... but i don't want to FEEL my computer working every time i click my mouse! i want it to be RESPONSIVE.
Oh, I dunno, how responsive is OS 9 when the system grinds to a halt when you drop down a menu? Or forces you to respond to a modal dialog box (Save, Open, etc)? Or makes you wait while another app hogs all the resources in the background? OS 9 ain't all that... gimme X anyday.
and the earlier poster was right, a quarter-second is not that long... but i don't want to FEEL my computer working every time i click my mouse! i want it to be RESPONSIVE.
Good thing you don't have my crappy work-based W2k box. Doing a right-click in IE causes a 5-10 second delay (does this on most of our machines). Users think they didn't quite click right, so they do it again and again, and then are stuck waiting for all the pop-up menus to come up and go down.
Of course, it also takes my crappy machine 10 seconds to show a file or folder's property window, 15 seconds for IE to actually show my start page (takes 2 seconds for the window to appear, the rest of the time its thinking I guess). Not to mention all the times during the day when the Desktop or Windows explorer just kind of refreshes itself (always seemed to me like the process was dying and restarting), s******* up file highlights or something.
What the computer needs is a good reformat/reinstall, but I don't have the two days it would take to do all that...
(Yeah, I know, that's what I get for using a PC).
Even though its running on the real low end, a Rev A Beige G3. When I boot back into OS 9 (for playing games) I can't believe how I lived with it for so long. Of course, I also find myself spending more time in OS 9 trying to find files or folders than I do in OS X, so I'm sure I must have a s**** loose.
I'm running a G4-500, and I use OS 9 for most of my work. Try using Adobe apps on a G4-500 in OS X, it's impossible.
Try setting OS X to open a new folder every time you double click a directory (like OS 9 does). Your computer will tank. The open/save boxes in OS X are lame too, they don't let you type ahead to move through directories.
I have an OS X partition around, and maybe I'll use it completely one day, but not just because it's "the new thing." Shiny gimmicks and eye candy are for Xbox users. Getting work done is for Mac OS 9 users.
iTunes IS SoundJam.
If OS X is dog slow on your G4-600, it's because you're a moron, not the OS' fault. It runs great on my DP550 and an 800 iBook(a G3 for cryin out loud).
I never thought I would revisit some of my old favorites, it has been a tremendous joy for me (and my dog). I have even downloaded music I overlooked adding to my collection back in the 70's and 80's. Thanks Apple
"Hey, DRM-free music is just a few effortless steps away. Download music in iTunes. Burn Audio CD. There, you're done. You now have an DRM-free CD that you can make your precious thousand copies of and give away on LimeWire or whatever the h*** else you want to do with it. "
Actually, if you burn a CD from the AAC files from the iTunes Music Store, and then attempt to rip that CD back to MP3, the results are not pretty. Terrible distortion, skipping and garbled high end. I read about this in the Fortune article posted today.
Yes, you'll notice i complained about the interface, NOT the underlying guts. iTunes is a solid product with some of the best encoding/decoding engines available.
But the interface sucks compared to soundjam. my playlist is like 4000 songs.... sorry if i don't want those in a single big list.
crapintosh
elrader@attbi.com
Since the Mac has roughly a 5% installed base the eventual Windoze version of this service should greatly increase the revenue prospects for Apple. Bascically, a potentially 20x improvement over time.
Keep your fingers crossed these numbers will hold up in the longer term.
um, wrong. Maybe you should read that article a bit more closely.
I had NO problems going from AAC to Audio CD, then rip the Audio CD to MP3. I just did it to be sure. No issues, great sound.
Now, had I tried to go directly from AAC->MP3, then I'd have problems. And yes, I lose a bit of sound quality by going AAC->Audio CD->MP3. But I'm not sure why I need to ever do this, except maybe to make an MP3 CD for my friends. But you know what? They'll just have to live with the (slightly) reduced sound quality. Life sure is tough.
Face facts -- without *some* level of DRM, you people would still steal money out of the artists' pockets, so there HAS to be some level of DRM. Given that, Apple's DRM strikes *exactly* the right balance -- it is too much trouble for decent people to bother ripping artists off, but the "restrictions" can be worked around by determined thieves (which is a very tiny minority compared to the mostly-decent and ethical Mac community as a whole).
Most importantly, the *average person* will never EVER bump into any of the so-called "restrictions" of Apple's Fairplay DRM.
Wow, that's interesting. Good to know you can rip back to MP3. I hadn't tested it yet, I just read about it in a few places. Here's the actual quote from the article:
"And anybody who tries to upload iTunes Music Store songs onto KaZaA will be shocked. Each song is encrypted with a digital key so that it can be played only on three authorized computers, and that prevents songs from being transferred online. Even if you burn the AAC songs onto a CD that a conventional CD player can read and then re-rip them back into standard MP3 files, the sound quality is awful. "
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,447333,00.html
As a musician, I do agree that some level of DRM is required, but users will always find ways around this. I have to agree with you when you say that Apple has struck the right balance.
"Try using Adobe apps on a G4-500 in OS X, it's impossible."
Bull. That's what I have running OS X, and it's smooth as glass.
"Try setting OS X to open a new folder every time you double click a directory (like OS 9 does). Your computer will tank."
Twice Bull. My experience is quite opposite yours. I sincerely doubt yours is the majority experience.
To the moron who's computer "tanked" when he upgraded to 10.2.3:
Guess what, so did mine. But you know what? I was able to recover my documents, I re-installed Jaguar, ran all the system updates again and everything went fine. Things like this are bound to happen every now and then, I've dealt with it *plenty* of times in the System 7.x/8.x/9.x days as well, so stop acting like a baby.
Life goes on for the rest of us in spite of occasional computer problems, and we don't immediately flip out when something goes wrong (and then run screaming about how OS 9 is the best thing on Earth and OS X is horrible, blah, blah). But I guess you'd have to actually HAVE a life for it to go on for you, right?
This week was one of the few times in my life that I have literally BRAGGED that I was a Mac user and felt damn proud, and still we have whining brats, babies, jealous pri**s that are bitter that they aren't using OS X. Grow up already.
Make all the little playlists you want if 4,000 songs is too much.
I don't use 'em myself, except for loading my iPod. I just hit "random" on my library and let it play from 11,700+ songs. My own private radio station, sans commercials.
I run 10.2.5 on a iBook G3/500... you know, the first one. No problems at all with only 384 MB of RAM. This includes doing sometimes heavy work in Photoshop and Illustrator. If I can run X on one of the first icebooks I don't know why someone couldn't on a G4. The only thing I'd request (actually have to Apple) is that when opening files from an app in X you can sort by date like you could in OS 9. Aside from that beef it runs perfectly.
Half of these posts have to be jokes, they're just too stupid. Slashdot ran the same story and the responses were a million times more intelligent. In fact, I'm sure all the pro-OS9 posts were jokes. If you don't run OSX, why would you even read Mac news sites? Expecting OS9 news? You can't seriously expect any... And who's the moron that complained about DRM in the "forced upgrade" to iTunes 4? That's stupid on so many levels I don't know where to begin.
I have installed from beta to jaguar on both my 350mhz G4 desktop and G3 wallstreet laptop. The first has 768mb of RAM and the latter 384mb of RAM. They both work fast and without problems.
I think it's great that I can still run these two older machines and still get good performance. Especially with Photoshop and Vectoreworks 9.0.
As for the foul mouth bloak, suck your own c**k! I don't think we need to hear this kind of posts. Thanks
Big deal! Last I heard Microsoft was bringing in around $1 billion dollars per day.
"Big deal! Last I heard Microsoft was bringing in around $1 billion dollars per day."
On their music service?!? No.
But only for listening to 30s clips of tracks from albums I might buy. I'll then go somewhere else to buy the physical album.
Living in Canada, I have to do this since we don't have the service yet. I don't know why every record company didn't have clips online anyway. Seems pretty obvious to me.
Keep telling yourself the OS X is fast, then go into OS 9...or even Windows 98. Geez, compare how fast a small website loads in OS X, OS 9, or Windows IE. If OS X is fast, OS 9 and Windows 98 are lightspeed.
All the posts saying "No...really it's faster than OS 9! I don't notice the difference!" are packs of lies. If OS X was so fast, why did Apple feel the need to do Quartz Extreme? Uh...huh.
Not to mention that Aqua gets in the way of your productivity. Open a Photoshop file in OS X and look at those stupid candy buttons on your image. Compare to the OS 9 platinum look which fades into the background...
OS X is all eye candy, from bouncing dock icons to candy coated buttons. OS 9 is still the best interface (although OS X might have a better technical area)
I like free stuff...but I hate spyware, corrupted files, and being put on a download queue. I'm also a huge music fan, so I will dish a meager 99 cents to support my favorite artists. iTunes is a great product - looks great, efficient, logical.
---
RE: OS9 vs OSX
I have a Sawtooth 400Mhz with 640MB RAM. It's dual boot, but I hardly use 9 any more. Here's why:
I'm a developer, so I need UNIX, interconnectivity with Windows, Apache, and MySQL. Not even worth trying to find a cheap solution for that on 9. I do webpages, so I use Photoshop and Flash. Although a tad slow, it is just fine.
Point being - everyone has their own damn needs for a computer, so why even bash if they don't use your OS? I'll even let Windows users do their thing, and I'll keep our little secret to ourselves.
For me, speed is important, but after a certain threshold, it's not much of a factor.
Go ahead and keep your .25sec per mouseclick. It's no loss to me. And someday, I'll be buying another mac which will be faster than yours on OS9. Nanny nanny boo boo. And then, you'll want a computer that's faster than mine...and the cycle continues. Deal.
The point of announcing 275,000 songs purchased in 18 hours was to show that the launch was successful and the product popular. What if they sell 275,000 songs every 18 hours? You think that's enough profit?
And what if releasing the service to windows users yields proportional sales...
Mac Users = 5% (est) market = 275,000 songs in 18 hrs
PC users = 95% (est) market = 5,225,000 songs in 18 hrs
Yes, I'm estimating. Yes, it's extremely optimistic. But it's an economy of scale. Imagine PC users getting a polished, stable, FREE mp3 player/ripper through which they can do the same music purchasing. Does $3,600,000 sound like a better profit for 18 hours?
It does to me.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2001
its
addictive.
AND LEGAL!