All my Wintel-owning friends had no idea that iTunes was now available for their platform, and that it was free (iTMS aside)! However, greater awareness will be raised via international media coverage and high profile commercial tie-ins.

Fellow webmasters can, if they don't already know, download links to the iTunes application and store here:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/itmsLinkMaker
--
http://homepage.mac.com/johnhood

iTMS is downloaded via Akamai's servers. They can probably handle a lot more than 20TB over that period of time.

Hmm, well, lets do some math. 1M songs in 3.5 days, with 1M downloads of iTunes. That is an average of over 3 songs downloaded a second. It is also an average of over 3 Windows version of iTunes being downloaded every second. lets do some more math. The average song size it 3.5M and iTunes for Windows is 19.2M. That works out to be an average of 75 Megabytes/Second. You know... 3/4 of a 100M ZipDisk *every* second. Now, lets look at 'market' share. If you assume that there is a 10:1 ration of PCs to Macs, thats all good, but, how many of those PCs are behind corporate firewalls, Libraries, government facilities where it will be, well, impossible for the users to use iTMS or any other service. I think the numbers bode very well and once Apple does some more marketing the numbers will increase.

So Windows users haven't downloaded all that many songs yet. Big deal. They're using iTunes to arrange and play their music. It's not so important for Apple that they all rush off and d/l 10 songs apiece. They're using Apple software (great) and are at a high-risk of buying an iPod (double-great). Even if bought music never goes through the roof (although it will), Apple is still getting its money worth.

Lots of those Windows boxes are cash registers, ATMs, and the like!

I think that million songs in 3.5 days is amazing. Considering that Apple has yet to start the advertising campaign and a lot of windows users are on a dial-up connection (sure there's a lot on broadband too), a million songs is great.

Also remember that the AOL and Pepsi marketing has yet to start.

"A friend with Windows is no friend at all."

very few atms are *running* windows - the back office does, but even by the end of the year it may only hit about 10% of atms - most still run OS/2, and that's on the way out - wired did a sstory on this last month...

First, 1 million downloads of iTunes for Windows is a lot, but the question must be asked: How many of those downloads were to Mac users who also have a PC at work or home and wanted to get it for that computer, and how many were just PC users?

Second, the problem with some people's music library is going to be that, if they've used other services to download music, its probably in WMF format and not readable by iTunes. And then there's the issue of most users not having iPods, and AAC files won't play on their MP3 players. And lastly, for those poor schmucks who've used WMP to rip their CDs, they're now screwed into MS's world of WMF format, or they have to re-rip their music again in AAC format (my boss at work had ripped a bunch of CDs on his work computer before realizing they wouldn't play in his Nomad that only supported MP3 format, and WMP only rips MP3s when you tell it to, and then its only 64bps (unless you buy some plus pack to get more).

Lastly, did anyone NOT bust up laughing when you read one of their execs talking about how iTunes and the iPod will fail because its a closed system! As we all know, MS is all about openness.....

This is positive news. Don't forget that when Apple announced the iTMS originally, iTunes had a committed, installed user base.

At least with all the Windows folks I know, most of them didn't even know iTunes for Windows had come out, and the ones who did didn't get what the fuss was about. I downloaded it to my PC, showed my coworkers how the music from the Mac showed right up, showed them the "Browse" button and the smart playlists, and by the end of this week every copy of Windows in the office is going to have iTunes installed.

We've even set the mac up as a central "MP3" server, with people also hosting some of their own music to share with the rest of the company. Fun stuff, to be sure. It also is getting them used to iTunes. It won't be long now till their checking out the store at home.

I have a Windows box around that I use to make sure the Web sites I create on my Mac are compatible with PC's. I tried to install iTunes on my Windows box running Windows 2000 and all it will do is crash with some cryptic error message when I try to run iTunes. Maybe it's the rather steep memory and processor requirements for iTunes that my old box can't meet. Whatever the reason, it served as a reminder of how glad I am that I have my Mac!

Did nobody pay any attention to Steve's message. 70% of all downloaded music prior to last Thursday was done through the iTMS, which was, at the time, completely Mac based and was based on 600,000 downloads a week. Given this, one can assume that the whole of legal music downloading is roughtly 857,000/week (or 257,000 songs were purchased through other services). If 1M songs have been purchased since iTMS for Windows came out, and this rate continues for the rest of the week, we can assume that 2M songs will be purchased this week on the iTMS. If the current rate on other services doesn't drop (as one would assume it would given that a strong competitor has just come up), the total number of songs purchased this week online would be 2,257,000, of which 2M are from the iTMS, or 89% of the market. How, exactly, is this a horrible failure?

And now for the rest of the world. We want iTMS now !!!!!!

Apple does wonders with music and the Internet again...

As for the "10 to 1 ratio".. If I didn't scour the mac sites as I do, and were only a PC person...I'd hardly know about the iTunes for PC.. So far, I've only seen two articles on the Internet that wasn't being displayed on a Mac-oriented site...

Apple needs to continue to get the word out. Pepsi's doing that awesome promotion but its still four months off...

It also didn't help that the baseball game took the new episode of Friends off the air last week--which was to have an Apple iTunes Ad during that time. I suppose it'll be on this week...provided the series is over by then (crossing fingers, not a sports fan).

Since the arithmetic is going so well here, let's do some more:
1 - 1M songs to Mac users in 7 days == 142.8K per day
2 - 1M songs to Windows users in 3 days == 333K per day.

The numbers speak for themselves - Apple should start making Windows software and double their profits!

(BTW, that was a joke for the sarcasm-impaired.)

Most of the 1 billion windows users don't know about iTunes being available (except those with mac "friends". I expect downloads to INCREASE as time goes by, not decrease like it did for mac users. The word has to spread.

Correction, music IS free. No one said it's not illegal, but yeah, the competition is free music. Think about it, they're basically trying to get the market to switch over from using music download services that offered all the music you wanted for no cost at all. Illegal or not, that's the fact.

Apple realizes this, that's why they're doing the Pepsi promotion. They get millions of people to download music for free, just like they used to do with Kazaa et al, and soon enough, they're hooked like the free crack cocaine down the block... And the only thing that would keep people coming back to the Apple store would be the Apple experience: the ease of use and higher quality and possibly better integration with the iPod. (Only Apple could make this value proposition IMHO...even RIAA's only tactic was FUD.)

I'm a Mac user and I downloaded iTunes for Windows at work, yes. However, I also put it on a Samba share and notified others in my group of its location so they wouldn't have to download it. That "1M" number may represent others who are doing something similar, too.

1 million downloads and 1 million songs is a tremendous start for since Apple has yet to advertise this thing. 10 to 1? How many pc's have 2000 or xp? I'd say it's more like 5 to 1. Most of the pc's in the world are incapable of running 2000 or xp.

Plus, considering that buymusic.com did not sell anywhere near 1 million songs in the first week. And they had a ton of advertising at first. You don't see those Tommy Lee ads anymore do ya. Apple is clearly in the lead.

Apple could have sold a ton more by advertising the service after the launch, but why crash the server farm on the first day. This would get a lot of bad press.

I'd say Apple will kick everyones but when it comes to selling music online. the snow ball is rolling and soon will be out of control.

90% market share is misleading when you consider the number of PC's sold in the US which are used: (1) in business (2) in Gov't (3) in schools/universities, etc.. We're talking about personal use here. Take away all those business, gov't and education computers in the US (since we are the only iTMS customers at the moment) and the numbers aren't really all that staggering.

I'll see if I can find a report I read on the web back in Feb or Mar which broke down PC sales by demographics. The numbers were quite revealing.

Quote
"I'm a Mac user and I downloaded iTunes for Windows at work, yes. However, I also put it on a Samba share and notified others in my group of its location so they wouldn't have to download it. That "1M" number may represent others who are doing something similar, too."

Why do this? At work on a network, just turn on the share music feature on each workstation. That way everybody can have what they like and others can play everybody else's library as well.

Because you still have to have iTunes intalled!

It doesn't say that there were 1 million music downloads to Windows users. Just that there were 1 million music downloads... total... no?

Last week, Apple sold 70% of the legally downloaded music, with I think ~155K (600K/month) songs sold.

This week already, with 1 million sold on Windows, that's 1.15 million sold minimum by the end of the week, for a recalculation of ~94.5% of the legal download market.

That's right, nearly 95%! Rock on!

WRONG! There sell rate was NOT 600k/month. It was 600k/WEEK. This means, as I said in an earlier post, that there market share would be roughly 88%. Still unbelievable, and likely to grow. At least until Napster cranks up.

My feeling for the lack of downloads/buys is one of:

A) Ignorance. Mac users religiously follow apple, so they usually know what's just come out. In contrast, Wintel people usually don't hang on the latest and greatest patch from microsoft (usually they dread it instead.) So word just needs to get out.

B) General animosity over apple. To most igorant people, the mac is still all about the candy-coated, fisher-price interface. So I expect some level of caution from windows people seeking to try out a "mac app" on their windows box. (But that's easily gotten over with once they try it.)

"WRONG! There sell rate was NOT 600k/month. It was 600k/WEEK."

Correct. I checked the macnn.com live feed this morning for verification instead of scrubbing through the video and it incorrectly stated 600K/month. Just checked the video, and Steve does show stats (for week 34 I think) of 600,000 for the week.

So yeah, more like 85%, but still freakin' awesome.

I think Windows Users rock. I think the Apple Lusers could learn a few lessons from this experienced and knowledgeable group.

I'm thinking this is the start of the new revolution. Apple will become a supplier of Windows software and give up it's puny dreams of creating the "other" OS and PC.

Sorry Mac Lusers, it had to be said regardless of whether you like it or not.

itunes for win is a good thing and the reactions so far have been good, as expected no doubt, since apple makes good code. this is a plus for apple all around and for every user.

"I think Windows Users rock. I think the Apple Lusers could learn a few lessons from this experienced and knowledgeable group."

Boy .. what do you even say to something like that? Perhaps we could learn from them how to creatively misspell words.

"I'm thinking this is the start of the new revolution. Apple will become a supplier of Windows software and give up it's puny dreams of creating the "other" OS and PC."

Nothing Apple dreams has ever been puny. I don't think anyone who's been alive the last 20 years can say what you say and keep a straight face.

You only wish Apple made software for Windows.

"Sorry Mac Lusers, it had to be said regardless of whether you like it or not."

It certainly did not have to be said, but that's not the issue. I don't have much of an opinion on people who don't have much of anything to say (and say it poorly).

By the way, the "other" OS is the one coming out in 2006. "The" OS is coming out this week.

Apple has coaxed more than one million downloads of its iTunes DRM store out of Windows users in four days.

The iTunes for Windows software is flying off the virtual shelves at a quicker pace than the Mac-only code. The funny thing, however, is that Windows users don't appear to have much of a music appetite. Apple is selling about one song per download of its software.

"iTunes users have purchased over one million songs in the first three and a half days since our launch last Thursday, which compares with one million songs in the first seven days when we introduced the original iTunes for Mac users last April," said Steve Jobs, CEO at Apple.

All told Apple has shipped 14 million songs since iTunes launched last April. Apple is being nickel and dimed by the music industry, which means this impressive sales don't add too much to the company's bottom line. But a million anything is compelling for Apple given its meager share of the computer market.

Apple didn't create iTMS to make a huge profit. They created it as a means to sell iPods. It's working like gangbusters. Everyone else knows this, exept you and other Pee Cee huggers like you.

Go FUD somewhere else, please.

Why do this? At work on a network, just turn on the share music feature on each workstation. That way everybody can have what they like and others can play everybody else's library as well.
... as you drag down the performance of the entire office network with gigabytes of music data whizzing about.

Well spoken, dude. It's obvious that the inbreed who initially replied hasn't got a clue about the computer industry or the English language. Thanks for saying what needed to be said.

Who knows what the future will bring, but when Apple decides to really make some money they will take their excellent coders and gui designers and make excellent Windows software. Only then will we see a true revolution among the ranks of the only OS that matters, Windows.

"I'm thinking this is the start of the new revolution. Apple will become a supplier of Windows software and give up it's puny dreams of creating the "other" OS and PC."

Well, Apple's commitment to elegant and powerful software would certainly fill a void in the current market for Windows software, that's for sure.

In fact, Windows users might start asking why they can't have both power and elegance in their OS, too.

With iTunes for Windows, Apple is competing against Microsoft at its weakest point -- an utter lack of style and taste.

What exactly about Windows Users rock? I mean, are they just cool because they use windows? Wow, my father rocks!

It also didn't help that the baseball game took the new episode of Friends off the air last week--which was to have an Apple iTunes Ad during that time. I suppose it'll be on this week...provided the series is over by then (crossing fingers, not a sports fan).

Sorry, baseball game will be played, but Friends should be on, since its not like a big game or something (Red Sox/Yankees, now that's a big game). But then again, I could give a flying leap as Friends has got to be up there as one of the most inanest shows out there (actually, Will and Grace beats it, but its still in second). How people can watch that c*** is beyond me.

Unscientific, but sure worth a look at. I'm going to a university in southern california that is probably 70% PC based. Up until iTunes for Windows was released, there was probably an average of 4-5 iTunes share in my entire dorm on a good day. After iTunes for Windows was released, this increased to nearly 20 at any given time. I also know of some people I've seen personally download it and NOT turn on sharing who wouldn't show up in there. If all this does is triple to quadruple the # of people using iTunes and browsing the music store, that's HUGE!

Weeeeee! lets drag this thread to the bottom of the gutter with this bullshit arguing!

ROCK BOTTOM! ROCK BOTTOM! ROCK BOTTOM!

Where You Are Now You Can't Even Imagine What The Bottom Is Like. -Tyler Durden

Dude, I don't know about your father, but I can tell you from experience that your mother ROCKS!!

OMG, those t***!! MMM, MMM!

The next time we get together I'll mention to her that you need a new computer. You can thank me later!

yeah like watching a bunch of aging fat guys run around a field and patting each other's asses while some other guys are paid $1mil to keep the bench warm is my idea of non-inane entertainment.

quote: It's too bad that iTunes and iTMS is "...too restrictive for Windows users...". What are those 1 million users going to do with those 1 million songs?

hrm...well, i have this amazing little thing called an iPod--you know the player that's kicking all the other players in the ribs while writhing in the sand. oh, and i also have this amazing piece of technology called a CD burner. is there a problem?

umm, you do understand the concept of sarcasm, right?

I like p****.

If the slow rate of applying windows critical security patches is any indication as to rate at which iTunes is adopted on the pc it may be years before the average pc user even realizes it exists.

You also have to realize that this crowd is the same crowd that has accepted a mediocre OS and crappy, bootlegged software for years. iTunes no matter how "advanced" or "well developed" may fall on deaf ears. Not because it is apple but because PC users have a history of standardizing on crapware simply because MS tells them too.

Yes, they are sheep. But we are their shepards for once, and they will be looking to US to guide them into this exciting new world.

Go forth and do some evangelism -- and when you're done and they're wowing and oohing and aahing, throw in the kicker ...

"of course, as Mac users, we get this level/quality of stuff for photos, movies, and home-made DVDs as well."

iTunes Music Store (iTMS) before the Windows release was averaging about 600,000 songs per week. So that means on average 85,714 songs per day or 300,000 songs in 3.5 days.

In 3.5 days since the release of iTMS for Windows Apple has sold 1,000,000 songs. So assuming constant purchase rates for Mac folks that implies around 700,000 of the 1 million songs are from Windows users.

In other words Apple has grown its selling rate by just over 2.3x as a result of the Windows version iTMS.

That is good but obviously less the 10:1 difference between Macs and Windows systems base of current "market share" numbers. The 10:1 ratio is not a fair comparison in this case giving countless factors (Windows 2000/XP requirement, etc).

Anyway in a short period of time, with little marketing done yet, Apple has greatly increased iTMS sell rate.

At this run rate Apple could sell well over 50 million songs by next April (their target date for selling 100 million songs) but the rate will like increase as more Windows folks pickup iTunes and try the iTMS (also ignoring the Pepsi song give away).

The next few weeks will be telling…

Very cool profit overcames Steves huge ego.
This is the smartest thing apple has done in awhile.
Why not make money? I am an ex mac user, and I am glad to have something from apple on my pc. I will also buy some songs later tonight.

As I stated before pc folks do not hate mac folks, but that cannot be said vice versa.

This silly comment says it all.
"A friend with Windows is no friend at all."

Apple can once again become a household name, but they must keep doing what there good at. The computer holy war is mostly over. apple lost. Long live the new Apple.

i am very distraught that iTunes isn't available for my Commodore Amiga. I tried firewiring it over through the serial port, but i didn't have any luck.

Leaving the Windows 98/ME users in the dark was probably a bad move on Apples behalf considering Windows 95/98/ME/NT4 still hold about 40% of the Windows market.

The MAC ItunES store did not work on my Pentium 90. Maybe it is because I never applied the floating point fix. Or do you think it is because on WIN 3.1.1? It also does not work on my Window CE portable. I was able to download a song on my friends newer PC but when I tried to print the file, I didn't get lyrics printed out. What gives? If MAC wants to succeed at music they need to sell 1500kbs 20.4 channel WMV files for only 2 cents a piece. I hate MAC and I hope they goe out of business.

"As I stated before pc folks do not hate mac folks, but that cannot be said vice versa. "

Wrong. Both sides have that type of people, because both sides have some extremely stupid people who think you should hate someone based on their operating system.

Then, there are those like you, who are just ignorant and make blind generalizations.

folks was probably a good idea on apples part. The level of incompatibility is even higher on 98/95/ME, apple would never have gotten alot of things to work.

as this pointless Mac vs. PC battle. Some of you really need to dedicate your lives to something other than a computer... If you can't find affection from other humans or pets, maybe a blow up doll is what you need. Or I guess you could mod your Mac with some new sort of "port".

Yeah, it would be good to get the 98 users in there, but 2000 and XP run on a different core from the 9x series, which would mean developing another version, or an overall crappier version. One of my roommates wants it, but she's got 98.

I love the Amiga references that always crop up. I consistently bust my sides! Thumbs up!

A question, do we think Apple with use the Pepsi 'sales' as part of reaching 100 Million songs? That would be cheating big time since they're going to make 100 million caps, though it only leaves 2 months from release to deadline for Steve's goal. I'm thinking they'll include the Pepsi stuff. That was a VERY risky thing for Steve to do. What happens if they fall short? He's gonna get blasted, that's what, and it's silly because they'll still have destroyed all other players.

Lastly, how much crack does MS smoke? The players they talk about play MP3s as well, right? The iPod plays MP3s, like most MP3 players, hence the nomenclature. What's restrictive is the players that play ONLY WMA files. MS would have you believe this is not the case because 1 format is choice...whatever. The iPod plays MP3, MP4, AAC, and I believe a couple other formats (MP1 or 2? I don't know my standards...plus QT), how, oh Holy Bill, is that restrictive?

Well not ever conversation ends in mac vs. pc. Some end in ford vs. chevy.

> I tried to install iTunes on my Windows box running
> Windows 2000 and all it will do is crash with some
> cryptic error message when I try to run iTunes. Maybe
> it's the rather steep memory and processor requirements
> for iTunes that my old box can't meet. Whatever the
> reason, it served as a reminder of how glad I am that
> I have my Mac!

I don't know about the "steep memory" requirements. I've got a 2.4GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM running WinXP Home and I couldn't get iTunes4 running at all. Consistently crashed my box so hard it rebooted. So, no iTunes4 for me on my WinXP box. :(

Pity. I really was looking forward to trying it out. I can only run iTunes2 on my Mac. But, then again, it's a 7300/180 (with a 450Mhz G3) running OS 9.2.2... ;)

Great figures!

It's October. Nice weather. People enjoying great music (1million) and that is in a half a week.

Think: Winter Holidays -- everyone has time on their hands. Jolly seasonal music. More time for downloading -- and hey, let's chuck this PeeSea system and Get a Mac!

Think: iPod influence

Think: Feb 1st Superbowl ads -- kickoff of Pepsi Campaign -- more downloads -- more folks just enjoying music. What a wonderful world . . .

Think: different

Is anyone listening to dowloaded music while reading this?

I'm listening to Dido.

"Is anyone listening to dowloaded music while reading this?"

I would be if the damned thing would be available here in Sweden. Apple, get your s*** together and make it available worldwide!

>I would be if the damned thing would be available here in Sweden. Apple, get your s*** together and make it available worldwide!

That actually may have to do with the concessions they had to make with the RIAA to get the iTMS up and running, than with Apple itself. I don't know the specifics of the "deal" apple made with the RIAA, but I believe they had to do quite a lot of negotiating to get the RIAA to agree to the whole online music store thing. It's possible that part of that was having to do with the parts of the world they are allowed to sell to and at what price. But, if you have something to say about iTunes or the iTMS, you might want to try submitting feedback at http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html I mean, Apple certainly can't be expected to know what to add if we don't tell them what we want....

f*** the RIAA.

Simple.

sfda