[bergy]

I think Apple is making a huge mistake by not letting other mp3 players interface with iTunes. That market is set to explode.. and Apple will miss out on a lot of business. I hope they have plans to implement a fix if necessary. Would this be a huge technical problem? By then it will be too late and the opportunity gone. The low end people would never buy an ipod anyway .. why not embrace the mass pc lowenders rather than punish them with our elitist "ipod only" attitude. ITunes for Windows is only a half measure ... let's take it to the next logical step ... we're about choice now aren't we?

[clarkgoble]

Apple will miss out on a lot of business? iTunes is free. Exactly how are they going to make their money? Volume?

(Reference to old SNL skit where there was this change company. They ask how they make money: simple. Volume)

Apple barely makes money with iTMS. They make no money with iTunes. (Actually lose money when you consider development) They make money with iPods. Thus both iTMS and iTunes exists to sell iPods. If they make it easy for other players they suddenly don't sell as many iPods.

See the economics yet?


BTW - on the Mac iTunes integrates fairly easily with non-Apple MP-3 players. My friend plugged his in (a flash unit) and it showed up immediately in iTunes. No drivers needed.

[OptimusG4]

It's not up to Apple to write drivers for other MP3 players. My buddy had a Rio 600 and in order to use it with iTunes, we had to drag a file to the iTunes Plugins folder and relaunch iTunes.

Now, if you mean Apple should have a way for AAC files to work other MP3 players, again its up to the other companies to write software for compatibility.

[bergy]

Thanks for the info on compatibility .... that's good news...

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
Now, if you mean Apple should have a way for AAC files to work other MP3 players, again its up to the other companies to write software for compatibility.

Apple would have to allow them to use FairPlay protected tracks though

Honestly, I think there's a 50/50 chance of that happening, assuming AAC support becomes more common.

[larkost]

Actually Apple is a licensee of FairPlay... so the companies would simply have to license it themselves...

[Eug]

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
It's not up to Apple to write drivers for other MP3 players. My buddy had a Rio 600 and in order to use it with iTunes, we had to drag a file to the iTunes Plugins folder and relaunch iTunes.

Now, if you mean Apple should have a way for AAC files to work other MP3 players, again its up to the other companies to write software for compatibility.

So the Rio 600 works in iTunes?

[dtriska]

Other MP3 players do not work with iTunes for Windows.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by bergy:
I think Apple is making a huge mistake by not letting other mp3 players interface with iTunes. That market is set to explode.. and Apple will miss out on a lot of business. I hope they have plans to implement a fix if necessary. Would this be a huge technical problem? By then it will be too late and the opportunity gone. The low end people would never buy an ipod anyway .. why not embrace the mass pc lowenders rather than punish them with our elitist "ipod only" attitude. ITunes for Windows is only a half measure ... let's take it to the next logical step ... we're about choice now aren't we?

If you look at Apple's comments, you'll see you're wrong. Jobs says Apple isn't making any money on the iTunes Music Store, the money is in the extra iPod sales (and maybe some Macs...). So iTMS sales drive iPod sales, which is where the $$$ is.

[bergy]

Originally posted by CatOne:
If you look at Apple's comments, you'll see you're wrong. Jobs says Apple isn't making any money on the iTunes Music Store, the money is in the extra iPod sales (and maybe some Macs...). So iTMS sales drive iPod sales, which is where the $$$ is.

I think iPod will reach a saturation point soon.
A slew of low cost mp3 players is set to hit the market ... flash memory .. no moving parts and cheap. For what it's worth I'm on my 4th iPod in just over a year because of defects. I would never recommend one from my experiences. Delicate hard drive and function buttons I'm assuming.
In any case, Apple needs to showcase its superior software to the masses. If the masses cannot access itunes with their mp3 players they will not be exposed to the Apple experience.. Itunes is the last chance to leverage the Mac Platform to the masses in a big way. I think the spin off benefits would be huge if Apple would extend its new "choice" and open source philosophy to all aspects of its business. Itunes for Windows but not for the mp3 player that 99% of Windows users are going to buy? Doesn't make sense to me in the long run. Maybe short term ... but aren't we all tired of the bean counters with no vision.

[nickm]

You people don't know what you are arguing about!

The original poster was saying that music purchased from the store should be playable on third party players. In principle, this is a good idea, but keep in mind that Apple doesn't make much money off the store, but they do make money off iPods.

Still, I agree with Ken Fisher , who said:

Apple's selection of AAC has as much to do with promoting QuickTime and MPEG4 as it does with anything else. That leaves the company in the position of needing to push for AAC support to other MP3 players, which many see as doubtful. Would Apple cannibalize iPod sales in favor of iTMS? I think they don't have much of a choice. After all, AAC is based on MPEG4. It's an emerging standard, and there's little to stop manufacturers from supporting it. Apple should embrace rather than shun competition. After all, the iPod was launched in the face of nothing more than MP3 support, and that was enough to make it the hands-down best MP3 player out there. Long before there was an iTMS, there was the iPod, and the device sold itself by being great. Does the iPod really need iTMS as a crutch? I don't think so. With 90% of all online music solutions currently only supporting WMP9 for DRM material, Apple is essentially hurting the appeal of the iPod to a large segment of potential buyers who are reticent to commit to just one music store and one client.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by nickm:
You people don't know what you are arguing about!

The original poster was saying that music purchased from the store should be playable on third party players. In principle, this is a good idea, but keep in mind that Apple doesn't make much money off the store, but they do make money off iPods.

Still, I agree with Ken Fisher, who said... With 90% of all online music solutions currently only supporting WMP9 for DRM material, Apple is essentially hurting the appeal of the iPod to a large segment of potential buyers who are reticent to commit to just one music store and one client.

I'd argue with the 90% of downloadable tunes are WMP9 protected. While Apple is certainly the only one using FairPlay AAC encoded tracks, Apple's iTMS has about an 80% marketshare of legitimately downloaded music.

The purpose of the iTMS is to sell iPods and, as an extension, Macintosh computers.

[nickm]

I'd argue with the 90% of downloadable tunes are WMP9 protected.

Yeah, I didn't agree with that one either. I should have mentioned that. However, it recently came out that Soundscan's 80% number doesn't include MusicMatch, BuyMusic, or Napster, so we really don't know what the iTunes Store's real numbers are.

In any case, I would reiterate that Apple really has tree choices: ignore concerns of lock-in, encourage the use of Fairplay/iTunes compatibility in other players (broaden iTunes distribution but open iPod to competitors), or put WMA compatibility into the iPod (broaden iPod distribution but open iTMS to competitors on Win).

Since Apple makes money on iPods and not on iTMS, it would seem the sensible thing would be to put WMA on the iPod, thus making it a more attractive product. However, this would really hurt Quicktime/AAC/MPEG-4 by establishing WMA as a defacto standard.

If, instead, they open up the iPod to competition, they may counter-intuitively make the iPod more attractive. If Apple is never going to release a CD-based iPod or flash-based iPod, or never release one that doesn't do calendaring, addresses etc. then they might as well allow others to release such products. People will buy the cheap $50 players, buy a bunch of songs from Apple's store, and then one day 'graduate' to an iPod.

It's obvious. Investing in Fairplay music makes an iPod more attractive. Investing in an iPod makes Fairplay more attractive. I think people are more likely to feel comfortable buying a new player than they will be buying all their music again, so Apple should encourage low-end players that don't compete with the iPod directly.

[gregomni]

Originally posted by nickm:
I should have mentioned that. However, it recently came out that Soundscan's 80% number doesn't include MusicMatch, BuyMusic, or Napster, so we really don't know what the iTunes Store's real numbers are.

Where did you see that? Do you have a link?

Apple's press release stated that iTMS sold 1.5 million during Napster's first week where they sold 300,000.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/nov/06itunes.html

Since they mention Nielsen SoundScan in their press release, and I don't know of any other way that Apple would know Napster's sales... it is certainly highly suggestive that SoundScan included Napster. If SoundScan didn't include Napster/MusicMatch/BuyMusic then who is the other 20% that is non-Apple that they _did_ include?

On the other hand, if SoundScan did include Napster, in order to make the percentage come out right that means:
1,500,000 Apple
300,000 Napster
75,000 All others

... which seems pretty likely to me to be the truth.

[gregomni]

Originally posted by gregomni:
Where did you see that? Do you have a link?

Found it. Roxio CEO's statement here:
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/32082.html

But it looks to me like Gorog is willfully misrepresenting Apple here. He agrees with the reported 300,000 songs sold by Napster, but then says that SoundScan reported a total of "827,000 single downloads in the same period". Roxio/Napster then use that 827,000 number to say that Napster got 36% of the business (827,000 * .36 ~= 300,000) and that same number to claim that Apple only has a 62% market share.

But there is a big difference between single downloads and songs. Apple says they sold 1.5 million songs: the other 673,000 (1,500k - 827k) must be off of album sales. Meanwhile, Napster is also reporting songs (total), but trying to confuse the issue by only counting Apple's singles.

Even if SoundScan truly left out Napster, the other 20% of Apple's 827,000 (80%) of singles leaves 206,750 for other competitors. The numbers (for total songs) would then be:

1,500,000 Apple (75%)
300,000 Napster (15%)
206,750 Others (10%)