iTunes downloads top 50 million

[centauratlas]

The iPod is great but who in his/her right mind would want to carry 10000+ songs around and listen to them all ?? It would take weeks to do that ! And please, I don't know anyone who has 10000 leagal MP3/AAC songs.

I have approximately 13000 legal MP3s and AACs About 100-200 are from iTMS, the rest from CDs. I'd like to have about 6000-7000 with me, the rest don't really matter.

The point of having them all there is, I don't want have to decide beforehand what I want to listen to when I am driving somewhere (or whatever). ;-)

I know I might only listen to 10 or 15, but I don't want to have to think about what I want to listen to, decide before I leave, and then go to the computer and load them. That's why I like my 30GB, although I still have it filled. I need a 60GB or 120 GB. ha ha ha. The point, for me, is to have all the music I want with me, wherever my iPod is so that whatever my mood is, I can pick that music.

Other people use their MP3 players differently. I think that is why Apple has different sizes - different usage patterns, different expectations.



Oh, and I get what you are saying about other products being "fresh". That is important too. I hope that Apple can focus on multiple, mutually compatible things, helping the whole line from Macs to iPods to iTMS to software etc.

 

[spinko]

....must resist...can't stop it.... Oh ok I'm better now.

You make a good point, but you also have to understand the way apple does hardware, when they put something on the market they try to make 100% flaw free and that sometimes hurts them, I prefer wait another week for a better product than to get one half bake and full of bugs, Dell crapo palyer is like that even the PC experts label it as overprice beta unit that it was put it just for the sake of having one. Apple (Steve) learn the lesson of the newton, never again..

Me too I'd wait a week longer but it's been months since the last updates or price drops and everybody is holding back in anticipation. Surely, having the same chip just a little faster isn't that hard to do ? And, ehem.. I was an original paying beta tester for 10.0

 

[spinko]

I have approximately 13000 legal MP3s and AACs About 100-200 are from iTMS, the rest from CDs. I'd like to have about 6000-7000 with me, the rest don't really matter.

The point of having them all there is, I don't want have to decide beforehand what I want to listen to when I am driving somewhere (or whatever). ;-)

I know I might only listen to 10 or 15, but I don't want to have to think about what I want to listen to, decide before I leave, and then go to the computer and load them. That's why I like my 30GB, although I still have it filled. I need a 60GB or 120 GB. ha ha ha. The point, for me, is to have all the music I want with me, wherever my iPod is so that whatever my mood is, I can pick that music.

Other people use their MP3 players differently. I think that is why Apple has different sizes - different usage patterns, different expectations.



Oh, and I get what you are saying about other products being "fresh". That is important too. I hope that Apple can focus on multiple, mutually compatible things, helping the whole line from Macs to iPods to iTMS to software etc.

Hope I didn't offend you. I had forgotten the CD's

 

[Sabbath]

The BBC's article is full of spin! The "misses sales target" headline is a little misleading because they would only have missed it had it been April 28th today! And yes, although Apple isn't going to reach this target, they are selling at an ever-increasing rate while the competitors are hardly getting anywhere near! They make Coke's 10 thousand a week is Europe-wide sound like a threat - how can you compare to iTunes' 2.5 million a week for US alone!?

The 10,000 Coke quote is such a joke in comparison. I bought a bottle of coke yesterday and it had a promotion on it where 1 in 10 bottles wins a music download. Not only a rip off of the pepsi deal but I have to buy a bigger (2L) bottle, with worse odds of winning. Add to that the fact I can't use the coke downloaded song in iTunes or on my iPod (I just presume its wma) so I don't really care.

They do have a few good ideas over the pepsi promotion however, you get a code which you have to enter on the website to see if you have won. Hence you must visit the site if you win or not and you cant just cheat by looking at the bottle at an angle.

 

[Doctor Q]

Does anyone have a guess as to what percentage of purchased iTMS tunes end up in an iPod? I have absolutely no idea, and maybe neither does Apple, but it would be quite interesting to know how much of the iTMS market is iPod-based.

 

[vpalvarez]

Does anyone have a guess as to what percentage of purchased iTMS tunes end up in an iPod? I have absolutely no idea, and maybe neither does Apple, but it would be quite interesting to know how much of the iTMS market is iPod-based.

All you need to know is how many copies of iTunes are out in circulation then you figure that there is 2 million ipods and maybe 500,000 minis, and now you can compute the percentage

 

[BornAgainMac]

Terrible news

I'm personally indifferent to the iTunes music store and whether or not Apple is selling enough songs, but I thought it was kind of funny to see how different news outlets are spinning this. As you might expect, the optimists are posting here, and then the BBC is spinning this as some kind of business calamity:

BBC's story

Wow, Apple is going to go out of business now. They weren't very successful in meeting their sales goals according to this article. I noticed they hated it when they had a poll a few months ago to determine if Steve Jobs had more influence or power than Bill Gates. Something like 80% posted that it was Steve Jobs. But their article stated that Bill Gates was the winner from their editors.

 

[vitaboy]

The danger is Apple getting overconfident when Napster isn't the real danger - it's WalMart and all the other rebrands of Microsoft. Napster is a bunch of kids and MBAs. Microsoft is the gathering of sharks and criminals on the horizon.

I think the real danger is Apple tripping up. Walmart's music store is bombing by all accounts - selling digital music files online isn't the same things as selling discount CDs.

Apple has nothing to fear from the browser-based WMA stores. Too inconvenient, especially with regards to transferring licenses from one computer to another and inconsitent DRM. Napster is still Apple most viable threat because Napster's UI is closest to working like iTunes. Still not nearly as elegant or sensible, but at least it's not browser based.

So all Apple has to do is keep on churning out ever more desirable iPods (none of this 8-months-without-a-hardware-update that the Mac world experiences), and iTunes will automatically benefit from that success. The game is really Apple's to lose. The "sharks" on the horizon are too busy killing each other to be of a direct threat to Apple.

 

[stoid]

The "sharks" on the horizon are too busy killing each other to be of a direct threat to Apple.

More like dolphins or something. Free Willy!

 

[eSnow]

like a pc user that is just really upset that he bought a bunch of music on napscrap site and he can't play it any more on his crappy pc anymore..... God I hate people that have to see everything from the "glass half enty"

You know what, fanboi? I have been constantly buying and using Macs since 1991. But I do happen to think out of the box at times.

 

[MCCFR]

Just some maths…

Here's my take on this, which I have posted to several sites and sent to zdnet.co.uk in an attempt to get them to alter their article to something more factual.

If you assume that Track 50M was sold right at the end of Thursday, Apple still have 47 days to reach the 100M total.

If iPod mini sales stimulate 10% growth in standard downloads (to around 393K/day), Apple wll achieve 68.5M sales by April 28 - the real 1-year anniversary of the iTunes Music Store.

The PepsiCo promotion then needs to generate 31.5 million downloads by the end of April to reach 100 million downloads: put another way, iTunes-loving Pepsi drinkers need to redeem nearly 370,000 downloads/day (backdated since 02/01, the start-date of that promotion).

If you further assume that there are 1M iPod users in the USA who might be on the lookout for winning caps (a reasonable number, given that over two million iPods have been sold, and 50% of Apple's business is in the USA), they each have to find/buy a winning cap every 3 days or so. So if you buy a bottle of Pepsi every day, you need a 1 in 3 chance, which is exactly what you've got (300 million bottles, 100 million winners).

I'm willing to lay money that Apple will only miss its target by around 2.5% - 5% if it misses at all, which I doubt. PepsiCo are not as stupid as some contributors seem to think; so I suspect the caps are out there, it's just you have to be real enthusiastic to get to them quickly.

 

[Colonel Panik]

I just wish that the store would open outside the States, and soon. I'm sure that they'd have at least 10 million sales just in Europe the first week they open.

I mean, that Cokemusic thing... how many times did their server fall over the first few weeks? The first time I was able to visit it was today, and it just ain't got the goods, does it? Am I going to go back? How many times do you return to a restaurant that's served you a bad meal, or a shop where the staff are rude? Same thing with a website which refuses you. Compared to the other online stores, the iTMS looks like they actually thought about what people want.

 

[jxyama]

Walmart's music store is bombing by all accounts - selling digital music files online isn't the same things as selling discount CDs.

i knew they were working on it, but i didn't even know they had actually launched...

 

[210]

Questions

I've been reading what everyone has said in this topic & I have a few questions some kind souls may take the time 2 answer or guess at:

iPod is the best-selling portable music player out there at the moment, but how many has been sold worldwide? Who is number 2? Also, all this talk about AAC/WMA - how many other portable music players use AAC? Can these be used with the iTunes/ Music Store? What other online music stores uses AAC? Can they be used with the iPod? Isn't there an idea for them to change to AAC and not WMA in particular considering iPod are the best-selling player? I know they can also burn them on CD, but it's the leck of options for the consumer I'm thinking about.

Another thing: if companies have to pay to "use" WMA, why don't they all use AAC?

Also, I'm sure what Apple want by using the iPod & iTunes is to get people recognising the Apple brand name again & maybe even persuade them to buy an Apple Macintosh computer. Has there been any sign of this? Has Apple's computer sales figures increased since the introduction of the iPod/iTunes?

There are already online music stores available in the U.K. like myCokemusic, Virgin & MSN, so why is it taking Apple so long to release iTunes Music Store over here? Do they want to release the store simultaneously throughout Europe? Wouldn't it make more sense to release them country by country? Also, Napster are also planning to release a U.K./European store - would they be able to steal and maybe even cause permanent harm in terms of sales if they came out before iTunes? What about these other sites like myCokemusic - have they already stolen some business and mindshare by coming out first?

Also, you don't have to buy a bottle of Coca-Cola as the promotion is also on their cans. It's no where near as good as the Pepsi promotion as it's a 1 in 10 chance to win, not 1 in 3 like Pepsi. Coke's site is annoying as you constantly have to skip the intro and it's badly laid out. It sucks that it uses WMA as well.

Also, Virgin Megastore sell iPods, but their online music store sells WMA songs. Go figure. Surely Apple noticed this.

 

[ccuilla]

This one is written in a more balanced manner:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114263,00.html

 

[Macmaniac]

News like this requires only one kind of label. OWNED plain and simple, the competition is getting OWNED, however the key is holding on to this lead, lets keep it up Apple

 

[Wash!!]

I not a fanboy if that what you think

You know what, fanboi? I have been constantly buying and using Macs since 1991. But I do happen to think out of the box at times.

I been using mac and pc since the days of the ][e so please....
I have every gaget out there and one comes close to the way apple design or implement tech, they just do it better end of story.

I use a laptop pc and it sucks plain and simple, use pc at work deal with the awful crap they call windows, I know apple is not perfect but a least they try to please their customers.

They will get somethings right some wrong but that's the way it is, what is funny that you are complaining that they do not use wma ask your self why and who cares wma sucks and we can debate this until the cows come home... why it upset you because they don't play with m$ wma is proprietary format and the key is "proprietary" m$ why apple would pay them when they can use a format the is free and better.

I seen my share of winsucks open standards and I'll use a abacus before I use any of m$ so call open standard formats.

Rant over....peace

 

[frankly]

Sure Steve, we understand. We are a bit scared too that Apple is being locked out of the party it created again - but the way Apple stubbornly insists on not letting others rebrand iTMS or selling .wma is not helping.

Would you care to restate this so that we might have at least a slight understanding of what you are trying to say??????

You act as though you are responding to this:

With over 50 million songs already downloaded and an additional 2.5 million songs being downloaded every week, it's increasingly difficult to imagine others ever catching up with iTunes.

and yet your response makes no sense whatsoever. Perhaps you were responding to something in your head???

How the heck is Apple being locked out of the party? How is anything that they are doing (including not using .wma or rebranding the iTMS) hurting Apple? They are the market leader. They are outselling their competition at an astounding rate. They sell more songs ever two weeks than their nearest competitor does in 4 months. Yes, it took Napster 4 months to sell 5 million songs.

Apple is in control of their own destiny right now and you want them to license technology from Microsoft, a company that is desperately trying to break into this arena and who is also known for muscling others out.

You are simply uninformed and haven't thought this through very well. You are acting as though this is the same thing as licensing something like an operating system. Apple makes their money by selling Macs and iPods. They don't make money by selling the songs or the iTMS software. Now that you realize this, how in the heck do they make money by licensing these two items???

Later, Frank

 

[Krizoitz]

This one is written in a more balanced manner:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114263,00.html

Don't you mean fair and balanced

 

[bidge]

Thought I'd throw this in

 

[Trimix]

What's encouraging is that the pace is actually picking up.

4/28 - 9/03 (130 days): 10 mil -- 0.5 mil a week
9/03 - 12/12 (100 days): 15 mil -- 1.0 mil a week
12/12 - 3/15 (95 days): 25 mil -- 1.8 mil a week

Now Apple is saying 2.5 mil a week. We could be hitting 3 mil a week soon.

I wonder what's accounting for the increasing numbers. More windows users? More iPods being sold? Third-party crossovers (HP, AOL, Pepsi)? Better advertising?

$

And imagine - Asia, Europe, Australia, South America not yet in the game

 

[grouse]

but...

$

And imagine - Asia, Europe, Australia, South America not yet in the game

Unless they are in the game soon, there will be missed markets. Virgin's making noises, and there is the Peter Gabriel Coke thing (which isn't doing well yet) but Apple needs to get European and Asia mind-share asap, as well as, of course, for our friends down under.

I know that it's not necessarily their fault, but if it means doing it in Europe country by country (they'll be different language versions anyway) then do it. The UK is a vast market, dying for this. I suspect Steve does have a mantra here about all of Europe at once, but Steve, look mate, it took about 10 years to agree on the next 10 countries to join the EU, so win the war step by step, once UK or somewhere is successful the record industry will once again be falling over themselves to find ways round the release dates/licensing laws...

Where there's a will....

 

[ccuilla]

Don't you mean fair and balanced

...zactly!

 

[Knox]

I'm personally indifferent to the iTunes music store and whether or not Apple is selling enough songs, but I thought it was kind of funny to see how different news outlets are spinning this. As you might expect, the optimists are posting here, and then the BBC is spinning this as some kind of business calamity:

BBC's story

Curiously the headline and first part of the BBC's story has now completely changed and has a much more positive spin on it, with only a passing reference to the target of 100 million songs (and it does now mention that the deadline for that hasn't come yet). Also it specifically mentions that the 50 million does not include the Pepsi songs.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

Curiously the headline and first part of the BBC's story has now completely changed and has a much more positive spin on it, with only a passing reference to the target of 100 million songs (and it does now mention that the deadline for that hasn't come yet). Also it specifically mentions that the 50 million does not include the Pepsi songs.

Yep, they must have had some complaints from Apple fans!