An anonymous tipster has told MacDailyNews that Apple will hold a special media event in late September that will discuss and/or announce the following. The information that the source provided, verbatim:
• MobileMe, iPhone, iPod Touch
– Enable disk use
– When enabled for disk use, iDisk folder accessible
– iDisk app
– Viewable formats can be opened, other formats grayed out
– Button to sync with MobileMe
– Photo syncing support via MobileMe
– October launch
• iTunes Unlimited
– 256 Kbps music; highest quality digital music subscription service ever
– 50% of U.S. store available for iTunes Unlimited at launch, U.S.-only launch
– Available through iTunes or retail box a la MobileMe, funds applied through iTunes gift cards cannot be used towards subscription purchase
– $129.99 stand-alone or $179.99 with MobileMe, current MobileMe subscribers can add iTunes Unlimited for $99.99
– One-year subscription period
– Current a la carte options unchanged
– When signed in to subscription account, “Buy” is “Get”
– “Download and Play throughout iTunes Unlimited Subscription” or “Buy and Keep”
– “Buy and Keep” option available for downloaded subscription songs, purchased version replaces subscription version
– Late October launch with iTunes 7.8
MacDailyNews Note: This is a rumor. Please treat it as such. We’ll bring you more information if and when it materializes. If this event does happen in September, we also would also expect Apple to debut new/updated iPod hardware for the Christmas shopping season.
MacDailyNews Take: As we’ve often said, Apple should offer an iTunes music subscription option if and when it makes business sense.
Subscriptions have always been a good idea – when supplemented by a viable option to buy tracks and when the price and terms of usage justify the fact that you lose everything when you stop paying. Previous subscription services have tried to position themselves as being a one stop way of listening to and obtaining all your music with the goal of tying you to a service forever. A working subcription service would be to allow you to do your casual listening and try stuff out at a price that you could afford to not end up with anything tangible from.
Steve, say it ain’t so!
I’ll stay with purchasing my music, thank you very much.
This would be a major competition to satellite radio.
Let’s also hope they have a feature like seen on Pandora. Perhaps there is a connection here with the recent Pandora royalty troubles?
Meh, subscription models are the devil. I don’t typically spend more than $129 a year on music anyway. I have Pandora and Last.fm for full length previews. The iDisk thing is cool though. Makes sense and makes MobileMe slightly more interesting.
I’ll stick with purchasing, too. Along with my vinyl copy of Who’s Next, I also got 8-track to play in my 73 Mustang, Cassette to play in my ’79 Pacer, CD and now an iTunes version at 128kbs. I can’t wait to pay for the 256 version.
“NOW everyone will change their tune and say that subscriptions are cool now that STEVE is doing it.
Hypocrites (I see into future)”
If you can actually COMPREHEND what people have always said, it’s that subscriptions ONLY models don’t work. There should be an option to buy because people prefer to OWN their music, not rent it perpetually.
No, Predrag, we aren’t ignoring you. It’s just the basis of your point is something that I suspect most parents here don’t agree with.
“If you have a teenage child, you will buy them subscription,…”
No, we won’t.
Or, at least this parent won’t be flushing an unnecessary $129 down the toilet each year. That’s no way to teach a child financial responsibility. My kid can spend his own money, whether for a sub or individual purchases, to support his entertainment habit.
its a rumor.. and a corny one… people wanna own their music
how about subscrption tv shows
I don’t want a music subscription, I like owning my music as I listen to it over and over and over.
What I really want for my AppleTV is a monthly rental subscription for unlimited access to older movies like all the other services are offering. And lower the price/increase rental times for HD movies.
As we’ve often said, Apple should offer an iTunes music subscription option if and when it makes business sense.
I agree, but someone will create automation mp3 software that will exploit the “analog hole” so one can simply play back their subscription music from a iPod back into a Mac/PC.
Tag it and bag it. Steal millions of songs.
Come on, think of the artists. It’s only a frigging buck a song. One only needs about 2000 really good songs to have enough variance.
If subscription models for music actually worked well, then satellite radio would be much more popular than it is.
As it is, Sirius (SIRI-NASDAQ) stock is trading at a buck forty-six a share and the stock has been in long slow decline. XM was subsumed by Sirius proving that competition in that space can’t sustain the model. It probably has more to do with their marketing and delivery. I don’t know, but satellite radio just sounds complicated. Marketing.
I have access to commercial-free music radio on iTunes but never listen to it. Does anyone else?
If Apple offered subscriptions, I have no doubt they would garner a small percentage of listeners, but that group could never sustain enough profits to support all the Store has to offer.
Wait and see, people.
Wait and see…
@Macaday
Count me out of any subscription service thank you.
A-Men Brutha!
Video will NEVER appear on an iPod! Like Steve said, who wants to watch a tiny video? Er…wrong time period sorry.
“I have access to commercial-free music radio on iTunes but never listen to it. Does anyone else?”
commercial free? nope. KEXP? yep
there are different types of music fans. some people only have a few hundred songs and aren’t progressive in their taste. they listen to what the radio plays. a subscription service for these people may not be cost effective versus buying the latest top 40 hit.
other listeners have gigs and gigs of music, are progressive listeners and are very open to new music. these people might benefit more from a subscription service.
just a thought…
@ Macromancer:
Name one subscription service that doesn’t give you the option to buy. The model you described – which I think is a fantastic model that’s been widely misunderstood and unjustly maligned – is the way ALL subscription services operate, and always have. Sadly, the noise generated in corners such as this one (in which I’m firmly planted, no less) has managed to drown out all the points that make this model make sense.
For everybody STILL whining about wanting to “own” their music and railing against being tied down yada yada yada, here’s how it works:
You pay a fee to access everything the store has to offer, listen to whatever you want as much as you want whenever you want, be it on your computer or on your iPod. Pretty cool. On top of that, or instead of that, if you find a song you love enough that you want to OWN it FOREVER, you simply click a button that says BUY, and bam! You own it!
Do you know why all those other subscription services have largely failed? Simply because your iPod don’t work with it. Or, you could say, because it ain’t Apple.
What Apple needs is a TV Show subscription plan like Netflix. I’ve stopped buying TV shows from Apple, since i usually only want to watch them once. It’s just too expensive.
Every since I got the Netflix ROKU box, I get to use it for free with my Netflix subscription.
“Name one subscription service that doesn’t give you the option to buy. The model you described – which I think is a fantastic model that’s been widely misunderstood and unjustly maligned – is the way ALL subscription services operate, and always have. Sadly, the noise generated in corners such as this one (in which I’m firmly planted, no less) has managed to drown out all the points that make this model make sense.”
Hmm… no.
You may think it’s fantastic, but the “fact” that it makes sense does so only to you (and those who agree with you).
Why? Because you (and those who agree) refuse to accept the reality that it makes sense only for you. Music subs are not maligned, nor misunderstood. That’s just making excuses for why music subs haven’t succeeded.
In regards to listening to music, not everyone’s circumstances, situations, musical desires, tastes and wants are the same. If they were, then yeah, what you say might (heavy on the might) make sense.
But the simple fact is, they aren’t.
“For everybody STILL whining about wanting to “own” their music and railing against being tied down yada yada yada, here’s how it works:
You pay a fee to access everything the store has to offer, listen to whatever you want as much as you want whenever you want, be it on your computer or on your iPod. Pretty cool. On top of that, or instead of that, if you find a song you love enough that you want to OWN it FOREVER, you simply click a button that says BUY, and bam! You own it! “
No one is whining. We know how it works. Most of us just don’t think it makes sense to pay for something twice.
The only whining that seems to be going on in regards to music subs is coming from music sub advocates, who appear unable to accept the notion that most people simply aren’t interested. They’re starting to sound like shills for the music industry.
“Do you know why all those other subscription services have largely failed? Simply because your iPod don’t work with it. Or, you could say, because it ain’t Apple.”
Hmmm… no, again.
They failed (not “largely,” but failed period) for one simple reason.
Most people simply aren’t interested in music subscriptions.
I personally think subscriptions are dumb but Apple doing a subscription service is a win-win. If it works, they win by suffocating any other potential future competition in this area and if it doesn’t work they still own the online digital media market.
Besides, it probably took them, what, two days and five monkeys to program that capability?
Having this option is really a no-brainer for Apple.
I will NEVER EVER pay a monthly fee to listen to music. And I won’t ever pay a monthly fee to listen to satellite radio.
This is the wrong way to go (if true).
This is just a Microsoftian like ploy to make Dell give up their plans before they even start.
Well, who said Apple couldn’t find a Microsoft tactic it could copy?
I could have sworn the author said this subscription story was a rumor. Why are people going ballistic over this as if it had already happened? The source is an anonymous tipster which means absolutely nothing. Just move on. There is nothing to hear except the dropping of FUD.
Apple: buy Pandora.
Subscription services require stronger DRM than Apple has implemented in iTunes and would represent a major regression in Apples pragmatic stance on DRM.