“Apple doesn’t have a cackling monopoly on the market for digital music, but it’s making jolly progress,” Andy Ihnatko reports for The Chicago Sun-Times. “Now that Microsoft has released the basic tools necessary to sell protected Windows Media-encoded tracks online, it’s time to start looking for thermal exhaust ports in iTunes’ Death Star. If Apple wants to maintain its stranglehold on the hearts and minds of the proletariat, it’s going to have to do two things.”
– Priority One is to make a dirt-cheap RAM-based iPod (not a penny more than $99). Being stuck with just one kind of portable player isn’t a big deal when your only choice is the best available, but Apple needs to have a unit that everybody can afford.
– That’s just a Band-Aid for Priority Two. Apple’s going to have to start licensing FairPlay, its proprietary digital rights management system. It’s easy to succeed when you’re better than all of your competitors as individuals, but when they all start selling music files that can be played on any jukebox app or portable device, you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews article:
Time for a decision: how Apple can win the online music war – September 30, 2003
these idiots never cease to amaze me. all they know is cheap…cheap…cheap… If you want something just because it’s cheap, well, that’s just what you’ll get and it won’t be worth a %#*&!
“Still, buying music through the iTunes Store is like passing out drunk and pantsless in a fountain at Caesar’s Palace: What happens in iTunes stays in iTunes.”
“It really is a remarkable piece of free software. I plug my 15 gigabyte iPod into its dock, and iTunes descends upon it like a NASCAR pit crew, executing all of the automatic Smart Playlists I’ve configured.
Minutes later, all the worn-out old music has been replaced with fresh meat selected and mixed in just the right proportions. And all I really intended to do was recharge the batteries.”
That’s funny
I agree pretty much with this guy.
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=sonja-paintings&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=50
iTunes = iPod sales.
iPod sales = Mac sales.
If FairPlay were licensed, that means other players could play the tunes, and other jukes could sell them. How does that ultimately = Mac sales?
You have a choice. Rent your music (some months I buy 1 song, some months I buy 30, I refuse to pay the same fee for my down months. If I ever choose to cancel my subscription, welp, no more tunes. Just doesn’t add up.
It’s like renting an apartment vs owning a home. For all the money you spend on the apartment, you have to give it back when you’re done. Silly.
[I]Priority One is to make a dirt-cheap RAM-based iPod (not a penny more than $99). Being stuck with just one kind of portable player isn’t a big deal when your only choice is the best available, but Apple needs to have a unit that everybody can afford[/I]
Why is this Priority One? And how is it possible to make a reasonable iPod family device for that money? $99 will get you what? 128MB, 256MB, maybe 512MB at a stretch? So you can put 125 songs into your portable life at most, and at the lowest resolution.
Actually, the future is to drop the 4GB iPod mini to around $179-$199 to make space for a 6GB (the next 1″ microdrive on Hitachi’s roadmap) model at $225. That then leads to a 2GB iPod mini at around $149, which at least gives you 500 songs at 128kbits.
Apple would then have minis at 500, 1000 and 1500 songs and iPod maxis at maybe 5000, 7500, and 12500 songs.
Didn’t this guy used to be a contributor to Macworld?
Dunno. Don’t read MacWorld. Their subscription department is run by monkeys. Tried three times to renew my subscription, and they still cut me off. All I get now are those annoying “why haven’t you renewed your subscription” letters.
Yeah. Inhatko used to be at MacWorld. Usually I agree with him, and I always enjoy his unique wit But I think he’s off base here.
I think this guy has a valid point. It may be smart in the short term to try and squeeze a few competitors out of the market (ie. Napster). However, in the long run an ally is much better than an enemy. What would it hurt if they licensed Fairplay to RealNetworks? The format would gain marketshare and more importantly, mindshare. It would give even more people a reason to buy an iPod and less reasons to even think about Window Media format.
Likewise, his point about iPod pricing seems valid too. There is a huge market of people that simply would never spend $249 or more on a mp3/aac player. Those people will buy a sony or a rio regardless, and will never be able to use iTunes/AAC/Fairplay. This will drive a lot of people to the Windows format and other download sites, actually increasing their marketshare. By allowing other players to work with iTunes, or at the very least making and entry level player, they would be pulling even more people into the fold making iPod/iTunes/AAC the undisputed champion.
If they stay their current course, the competition will inevitably reach a critical mass and we will have the Mac vs. PC battle repeated all over again. Just my two cents.
Apple opens up iTunes interface on Windows
Check out this article
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1084819754.html
MCCFR: i met be wrong but isnt the ipod mini cost $50 to make
Brian is completely right. Its not about selling iPods. Its the format that matters. open that up to others to use and spread the AAC everywhere. that will help insure Apples survival in music. The iPods account for 2/3s of sales of mp3 players but only 1/3 of units sold. that means there is a large part of the market not being addressed by iPods. Apple needs to enter that market and there the prices are around $100
Apple can’t supply pricey ipods. Imagine the wait time for inexpensive ipods.
until apple has caught up w ipod sales.. why the hell license fairplay??@ lmfao
these guys don’t understand that apple is a promise to the consumer of a pleasant computing experience..
hanging out w real et al. breaks that promise
0:
There’s no way that a 4GB iPod mini costs $50 to make, given that the disk is probably $100-$125 of the current cost when you’re buying in Apple’s volume.
However, the ability to increase that production by an order of magnitude will have an effect on Apple’s buy-in price given that Apple’s demand by this Xmas will probably be around 800,000 units a quarter out of around 2.5 million units made of all sizes.
The 6GB iPod mini will make an appearance sometime in 2005, taking the position that the 4GB currently has thanks to being Hitachi’s flagship Microdrive product.
I totally agree with this guy. I have been saying that Apple has to license out Fairplay at some point all along to totally sew up the market. I hope that they lock M$ out of this for years and years so more and more people can love iTunes and come to the Mac Platform.
As for the cheap player, this is a point I haven’t been making but it does make sense. We all know how cheap Joe Sixpack can be. If they do come out with something like this though, I hope they can really differentiate it from everything else out there. Maybe make it really really tiny – a MP3 player tie-clip? – an MP3 player incorporated into some really nice noise canceling headphones (oh wait, that wouldn’t be cheap, cancel the noise canceling bit)
I totally agree with this guy. I have been saying that Apple has to license out Fairplay at some point all along to totally sew up the market. I hope that they lock M$ out of this for years and years so more and more people can love iTunes and come to the Mac Platform.
As for the cheap player, this is a point I haven’t been making but it does make sense. We all know how cheap Joe Sixpack can be. If they do come out with something like this though, I hope they can really differentiate it from everything else out there. Maybe make it really really tiny – a MP3 player tie-clip? – an MP3 player incorporated into some really nice noise canceling headphones (oh wait, that wouldn’t be cheap, cancel the noise canceling bit)
It’s not about licensing FairPlay on the *device and player* side, it’s about licensing it on the *store* side. It’s perfectly okay for the iPod to be the only family of devices that can handle it, and it’s even pretty okay for iTunes/QuickTime to be the only software framework that can handle it, because the iPod has huge market share, and iTunes is heading in that direction too.
But to really give WMV a much-deserved smackdown, Apple needs to license the encoding-side part of FairPlay to everyone who wants to use it. That would result in more companies selling AAC-encoded, FairPlay-DRM’ed songs that play in iTunes and on the iPod.
But what of the money, you ask? Pshaw. Apple’s flat-out said that the iTunes Music Store isn’t about making money off songs, it’s about selling iPods. Every other music store that sells AAC/FairPlay songs isn’t (at 99 cents a song) going to make huge amounts of money either – but it’s going to help sell iPods.
So when Real or whoever comes knocking, Steve should just say “sure, we’ll license FairPlay DRM encoding to you; that way your users can buy songs that are playable on *fanfare* The Most Popular Player In The Galaxy,” and laugh all the way to the bank.
Technically, Apple could even license the software bits that make it possible for iTunes to handle AAC/FairPlay and talk to iPods (and with the iTunes API, they have sort of kind of done this already!), since iTunes isn’t making them any money either – it’s just there to sell iPods, too.
The more support there is for AAC/FairPlay in online stores (and potentially jukebox software), the more iPods Apple sells. It’s not rocket science.
If you can, you DO…if you can’t you teach or become a writer.
Yawn!
And if you can’t DO or be a Teacher or Writer, you post to these forums!
The iPod/iTunes platform works and sells because the two are designed to work as a unit. If Fairplay was licensed then issues regarding synchronization with the iPod would ensue and the simple overall experience would suffer. Or, in order to synch correctly, all the songs would need to be imported into iTunes anyway. So the I think licensing Fairplay won’t Apple at all.
Now…a less expensive iPod would really be nice. Spending $250-$500 for an entertainment device is really expensive and most people won’t do it.
Brian wrote:
“There is a huge market of people that simply would never spend $249 or more on a mp3/aac player. Those people will buy a sony or a rio regardless, and will never be able to use iTunes/AAC/Fairplay. This will drive a lot of people to the Windows format and other download sites, actually increasing their marketshare.”
This comment – and all the similar “cheaper iPods/licencing Fairplay posts – is flawed in logic.
If there is a HUGE market after cheaper mp3/aac players – why haven’t all the CURRENT “cheaper” mp3 players been out-selling the iPod?
Reasons:
1) They are crap to use – so they don’t provide a compelling reason for people to ENTER the portable mp3 player market.
2) This so called “massive” market doesn’t exist. People that aren’t willing/able to pay more that US$99 (or even US$149), aren’t willing to buy music online (or offline?).
To me, if you can’t afford to save up to buy an iPod, you’ll never have enough spare cash to buy music – so you will have little, if no use, for a portable mp3 player.
There may be a FEW absolute music nuts that spend so much on music that they have no spare cash – but again then they wouldn’t be able to spare even US$99.
This whole make it cheaper & you’ll get more customers arguemnet is flawed. If you can’t afford and iPod (you may have to save for one), you really aren’t in the portable mp3 player market, or at least the SEGMENT that Apple is interested in (ie customers with enough cash to buy something).
Joe Sixpack, MAY buy a cheaper RIO (or other such rubbish), but then he probably “steals” his music – cause he can’t afford it.
Regarding making a solid state/card based iPod – WHY? The iPod’s brilliance is its ability to store most/ALL of your music on a single device and listen to ANY of the songs on it anywhere, anytime. The card devices (usually about <512MB – 1gig cards are $$$) hold a LIMITED number of songs, meaning you are constantly having to move songs on & off the device, so that you can listen to the music you currently like (I speak from experience with a Sony device – I have learnt my lesson – what a load of crap, & at the time US$300).
Disclaimer: I’m not a Mac zealot,I don’t even own one – YET (I have been interested in Apple/Macs since I saw my first iPod, & have decided my next computer WILL be a Mac) AND I don’t own an iPod – YET (I’m waiting for the iPod mini to be launched in Australia – July we are told).
In the short term things look very good for Apple. However, in the long term they are digging themselves into yet another hole. By not licensing Fairplay and encouraging greater use of AAC beyond the closed iTunes/iPod loop they are ensuring the long term dominance of WMA. In the recent press conference this very question was asked of Steve regarding opening up FairPlay to encourage more online stores. After all, Steve Jobs himself has admitted that they don’t intend to make their money with the online store, their goal is iPod sales. What better way to increase iPod sales than to encourage more stores to use the format? I feel that Steve’s arrogance gets in the way of sound planning. I say this and I am a Mac and iPod owner.
agreed! the truth is MOST people have alot of stolen music in mp3 format and LOTS of CD’s at home which can be ripped to iTunes..
I have about 100 CD’s..
if i wanted to rip those.. that’s about 1200-1500 tracks..
guess what.. I need about 6 gigs..
And apple wants to sell me more music on the iTunes store..
Sorry they’re not going near the 1 Gig market.. it’s a pain in the ease dealing w that little storage..
screw this writer.. and keep bringing out these iPod license deals.. like the HP deal
one reason why apple should in the future license fairplay…. or at least enable itunes and the ipod play songs bought from other companies…..
say you’re an iriver user and you bought a thousand songs and then you realize that you made a mistake and got an ipod instead….. will you be throwing away your investment in songs to switch to the ipod?
that seems like a good reason… it makes the ipod easier to switch to…. i know the ipod is the market leader.. but there are sure to be potential ipod switchers out there….. like the kids who got an iriver for christmas cos their parents were either too cheap or to impatient to wait in line….
“Unlike the tracks you rip from CDs, the tracks you buy through the Music Store only work with the iTunes app and the iPod portable player.
Yes, if you burn them onto a CD, you can re-rip them in Windows Media and use them on any desktop or portable you want, but that’s a solution fit for the Age of Steam, not the Push-Button World of Tomorrow.”
Gee, I was completely unaware that non-iPod players and non-Apple music sites were so broad minded and progressive to allow iPod owners to download tunes in AAC.
Gosh, Ihnatko, you are a lazy person or maybe you speak for all the other lazy people or speak for all those folks who now regret not buying an iPod. I�m sure that your pain will pass and, after comparing yourself to so many other people in the world, you will achieve a better life perspective.
I haven’t heard much complaint from iPod users that they are “limited” to iTunes. Certainly, iTunes doesn’t have all the tunes I like, I still purchase CD’s, and I wait for improvements in iPod technology; however, I have no desire or need to abandon my iPod and forsake iTunes.
Why is Apple expected to permit something that it competitors are reticent to do? Why are Apple�s competitors so worked up about Apple�s �insular� music practices? Certainly the market place should determine the winners and losers not a few �experts� who have no financial stake in online music.