“Some lucky music fan will hit the jackpot very soon. The person who downloads the 100 millionth song from Apple Computer’s iTunes online music store will win a sleek new laptop, an iPod digital music player and a gift certificate to download a further 10,000 songs,” Scott Morrison writes for The Financial Times.
“Generous? Certainly. But no amount of hype is too great for a company that has so much riding on the future of digital entertainment,” Morrison writes. “The iPod and iTunes have vaulted Apple to the forefront of the online music market, with an estimated 25 per cent share of the digital music player market and a 70 per cent share of legal downloads.”
Morrison writes, “But the market is in its infancy, online music services have proliferated and standards vary. Competitors appear to be closing in… unless it acts soon, Apple could see its commanding lead in digital music disappear. The risk is that history would repeat itself, with Apple again relegated to the fringes of a booming market.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Music is music. It is not software written for one OS or another. The Mac and its market share issues cannot be used as a guide for iPod. It is just as easy to encode music in one format as another. There is no need to develop a “version” of music for differing player platforms; hence, no massive extra development costs. Apple’s plan is sound and it is working spectacularly.
More FUD.
what competitors?
My thoughts exactly, Jadis. It’s getting really pathetic, and with every new article, sounds more and more desparate.
music is NOT music in the digital world. You cannot play music purchased from iTMS on any mobile player except for the iPod. Conversely, the iPod cannot play any music purchased from other music sites. This is very much a marketshare issue. This is AAC vs WMA. If WMA wins, iPod sales will go down dramatically (unless it supports WMA, which will never happen), and we will stop seeing the benefits of a ubiquitous player, like all those cool accessories that have come out by third party companies.
“what competitors?”
LOL
and if AAC wins, nothing changes…for Apple.
Just pointiing out other emd to your argument.
Don’t be too quick to write off Apple.
^ pointing (ed.)
Hey Ed, don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing off Apple. I think they’ve been doing good things with the iPod. Heck, I just bought an iPod mini for my wife. I just disagree with the notion that music is music. In this world, it has fractured out into proprietary systems when purchasing tunes.
Oh, ok iggy. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
On a different note, I’d like to know why everyone (ANALysts) seems to be so eager to spell Apple’s doom the minute a company announces a new music product. They do it nearly EVERY time, and EVERY time (so far) they have been wrong. You think they’d learn by now, huh.
It’s almost as if they were “panicking” for the company to charge ahead in full speed with the iPod. That’s a more positive note from me. But really….they are all cynics.
the funny part about wma is that Apple could support it if they wanted to. they just choose right now not to. and they would still sell tons of ipods. just wait until the mini is truly available before writing off apple. i believe market share for all ipods will jump even higher by the end of the year.
Ed, I do not think those ANALysts will ever learn. I think that is why they write. They were not smart enough to work for an Apple or Sony or (insert tech company here).
Not only will the mini help the iPod marketshare grow, but also the deal with HP. The amazing thing is that Apple has a 52% unit marketshare with the iPod (as of March), and that’s NOT Including the mini shipping internationally, or HP with their ‘hPod’. Imagine what the numbers are going to look like at the end of the year. Personally, I am expecting 60%-at the LEAST. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they hit 70%.
Talk about HUGE GLOAT TIME for Steve
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
I can’t wait!!!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
“Dell…Napster…Creative…what’s that?” – Joe consumer, one year from now.
Mr. Morrison, I would like you to meet Mr. Evangelista. Mr. Evangelista; Mr. Morrison.
Mike
JadisOne
They’re probably smart enough to work for Microsoft, though, in WMA development.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Is he referring to Apple or Sony – “a company that has so much riding on the future of digital entertainment.”
But these hardly amount to the big leap forward that will enable Apple to stay ahead of competitors.
Read it as: “But these [competitors’] efforts hardly amount to the big leap forward that will enable them to make a dent on Apple’s success.”
But unless it acts soon, Apple could see its commanding lead in digital music disappear. The risk is that history would repeat itself, with Apple again relegated to the fringes of a booming market.
Read as: “But unless they act soon, these competitors could see Apple’s commanding lead in digital music become unassailable. The risk is that history would reverse itself, with Apple garnering the lion’s share of a booming market.”
The (astoundingly BASIC) thing that these “analysts” fail to analyze is that most people put their personal music collection onto the iPod first. There are few, if any, customers who purchase a player exclusively to buy music off the web. The iTMS is a great ancillary benefit but most people are filling iPods with their own ripped tunes when they first crack the box open.
And the iTunes software is available on both major commercial consumer platforms. You can take the music with you on literally over 100 million other-brand devices: CD players. If you’ve elected to rip your personal collection to MP3, as oppposed to AAC in iTunes, ANY player with Mac connectivity will do. This is why it’s pure folly to focus only on what format people purchase on the net as the deciding factor (at least at this early stage).
Anybody who really thinks this through knows full well how difficult it will be for competitors to make up the lost ground and the iPod’s growing ubiquity. In a lot of non-tech savvy people’s minds an MP3 player is “one of those iPod things?”, just like a soda is a “Coke.” The more this perception becomes reality, the more difficult it will be for late comers. The great news for everybody, except those trying to inuit their way to the holy “iPod killer” grail, is that it will take staggering innovation and feature set improvement to shift the balance.
In the left corner: would be vegetarian, sandal-clad, piracy-fighting, hippie cofounder of Apple Computer and current reigning champion of the digital music market — Steeeeve Jobs!
In the right corner: a bunch of bumbling, desperate, red-faced leaders of the largest and richest corporations of the world….
Realistically, what are the odds?
The challengers don’t stand a chance!
As usual everybody misses the point!
iPod is great, but the real challenge will be telephones with MP3 players included. What will Apple do about that? I hope to see a partnership with Nokia (or another) soon to license fair play and design a new product. otherwise in 5 years iPod is dead.
Java, you took the words out of my mouth. Cell phones will be the competition, not these crap devices from Sony, M$ and Dell. The first time I did an isync with my Motorolla 730 cellphone, I knew my palm would start collecting dust. Having appointments and contacts synced from Address Book and iCal on my cell is a great feeling. If they could incorporate a 5-40 gig HD that plays MP3s, then that would really be competition to the iPod.
Apple’s next logical step should be to liscense the ipod interface and technology to the cell phone makers.
People should read the entire article. It is so incredibly filled with errors and misconceptions that it is crazy:
Article:
“Apple is going to downplay the notion of a video iPod because they don’t have one at the moment. But that is something that is going to have to change,”
My comments: No, Steve Jobs (correctly, in my view) has stated that music is listened to over and over while favorite films are not. What about music videos? Who would want to watch them on a 3-inch screen? If you want to watch music videos, get a small DVD player.
The article:
“Phil Leigh, an analyst at Inside Digital Media, believes Apple should open up the software that powers the iPod so that third-party developers can make the unit even more versatile.
“Such a radical strategy would go against Apple’s past record. The company has kept close control of its Macintosh computer software, notwithstanding its dwindling market share.”
My comment:
Already, 3rd party developers are designing and marketing software that allows people to do other things with their iPods. Leigh just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
As to Apple keeping “close control of its Macintosh computer software,” wake up and move into the 21st century, bub! The core of the Mac OS is Open Source and available to anyone. The same is true with various aspects of the system and some of their applications. Already, 3rd party developers are using, for example, the core of Safari to design their own web browsers. Apple includes with every copy of their OS, at no charge, applictions that will allow anyone to design applications for the Mac.
So stop living in the 20th century and move into the present where Apple is open and the company that has been facing lawsuits and major losses due to an aging, proprietary OS, bloated application, hiding APIs so that others can’t make their applications run as well as they can with theirs, and monopolistic behavior, is named Microsoft.
The cell phone argument is interesting, but I wonder how well that would compete against an iPod. The iPod is great for managing large music libraries because of its interface, something that would be hard to replacate 100% on a cell phone.
I could see cellphones overtaking the low-end flash player market due to its already small size, and limited interface, but could you really imagine browsing through 10,000 songs on a tiny cell phone screen?
^ replicate (sp)
People keep missing the point in regards to the “Video iPod”. Video and audio are two completely different types of medium that require a different set of senses to enjoy. You can listen to music on an iPod and drive a car, just like listening to the radio. You cannot (or should not!) watch a music video or movie while driving! Music can be a background activity- that is a big part of its appeal. Video however, requires your attention on a higher, more focused level- it must be a “foreground” activity.
Go ahead Microshaft, make a portable video player and watch it flop like the tablet PC. It will NOT be an “iPod killer” or what the music-listening populous wants.
People don’t get that the iPod’s beauty is in its simplicity and elegance. It simply “gets out of the way” and allows you to simply enjoy the music. Adding video won’t do that.