“Steve Jobs has the twinkling confidence of someone who is battling the entire technology and media establishment—and winning. At his highly anticipated keynote speech yesterday at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, Apple’s cocky co-founder laid out the next phase in his plan to turn his company’s hardware, software and online services into the digital media hub of the entire world. Aside from expanding the video content in the iTunes library and rolling out newer versions of his iPhoto and iVideo [sic] editing software, Jobs unveiled new iMacs and MacBook Pro laptops, which are now powered by Intel chips. They run at up to several times the speed Apple’s old G4 and G5-processor computers,” Brad Stone writes for Newsweek.
“Jobs announced that iTunes will hit the billion-songs-purchased mark in the next few months… The iTunes store is currently selling songs at a rate of 3 million per day, and it accounts for 83 percent of all digital music sales. Last October, Apple beat all of its rivals to the online video marketplace, and has since sold more than eight million videos, including TV programs from content providers such as NBC, ABC and of course, Jobs’ other company, Pixar,” Stone writes. “Apple’s secret sauce is the soothing consistency and reliability of its service. Apple sells songs for 99 cents, videos for $1.99, and ensures that all these songs, podcasts, TV shows and short films work on its own stylish line of iPods. One day, consumers might rebel against the copyright restrictions Apple places on its digital files and the lack of variety in its line of media players. For now, they simply love how seamlessly Apple’s media ecosystem works.”
“Last week, I got a glimpse of Apple’s competition—which is pretty much everyone else in high-tech. At Las Vegas’s sprawling, chaotic four day Consumer Electronics Show (CES), giants like Microsoft and Intel, Google and Yahoo, Samsung and Sony, the Starz movie service and phone firms Verizon and Sprint, all announced their own digital media initiatives. The conclusion: every media store will work a little differently, prices and plans will be wildly inconsistent and not everyone’s technology will be compatible,” Stone writes. “No wonder Steve Jobs has that grin on his face.”
Full article here.
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