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.
I always thought subscription services were detested here (seems I’ve read a many of MDN Takes saying they’d never work, etc)… I know my feelings for them are still as such. NO THANKS on renting my music… I view that same as renting a place to live, a waste of money when you have the option of owning.
That’s not to say I can’t be convinced otherwise, just until someone can do so, I’ll continue detesting subscription services for music (movies are slightly different, since I generally don’t watch a movie repeatedly… but I still would prefer to own something I’m paying for).
My 2¢
I think the subscription service is great for someone that wants to explore music. I don’t want to buy dozens of new songs a month that I may decide I don’t like. It’s the difference between interactive discovery and being spoon-fed by radio…kind of like the difference between the web and tv.
Subscription AppleTV? Isn’t that called “cable”? I just wish Apple and NBC would make up as I’ve been looking for a viable way to dump my cable company.
If Apple is trading adding a music subscription service (as a condition) for making all of its “a la carte” music 256 kbps and DRM-free, I’m all for it.
Just because a service exists, it doesn’t mean I have to use it. If the only way to pay for it is to get a $100+ annual subscription, it does not seem like Apple is pushing the service too much. Then again, this could be “just a rumor.”
I’m fine with a music subscription if it’s implemented well. I don’t really care if I “own” music, I just want to be able to listen to what I want, when I want. That’s why I pay for music now… after all, I only benefit when I’m actually listening to something, and I want to support the musicians whose music I listen to. The “product of service” model may be a bit odd to a materialistic (focused on owning stuff rather than benefitting from stuff) society, but I dig it.
The key of course is “implemented well”. I need to be able to listen any time… perhaps now with the iPhone (which I don’t own) a music subscription service will make more sense, because in theory you could listen at [almost] any time. This has been the achilles heel of other services. The other weakness is that I listen to a lot of obscure stuff that isn’t available on iTunes, so I won’t be able to listen to it on an iTunes subscription service.
“NO THANKS on renting my music… I view that same as renting a place to live, a waste of money when you have the option of owning.”
I don’t get it… those things are nothing alike. Your digital download has zero value to anyone but you, so it is not at all like owning a house, which you can resell. Even if you sell a CD, you generally can’t sell it for more than you bought it for, so it’s not an investment but an expense. Subscription or not, you’re just spending a certain amount per year for the ability to listen to certain songs that you want to hear.
Too much detail. I say fake.
ken1w… I don’t think you understand who it is that wants DRM. It’s not Apple. jobs said back when the iTunes store opened that he didn’t think DRM worked and didn’t want it, but the labels pushed it on him. If he adds a new service that requires DRM that will be seen by the labels as a concession, and REDUCE the likelihood of majors other than EMI going DRM-free on iTunes.
WHAT A F*KING HYPOCRITE!!!
Subscription was deemed the Anti-Christ by Jobs. Now it’s F*kng Nirvanha! WTF? This had better not be true. I am beginning to lose all manners of respect for Jobs if he does this. I have long held the iTunes model as the most successful online music marketing program, because it destroyed the subscription based models.
Now This? I don’t get it!
and artists get paid…. how exactly?
wow my post is the only one not written by an idiot, and mine doesn’t say anything…weird
@Peter da Silva
> jobs said back when the iTunes store opened that he didn’t think DRM worked and didn’t want it, but the labels pushed it on him.
What Steve Jobs says and what he really wants are two different things. He and Apple are the master manipulators of the media. Philosophically, he personally probably believes DRM is bad for customers, but DRM is NOT bad for Apple, and Steve Jobs knows it. The more DRM’ed songs Apple sells from the iTunes Store, the more likely customers will keep buying iPods in the future.
Apple gains nothing at this point by going DRM-free on all songs. In fact, if they do so, it just allows all of Apple’s hardware-making competitors to declare their less popular music players to be “compatible with the iTunes Store.” So Apple will keep using DRM, while blaming the music industry for “forcing” the use of DRM, for as long as possible. It’s an amazingly smart and well-executed strategy…
ken: I’m not talking about Jobs’ beliefs, nor do I care what they are, I’m talking about his public position. If his public position to DRMed music (which is currently one of opposition) changes, than that will weaken his position vis-a-vis DRM.
“Apple gains nothing at this point by going DRM-free on all songs.”
They gain leverage against attempts to force them to use a common DRM in Europe, which indirectly provides them leverage against Microsoft’s Windows media format.
“In fact, if they do so, it just allows all of Apple’s hardware-making competitors to declare their less popular music players to be “compatible with the iTunes Store.””
Not unless their competitors add AAC to their music players. Re-encoding the music from AAC to MP3 or WMA causes the same loss of quality whether you’re “mix-burn-rip”-ing Apple’s DRM off the music or not. It’s not the DRM that produces a lock-in to iTunes, it’s the fact that very few media player support AAC.
DRM on music buys Apple very little. It doesn’t lock users in to iTunes (seriously, I’ve used both iPods and other music players with iTMS music, both “m4p” and “m4a”, and there’s virtually no difference in the process). All it does is get them a larger music livrary than they would have if they only had independents and EMI on board.
DRM on music has a large cost to Apple. It costs development time to maintain, it requires more frequent updates to iTunes than if they didn’t have to push a new version out every time a new Fairplay crack comes out, and it opens them up to liability in markets like Europe.
They have practical reasons to take a pragmatic stance against DRM, and weakening that stance is not good for them long term. That doesn’t mean they won’t change that stance if it’s profitable to, but you shoudln’t just dismiss it like that.
@Peter da Silva
Most of the better competing music players play non-DRM AAC. SanDisk does. So does Sony. Even Zune plays AAC files. There is no need to re-encode. And if iTunes became DRM-free for 100% of songs, you can bet any iPod competitor without AAC support will suddenly gain that ability to become “compatible with the iTune Store.”
> DRM on music buys Apple very little.
Sure it does. It locks other music players out of the most popular (by far) online music store. And the percentage of ALL music bought from the iTunes Store is getting larger and larger each month. You think preventing other players from using the iTunes Store is “very little”?
> DRM on music has a large cost to Apple. It costs development time to maintain
Most of the R&D;is already spent. Hackers have given up trying to hack FairPlay as a non-profitable venture because Apple can EASILY disable the hacks.
The iTunes Store is a break-even proposition when it comes to music. It exists to push iPod sales. If Apple went 100% “iTunes Plus,” the cost to Apple will be in the need to serve up 2x size files that are 256 kbps (versus the current 128 kbps) and operating a huge (mostly break-even) online music operation that benefits competing music players as much as it does iPods. That’s what I call a “large cost to Apple,” not the small ongoing cost to maintain a DRM system
Apple’s competition is not Amazon. Amazon sells a huge percentage of iPods and Macs for Apple; Amazon is Apple partner. Apple does not mind if Amazon succeeds in selling non-DRM MP3 files, as long as most of those customers are playing those songs on iPods. Even Microsoft is not really Apple’s competitor (except when it comes to the inconsequential Zune). Apple’s competition are companies that make completing hardware products.
If Apple simply removed music DRM at this point, it would weaken Apple’s market position against its true competition. I’m not criticizing Apple for keeping DRM… I’m commending them for playing it smart by keeping DRM in place as long as possible while passing the blame to the “evil” music industry. Well played, Apple!
I don’t know whose fault it is, but you’re arguing against a different point than the one I was actually making, and I’m not interested in getting sidetracked.
Apple is not taking a stand against DRM because they think it will win them marketing points with the 1% of the population who cares about it. Apple is not taking a stand against DRM because of any technical issues. Apple is taking a stand against DRM because the European government threatened to force them into DRM interoperability. Why do they care? because that would be a huge cost, no matter how they did it: it would require them to either support WMA (and take on a bunch of contractual obligations to Microsoft that they don’t want), or license fairplay (and that would mean they could no longer react quickly when fairplay was broken, because they’d have to coordinate with sandisk and the rest, and that would hurt them in their contracts with the music companies).
This has nothing to do with “passing the blame”, or with the “evil” music companies. Most people don’t care about DRM, many don’t even know it’s in there unless it breaks. Most people don’t even play DRMed music on their iPods, and the only music they have from the itunes store are the freebies they got with their iPod… if they bothered. When Starbucks did their iTunes promotion, the local Starbucks ended up throwing out most of the iTunes music cards. And yet, even without this “iTunes lockin”, people keep buying iPods, year after year. Why is that?
Have a look at how many iPod accessories you can get at best buy, next time you’re there. And have a look at how many Sandisk or Sony accessories there are. See if you can find any that are specific to the player, the way iPod accessories tend to be. If you find any, see if any of them are compatible with the players Sandisk was selling 3 years ago.
> Apple is taking a stand against DRM because the European government threatened to force them into DRM interoperability.
> Most people don’t even play DRMed music on their iPods, and the only music they have from the itunes store are the freebies they got with their iPod… if they bothered. When Starbucks did their iTunes promotion…
So on one hand, you’re saying Apple is motivated to get rid of DRM because of regulatory concerns in Europe. But on the other hand, “most people” don’t have DRM’ed files on their iPods, so Apple should not even care too much about DRM. Your argument in contradictory.
Besides, I haven’t heard a peep out of those doofus regulators in Europe in over a year; it’s a non-issue. If they were going to act (and not just talk their BS), they would have done so by now.
And I have not purchased a CD in over two or three years; all of my new songs have come from online sources, mostly the iTunes Store. Apple recently sold it 5 billionth song from the iTunes Store (it’s probably close to 6 billion by now). I question your assumption that “most people” do not have DRM’ed files on their iPods. The rate of sales in increasing, so the current DRM system become ever more relevant to Apple over time (the longer it continues).
As a customer, I want the iTunes Store to be DRM-free on all songs and (more importantly for me) at 256 kbps. I too believe Apple will succeed with selling iPods whether the iTunes Store is has DRM or no DRM. My primary point is that Apple has no great incentive to get rid of DRM in a hurry, and I personally believe Apple will keep it going as long as feasible.
But as a secondary point, if this new DRM in the form of a subscription service (if true) is what allows Apple to SELL all of its songs at 256 kbps and DRM-free, I’m all for it. I’ll just ignore it and keep buying my songs for 99 cents, but at a higher quality and with no DRM. THAT would be awesome.
It’s not my statement that’s contradictory, it’s the European government’s position that’s contradictory. Apple defused it by getting rid of DRM from a portion of their catalog. For now. The law grinds slowly, an issue can go away for months or years or even decades and then pop up again.
Getting back to where we started, “if this new DRM in the form of a subscription service (if true) is what allows Apple to SELL all of its songs at 256 kbps and DRM-free, I’m all for it.”
My original point was that it’s unlikely to the point of impossibility that a subscription service would have that effect. I can not conceive how you could possibly imagine that it would have that effect. It would weaken Apple’s position against DRM (regardless of WHY they have taken that position, they HAVE taken it), and hurt them in their negotiations with the labels.
All your babbling about whether Apple’s “really” against DRM or not is irrelevant, because the reasons don’t matter… a subscription service is a movement away from the goal you’re looking for.