Make no mistake about it: the digital music space will be turned upside down this year, courtesy of giants like Apple, Google, HP, Sony and now, Amazon.
Earlier today, the latter announced that it was entering the world of digital music locker services with a bang, introducing services dubbed Cloud Drive and Cloud Player that basically let you store your digital music – and more – in the cloud and stream it from browsers on any computer as well as from Android phones. → Read More
This past weekend, we broke the news that iOS 5, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, was likely being released in the fall. This would break the tradition of a summer release. And we also noted that instead of a separate event in the early spring, Apple was likely to use their WWDC event in June to talk about the new OS for the first time. Sure enough, today came word from Apple that seems to verify both things.
Apple will host WWDC in San Francisco on June 6 through June 10, they formally announced today. The focus of the event? “At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” Apple marketing exec Phil Schiller says in the release. Yes, that means iOS 5 as well as OS X Lion. We previously reported that Lion development was moving along quickly and it could mean a release around WWDC. I suspect we may at least see a release candidate given to developers around then.
And if Apple intends to first show off iOS 5 at the event, they won’t release it then. Developers will need time to prepare their apps for the big changes in store. → Read More
Today at their event in San Francisco, a familiar face took the stage: Apple CEO Steve Jobs. And he kicked things off with some big numbers. The biggest was this: 200 million people now have Apple ID (iTunes) accounts. These are accounts tied to credit cards with one-click purchase access.
“Amazon doesn’t publish their numbers. But it’s very likely that this is the most accounts with cards anywhere on the Internet,” Jobs said. → Read More
Southwest Airlines, of Kevin Smith fame, has partnered with Apple to create an in-flight entertainment download store called InAirtainment. Users would connect to the Internet via in-flight Wi-Fi, then download music, movies, and TV shows. Southwest gets a small percentage of the fee. → Read More
In my previous post about Apple’s new subscription plans for the App Store, I offered up three possibilities. With the move, Apple is either: brilliant, brazen, or batsh*t crazy. But reading over the comments on that post (admit it, you did — it’s okay, I do too, sometimes), you might think there was a fourth option: evil.
To those who have followed tech news for any extended length of time, this is a familiar refrain. Company X changes something, therefore Company X is “evil”. Over the years, this has been true of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, etc. But no company has seen this vitriol to the extent of Apple over the past few years. And curiously, it seems correlated to their meteoric rise in power and profitability.
But if Apple is really evil — or at the very least, if several major moves they’ve made over the past few years have been evil — shouldn’t the opposite be true? Shouldn’t Apple be losing a ton of customers who are fed up with their cruelty and inhumane torture of developers, users, and the world in general? Makes sense, right? → Read More
We all knew it was coming, but the details of the App Store subscription model, which Apple outlined today, are fascinating on a number of levels. Simply put: this is one of the boldest bets Apple has ever made. And it could backfire. Or it could be huge beyond belief. Either way, it’s going to be very controversial.
We’ve already gone over the basics, but as a quick recap: any service offering an app with any sort of subscription component must now offer it within the app using the new in-app subscription options. Those companies are welcome to offer subscriptions outside of the app as well, but they must also have to option to do it in-app and it must be for the same price (or cheaper) than the out-of-app option. If a subscriber signs up in-app, Apple keeps 30 percent of those revenues. If they sign up outside of the app (still granting them accesses to the app), the company keeps 100 percent of the revenues. → Read More
How big a business are mobile apps? In a new report, market research firm Gartner forecasts that global mobile app store revenues will triple from $5.2 billion last year to $15 billion in 2011, and keep growing to an astounding $58 billion by 2014. As with any forecast of a hypergrowth market, you can be sure this one will change in six months, and the further out you go the more guesswork involved. (Remember, less than a year ago nobody was even able to predict how many iPads would be sold this year). But here is one prediction you can count on: you will be hearing these numbers thrown around a lot all year long until a better forecast comes along.
Gartner breaks down the forecast into advertising revenues and paid downloads (including in-app purchases), as you can see from the chart above. Paid downloads and other direct purchases make up the majority of the expected revenues, but mobile advertising is expected to grow nicely over time into a multi-billion dollar market. → Read More
Here we are. Apple has announced on this promotion page that there have been 10 billion downloads from its App Store since its inception.
It’s a huge milestone in the life of the App Store, which lets people downloads games and software programs for their iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. → Read More
Apple has revealed its year-end iTunes charts, and it turns out that Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” was the single most downloaded song of the year. My first reaction was, “That’s Train singing that song, what?!” Shows how little I’m plugged in to popular culture these days. Now, if you want my opinion on who should win the Ballon d’Or, on the other hand… → Read More
While it won’t help you listen to John Cage’s 4:44, you can now listen to most of Blitzkrieg Bop (2:12) and all of Napalm Death song thanks to the new 90-second preview in iTunes. Launched last night, the preview appears work with only a few select songs including Dark Fantasy by Kanye West.
Sadly, this only applies to songs 2:30 in length or more. Songs shorter than this will maintain the 30 second preview. → Read More
We’ve already highlighted the four apps that Apple has chosen as their “award winners” for 2010. But they’ve also highlighted the following: Overall Paid iPhone Apps, Overall Free iPhone Apps, Overall Grossing iPhone Apps, Overall Paid iPad Apps, Overall Free iPad Apps, Overall Grossing iPad Apps.
Below, find the full top 10 lists for each of those. One thing interesting to note: the top three grossing iPad apps for the year are all made by Apple themselves (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote). Also interesting: MLB At-Bat.com 2010 beat out Angry Birds as the top-grossing iPhone app — even though it’s currently free. That’s because the baseball season is over, but in-season the app is $15 → Read More
Apple has just announced their year-end top lists for iTunes, which they call “iTunes Rewind”. These lists span music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, etc. But the most interesting list is probably for apps.
Notably, they break the top apps of the year into whether they’re designed for the iPhone (and iPod touch) or the iPad. And this year, they’ve selected four apps that they’re especially featuring as “award winners” for 2010. Those are: Hipstamtic [iTunes Link], Plants Vs. Zombies [iTunes Link], Flipboard [iTunes Link], and Osmos [iTunes Link]. → Read More
Navigating Apple TV and its various peeks into the presumed future has been a valuable waste of time. For $100 plus an HDMI cable I get to sample various media dead ends including NetFlix, iTunes rental, buy, and streaming options, YouTube, and other stuff I can’t remember right now. In the past, I would have spent more time testing the work arounds for adding podcasts and ripped music to broaden the choices, but something about the device suggests we’re in such a rapid shakeout it might be easier to wait.
But for what? Google TV seems caught in little brother mode behind the next loser tablet wave. What ultimate value is there in trading Apple’s dead ends for another set of second rate dead ends? The idea that we can replace the aggregate value of the Hollywood studio system with some loose coalition of rag tag revolutionary product ignores the tendency for the avant-garde to go mainstream. At some point, having everything work from one device is the best way of killing any possible interest in what’s available. → Read More
Obviously, there is a lot of pent-up demand for the Beatles on iTunes. Decades after their last album, they were still the third best-selling music group last year, and that was without any digital sales. Since going live on iTunes for the first time this morning, all 17 albums are currently in the top 100 best selling albums on iTunes. And 15 of them are in the top 50.
The best selling Beatles album is Abbey Road, currently at No. 12, followed by the White Album (no. 14), Sgt. Pepper’s (No. 15), and the $149 Box set (No. 16), and moving up the charts fast. The least popular Beatles albums? Yellow Submarine (No. 72) and Beatles Fior Sale (No. 57). → Read More
That’s that, then: the Beatles are finally on iTunes. (I guess the MP3 will live to fight another day!) It’s a big deal in the sense of, “Well, it sure took them long enough!” I mean, there was already a Beatles Rock Band video game last year, so you know it was just a matter of time until Apple secured the rights for iTunes. What I want to know is, how many of you already had the Beatles on your device prior to this morning’s announcement? That is, the Beatles being on iTunes is cool and all, sure, but you’re already spoken for. → Read More
“I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes,” says Beatles drummer Ringo Starr in the official release announcing the band has finally come to iTunes.
Yes, well over 7 years after Apple’s online music store launched and completely changed the industry, The Beatles have landed. And they’ve landed in a major way. If you go to Apple.com you’ll be greeted by a huge picture of the band with the words, “The Beatles. Now On iTunes.” Clicking on this takes you to a landing page with more. “In 1964 the band that changed everything came to America. Now they’re on iTunes,” another picture reads. Below that are links to videos that Apple is making available about the band. → Read More
Yup, the rumors were true. The Beatles are finally on iTunes. Apple is going to announce it this morning, but the albums are already live in iTunes. Here is the preview link.
There are 16 albums available, starting with Please, Please Me (1963) and going to The Beatles, 1967-1970 (1973). Most of them albums $12.99. Individual songs are available for $1.29 each. There is also a box set for $149, and video footage. → Read More
So chances are (though I don’t buy the semaphore thing) that tomorrow will bring an announcement from Apple that they’ve finally reached an agreement with Apple Records, or EMI, or Apple Corps, or somebody, and will now be offering the Beatles catalogue on iTunes. That’s nice, but why should we care?
Being that the Beatles MP3 holdout is emblematic of the recording industry’s resistance against modern distribution methods, the way in which the Beatles discography will be made available should be telling. Here was a situation in which the labels and distributors have millions of sales at stake, and though to be fair Beatles records have been selling just fine without the benefit of legal downloads over the last decade. The powers that be must know that by agreeing to MP3 distribution, they are shifting the fulcrum. But how far? → Read More
This is awfully interesting. It’s not perfect, obviously, but if you were to tilt George and John to the side a bit, it’d be close.
The Beatles/iTunes rumors are seemingly as old as time itself (well, iTunes times, at least). Every year we have a rumor that it’s happening. And every year we have disappointment. This could well be the same story, but what a strange coincidence. → Read More
