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Apology accepted...which leaves me no closer to answering my question.
During the Apple/EMI DRM-free press conference, they said "May" but didn't give an exact date; I'm surprised that there's been no hint about when exactly the 2nd tier songs will go live elsewhere in the Mac webosphere...
Well someone sure is in a snarky mood today...
Dilleet--thanks, that'll be handy once they actually start selling the 256k/DRM-free songs, but I was asking when that's supposed to start?
Have they already started selling them? I can't imagine that this would be launched without any hoopla?
So where's the DRM-free iTunes music? I thought they gave "May" as the launch date, but did they give a specific date?
Bootz--not sure if you misunderstood me...I wasn't commenting on the picture (which is pretty cool), I was taking a silly, meaningless guess at what "BIDU" stood for.
Hmmmm...Bootz Is Driving Underwater?
Hmmm...call me old-fashioned and naive, but here's how I view a business:
1. How much money did they earn?
2. How much money did they spend?
3. Is 1 greater than 2?
If 3 is true, they did well.
:)
Re. iTMS recommendations--I'd also recommend y'all check out Ms. Led (formerly Lesliwood):
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=4322790&s=143441
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=199833750&s=143441
The backstory: Lesli Wood is the kid sister of an old high school friend of mine; she's the lead singer. The band used to be named after her (Lesliwood), and their first CD was called Ms. Led; eventually they changed the name of the band to Ms. Led, but she's still the lead singer :)
http://www.msled.com/
Apple earnings--interesting note:
Date Quarterly Total iPods
10/30/01 0 0
12/30/01 125,000 125,000
03/30/02 57,000 182,000
06/30/02 54,000 236,000
09/30/02 145,000 381,000
12/30/02 219,000 600,000
03/30/03 80,000 680,000
06/30/03 304,000 984,000
09/30/03 336,000 1,320,000
12/30/03 733,000 2,053,000
03/30/04 807,000 2,860,000
06/30/04 860,000 3,720,000
09/30/04 2,016,000 5,736,000
12/30/04 4,500,000 10,236,000
03/31/05 5,311,000 15,547,000
06/30/05 6,155,000 21,702,000
09/30/05 6,451,000 28,153,000
12/31/05 14,043,000 42,196,000
03/31/06 8,526,000 50,722,000
06/30/06 8,111,000 58,833,000
09/30/06 8,729,000 67,562,000
12/31/06 21,066,000 88,628,000
03/31/07 10,549,000 99,177,000
So, it looks like their 100 million iPod sales press release was indeed immediately after selling it (about a week into April).
Jim--that's easy; there's a whole section called "Free on iTunes" right on the home page about 2/3 of the way down. Here's a direct link to that section:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRoom?fcId=188575542
While I realize that this isn't related to the CanSecWest exploit, it boggles my mind that Safari (or any other browser) *still* has the "open files by default" option available at all.
I know you want to have as much work automated as possible, but given the obvious security risks, this seems like a no-brainer. Even without the security problem, I'd find that to be even more confusing if I was a newbie, since you end up with 2 (or even 3 in some cases) files with similar names on the desktop--the original .zip file (for example), a .dmg file, and a disk image in some cases. Difficult to keep track of.
Eureka! Educational Shootout finally updated after 2 years:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/
(also updated the Mac Pro vs. Precision 690 shootout).
Tex--good point re. the 64-bit angle; I've added a note to each regarding this. Since I'm not 100% clear about how much hassle is needed for the apps in Vista, however, I'm not giving the "win" to OS X yet, just a note about it.
Next up is a way-overdue *educational* shootout revamp--and interestingly, I just discovered that Dell doesn't appear to offer any desktop systems on their Educational store for less than $495 (and that's for a full tower system). Even more interesting, the closest competitor they have to the Mac mini in terms of form factor (the Optiplex 745) starts out at $710!
Tex--thanks for the input. Believe it or not, the "basic" Dell system I configured--yes, even the top o' the line Precision 690 Workstation--actually includes a *mechanical* mouse (ie, the rubber ball!) by default. Amazing.
A guy over at XvsXP.com helped fill in a few more of the blanks; I think I'm almost good to go now.
FWIW: I've updated the Shootouts to include an all-new comparison betwen the entry-level Mac Pro w/20" ACD and the Dell Precision 690 w/20" LCD:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/desktop/2007/0417_dt2800.html
Unfortunately, as this is the first time I've done a comparison with a Vista system (and the XvsXP.com website has yet to be updated), I'm at somewhat of a loss on some of the software/OS comparisons. For the moment, I've updated the ones I can, picking no "winner" in any of the fields in which I made the change from XP to Vista; however, there are undoubtedly some areas where I'm missing a Vista equivalent, or where Vista outperforms the Tiger equivalent. I've put red "???" in the fields I was uncertain about.
Feel free to point out any glaring flaws on the OS/software side of things (yes, this even includes you, Lango). I admit to having zero personal experience with Vista, so I'm open to helpful criticism.
Tex--dunno about the weed trade; to be honest, I only cross the border into Windsor about once every couple of years; I'm pretty much a homebody (especially since turning into Family Guy).
Not really sure how you managed to tie the VA Tech shooting into this, but you already know what's gonna happen now that they've revealed the killer to be a Korean* immigrant*. The xenophobic wingnuts are gonna try using this as an excuse to throw out all non-whites (even though OKC, Columbine, Waco, Ruby Ridge, and any number of other mass murder situations were a bunch of white guys).
*(never mind that he was a legal immigrant from South Korea, not an illegal from North Korea; to these jackasses it'll still be open season on all non-Caucasian, non-native-born U.S. citizens)
Border trivia: Which state has the longest border with Canada?
Most people think Montana or perhaps New York.
Nope--it's Alaska, followed by Michigan (remember, the Great Lakes are still a border).
Heywood/fibait--I was at CUSA during the Jaguar, Panther and Tiger rollouts, and each time I always wondered why they didn't simply include a coupon for a free copy of the new version of OS X on the pre-release systems they had lying around after the new version was released.
They always ended up having to drop the price on the systems by at least $100 anyway, which is more than the profit they make on a $129 copy of OS X, and it still took longer to sell off the clearance models.
For whatever psychological reason, people were more likely to buy, say, a $1,500 system that *included* the new OS (even if it needed to be installed) than an $1,300 system that required a $129 OS upgrade, even if they could buy both at the same time, and even though they'd save $70 more the second way.
I dunno...I just snapped up a clearance Rev. A MacBook w/Tiger a few months ago for $799, so I'm not feeling cheated.
Frankly, of the major Leopard features revealed so far, I don't see any "gotta have it" items so far, at least for my purposes; most of them can be had via 3rd-party utilities (Spaces, iChat backgrounds, etc) or just aren't that necessary for my needs.
Still, I'm sure it's gonna cause a bit of a sales stagnation for awhile...
KCMW--if you check out the full list of results (for all 4 songs), you begin to see the authors' main point:
http://duxlist.com:81/song/show_results
...namely, that it's nearly 50/50 in all 4 cases.
In other words, the vast majority of people can't tell the difference--most people are just flipping a coin, including myself (I happened to guess correctly, but that was pure chance).
You're probably correct that when listening for longer periods of time, people are more likely to notice a slight quality difference, but the main point stands, that going from 128 to 256 won't be perceptible to the vast majority of listeners.
MGM/UA add another 100 movies or so to iTunes:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/11/mgm_flicks_arrive_on_apples_itunes_store.html
Updated the detailed chart:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/ipod_itunes_sales.html
Roni--FWIW, I've put all of that info that I dug up into a single massive chart:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/ipod_itunes_sales.html
It's not pretty, but it's all there :)
Roni--OK, I haven't incorporated some of this into the actual website, but I've combed through Apple's PR library pretty exhaustively, and here's all of the milestones I could find (not including actual quarterly sales figures, which are already in the website):
(IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER):
4/2/07 - EMI/DRM-free/256k announcement; 5 million songs; 2.5 billion songs sold
2/12/07 - 400 movies
1/9/07 - 2 Billion songs sold; 50 million TV shows sold; 1.3 million songs sold; 4 million songs in catalog; 250 movies; 350 TV shows; 100,000 Podcasts
12/6/06 - iTMS New Zealand
11/1/06 - iTMS library = 250 TV shows
10/5/06 - iTMS catalog = 65,000 podcasts, 20,000 audiobooks, 5,000 music videos
9/12/06 - iTunes 7; 1 million videos per week; iTMS catalog=75 movies; 220 TV shows; 3.5 million songs; 9 Games; 2nd Gen. iPod nano (24 hr battery, 8 GB); 2nd Gen. iPod shuffle; 6th Gen. iPod (80 GB, 20 hr. battery); 1.5 Billion songs sold; 640x480 videos
6/29/06 - iTMS catalog = 150 TV shows; 35 million videos sold
6/8/07 - 30 million videos sold; 100 TV shows
5/9/06 - 90 TV shows; 9,000 music videos; 3 million songs
2/23/06 - 1 billion songs sold; 3,500 music videos, 35,000 podcasts, 16,000 audiobooks, 15 million videos bought; 60 TV shows
2/7/06 - 12 million videos bought
1/26/06 - 40 TV shows; 3,000 music videos; 2 million songs; 8 million videos sold
12/6/05 - 3 million videos sold; TV catalog tops 16 shows; 3,000 music videos/shorts
10/31/05 - 1 million videos sold; catalog=11,000 audiobooks
10/25/05 - iTMS Australia added
10/12/05 - 5th Gen. iPod (Video; 60 GB); iTunes 6; 2,000 music videos/shorts; 11 TV shows
9/7/05 - iPod nano introduced (2 & 4 GB); iTunes 5; iTMS library tops 2 million songs; 15,000 Podcasts
8/4/05 - iTMS Japan added
7/18/05 - 500 million songs sold; 6,000 Podcasts
7/5/05 - 10,000 audiobooks
6/28/05 - iTMS adds official Podcasting support (3,000 podcasts); 430 million songs sold
5/10/05 - iTMS Denmark/Norway/Sweden/Switzerland; iTMS library = 1.5 million songs (U.S.); 400 million songs sold
3/2/05 - 300 million songs sold
1/24/05 - 250 million songs sold
2/23/05 - 2nd Gen. iPod mini (6 GB, 18 hr. battery)
1/24/05 - 250 million songs sold
1/11/05 - iPod shuffle added (512mb & 1.0 GB)
12/16/04 - 200 million songs sold
12/2/04 - iTMS Canada; 9,000 audiobooks
10/26/04 - U2 iPod / iPod Photo / iTMS EU; 8,000 audiobooks
10/14/04 - 150 million songs sold
9/1/04 - 125 million songs sold
8/10/04 - iTMS catalog = 1 million songs
7/19/04 - 4th Gen. iPod added (click wheel, 12 hr battery)
7/12/04 - 100 million songs sold
6/15/04 - iTMS UK/France/Germany added
4/28/04 - 70 million songs; 1st iTMS anniversary; 700,000 songs in catalog
3/15/04 - 50 million songs sold; 500,000 songs in catalog
1/6/04 - iPod mini added (4 GB) / 2 Million iPods sold
12/15/03 - 25 million songs sold
11/6/03 - 17 million songs sold; 400,000 songs in catalog
10/16/03 - 5,000 audiobooks added; iTMS for WIndows (official); 13 million songs sold
9/8/03 - 40 GB iPod added; 10 million songs sold
6/23/03 - 5 million songs sold; 1 million iPods sold;
5/14/03 - 2 million songs sold; catalog = 207,500 songs
5/5/03 - 1 million songs sold; catalog = 203,000 songs
4/28/03 - 3rd Gen. iPod added (30 GB, Dock added, full solid-state); iTunes 4; iTMS launched w/200,000 songs in catalog
7/17/02 - iTunes 3.0 / 2nd Gen. iPod added (20 GB, solid-state wheel, Windows support via MusicMatch)
3/20/02 - 10 GB iPod added
October 23, 2001
1st Gen. iPod (5 GB) / iTunes 2.0
1/9/01 - iTunes 1.0
Actually, I'm surprised that Apple didn't play up the 100-millionth iPod sale with some sort of a contest like they did with the iTMS...
granted, it would've been difficult to prove which *specific* iPod was the 100 millionth, but they could've done a Willy Wonka-like "Golden iPod" promotion (perhaps going by the 100 millionth iPod to be *manufactured* instead of sold?) and shipping it to a random reseller. Whoever buys the Golden iPod gets a lifetime supply of music from the iTMS (they'd have to make sure it was an 80 GB model, and give the winner 10,000 iTMS songs to fill it).
They could also expand the contest to include 3 Golden iPods--one full-size, one nano, one shuffle, with enough songs to fill each corresponding model as the prize.
Would you see a spike in iPod sales as people snapped up 2 or 3 of 'em?
Tex--according to the various estimates I've read from assorted music business gurus, the general concensus is that the $0.99 split has always been roughly:
$0.65 - labels
$0.35 - Apple
of that $0.35, the same estimates also claim that Apple's overhead (bandwidth, store maintenance, cc charges, etc) eat up around $0.25, leaving them with perhaps $0.10 in profit per song. Cut that down a bit due to album sales (which break down to less than $0.99 per song), and I'm guessing you're looking at something like $0.08 per song net profit to Apple overall.
If so, that'd be appx. $160 million in profit per year based on 2 billion/year, or $230 million in profit per year based on 2.9 billion/year (which is what 8 million/day would add up to).
As for them bringing things in-house, now that the Apple Corp lawsuit has been settled in Apple's favor, it seems to me that there's absolutely *nothing* preventing them from signing up artists *directly*, and becoming a label in their own right! They're halfway there already with the iTunes Exclusives; the only thing preventing them now (assuming they're even interested in doing so) is a) it'd piss off the labels even more (Apple may feel that their position still isn't quite strong enough to take the labels on head-on yet) and b) most of the known artists are already contractually obliged to other labels...for now.
a) is only temporary; they're already at something like 5% of *all* legal music sales now; if this hits, say, 10% I don't think they'd have any further fear of the labels.
b) is also only temporary; new up & coming talent may choose to sign directly with iTunes, especially if they're guaranteed a higher cut (Christ, *any* deal would have to be better than the one they get with most of the labels!), and established talent will consider telling the labels to go to hell as soon as their contracts are fulfilled.
roni--I haven't up until now, but I'll see about adding those numbers into the mix.
FWIW: I've updated the iTMS sales charts to include most of the key milestones:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/itunes_sales.html
A couple of eyebrow-raising points to take from these numbers:
--Even if the daily sales rate never increased anymore (highly unlikely), at 6 million per day, they're already on track to sell *over* 2 billion per year at this point, hitting 10 billion by the end of 2010.
--However, if the slope continues to increase at the current level (as shown in the daily avg. chart), they should be up to something like 8 million per day by the end of 2007, which would bring them to 10 billion a year earlier (end of 2009).
Tex/roni--well, it's certainly possible that they've sold *more* than 11.3 million since 1/1/07, but given the arbitrary date that they chose to tout the 100 million figure, I would assume that they actually crossed that exact milestone within the last day or so. Otherwise Jobs would have mentioned it during the EMI/DRM-free press conference last week, the way he mentioned the 2.5 billion songs sold figure.
Also FWIW: iTMS is now selling more than 6 million songs per day!
http://www.systemshootouts.org/itunes_sales.html
FWIW: 100 million iPods sold as of 4/9/07 means that they sold appx. 11 million during the first quarter of 2007:
DATE ..... QUARTER ..... TOTAL
10/30/01..... 0 ..... 0
12/30/01..... 125,000 ..... 125,000
03/30/02..... 57,000 ..... 182,000
06/30/02 ..... 54,000 ..... 236,000
09/30/02 ..... 145,000 ..... 381,000
12/30/02 ..... 219,000 ..... 600,000
03/30/03 ..... 80,000 ..... 680,000
06/30/03 ..... 304,000..... 984,000
09/30/03 ..... 336,000 .....1,320,000
12/30/03..... 733,000 .....2,053,000
03/30/04..... 807,000 ..... 2,860,000
06/30/04..... 860,000 ..... 3,720,000
09/30/04 ..... 2,016,000 .....5,736,000
12/30/04 ..... 4,500,000 .....10,236,000
03/31/05 ..... 5,311,000 .....15,547,000
06/30/05 ..... 6,155,000 .....21,702,000
09/30/05 ..... 6,451,000 .....28,153,000
12/31/05 .....14,043,000 .....42,196,000
03/31/06 ...... 8,526,000 .....50,722,000
06/30/06 ..... 8,111,000 .....58,833,000
09/30/06 ...... 8,729,000..... 67,562,000
12/31/06 .....21,066,000..... 88,628,000
04/09/07 .....??????????..... 100,000,000
I'm overweight...but I do plan on exercising more...
Sorry, late, tired, lame joke :)
Tex--actually, the WMA issue is only partially true; iTunes now includes a built-in WMA-to-AAC converter; while this isn't the same as native support of WMA, it does the trick without requiring re-ripping. Not sure if it solves the quality degradation issue, tho.
Lango--excellent point re. higher-capacity iPods.
Of course, as one of the reporters asked during the Q&A, this does mean they'll have to re-think the marketing slogan.
"1,000 songs in your pocket!"
...just became...
"1,000 128k/DRM songs or 500 256k/no-DRM songs in your pocket!"
...which doesn't flow quite as easily :)
There's a couple of additional brilliant parts to the 256k/no-DRM announcement that I haven't seen discussed too much yet:
1. The $0.30 upgrade for previously-purchased 128/DRM songs--making this completely seamless and by only charging the exact price difference (which is quite reasonable) is a very smart move. They could've made the upgrades $0.40 or $0.50 or whatever, claiming extra costs for re-downloading, etc. or some such nonsense.
They've sold over 2.5 billion songs to date. If 20% of those are upgraded to the 256/no-DRM versions, that's an extra $150 million in the bank!
2. Keeping *albums* at $9.99 for the 256/no-DRM version is FANTASTIC, and combined with last months' "complete your album" announcement, is *very* telling about how hard they're pushing whole album sales now, a distinct change in philosophy from the single-track push up until now (not that you can't have either/or).
Here's where it gets a bit confusing: upgrading a 128/DRM song to 256/no-DRM costs $0.30, but upgrading a full 128/DRM *album* to 256/no-DRM *album* won't cost anything, if I'm understanding the terms correctly.
--Upgrading from, say, a single $0.99 128k song to a full $9.99 256k album would, presumably, only cost $9.00 like it does now under the complete your album deal.
--However, what about upgrading from a single $1.29 256k song to a $9.99 256k album? Would that only cost $8.70?
If so, that means that a full album is now the same price as only 7.7 individual songs instead of 10 songs.
As for where the extra $0.30 goes, that's an interesting question. Most sources seem to indicate that up until now, it's been roughly a 65/35 split between the labels and Apple, with about $0.30 going to cover Apple's expenses, for perhaps $0.05 in profit per song. Knock that down a bit due to album sale discounts, and that's about $100 million in profit for Apple to date.
For the extra $0.30, if it all goes to EMI for "compensation" for the "extra piracy" bla bla bla, then it shifts to a 73/27 split in EMI's favor. If it's $0.15 apiece, that changes to a 62/38 split, improving Apple's cut a bit.
Sinclap--hmmm...that nicely cancels out the CompUSA closures, no?
Yup, 20" ACD dropped from $699 to $599 (-$100)
23" dropped from $999 to $899 (-$100)
30" dropped from $1,999 to $1,799 (-$200)
For comparison, Dell's comparable 20" is $359, their 24" is $629, and their 30" is $1,499, though I haven't looked at the detailed specs yet (contrast, brightness, ports, etc).
Still, a nice, if overdue move on Apple's part.
Yofal--actually, starting at $2,200 (you can downgrade the processors to 2x 2.0 GHz dual Xeons).
Um...wow. Just...wow.
Ick.
Yikes.
Here's one factoid that no one else has mentioned:
During the press conference, Jobs also gave an update on the total number of songs sold on iTMS to date: over 2.5 billion (he said "million" but clearly meant billion since he was talking about total sold to date).
Since he announced 2 billion at MWSF in January, that means that they've sold another 500 million in only 3 months--they're up to averaging about 2 billion songs PER YEAR now!
pdq--the EMI guy said that the offer is available to any retailer.