“For us, all of a sudden, music is the No. 1 priority of the company,” Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of applications marketing, told Reuters. “We’re trying to be a part of the music evolution overall” he said. Our Take: I wonder where that leaves Apple’s Mac OS X. While Apple always was and remains a hardware company, MacOS was always at the core of the whole deal. Is the Mac OS X and Macs of the future going to serve merely as the platform to do the “music stuff that sell” instead of being the main focus of the product line? This reminds me a whole lot of Be, Inc.’s focus shift to Internet Appliances and the grandual demise of BeOS.
Apple VP: Music is Apple’s No. 1 Priority
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
the diffrence is that Be did not have much market share int eh Internet Appliance market, not to mention the IA market was DOA.
I don’t think they will take money from the other stuff in order to bolster their Music stuff, but if the music stuff does start making a lot of money, they might lower prices on their hardware, or even have less emfasis on the need for having their own computer hardware and if windows loses its stangle hold on the PC hardware market, they might just release OS X on the PC.
I doubt the latter will happen, but the former might.
Overall I believe that Apple, with Jobs at the helm, is much more of an intelligent company than Be ever was. Just look at what they’ve DONE in the past two years with their company, userbase, scope and hardware … it’s astounding, IMO, and I don’t think announcing a ‘priority’ is going to change their progress in any of those fields. Having ‘priorities’ isn’t the same as a focus shift. MacOSX could be their #2 priority, while their #1 priority is to make X into the preferred OS for making and enjoying music.
I don’t think Apple is going to throw out OS X with the success of the iTMS and the iPod. Sure the iPod is bringing in lots of cash but Apple knows that they can’t rest on their laurels there. Plus, the iTMS is just a Trojan horse to drive sales of the iPod. I haven’t figured out why everybody is so hot to get a music store because all of them are money-losers in a big way. The MP3 players are where the money is to be made.
Anyway, I seriously doubt that OS X is going away. They have a hit on their hands with the G5 and from early reports of the IBM PPC roadmap, it will get significantly better and better with each release.
I recall reading somewhere that in the past Apple computers was sued by Apple records I think for trademark infringement. The settlement was that they were in different industries and that Apple computers wouldn’t be involved with music? Was that for real or not?
Exactly. Priorities are not the same as focus shift. It would be better to compare Amiga with Be, than Apple with Be.
What Apple has DONE in last 2 years is really hard to imagine. I don’t think there is a company right now in any industry that is more on their game than Apple.
there is diffrent presidence today about tradmark infringment, I think Appel thinks that as long as tehy stay out of the Lable business, they will be OK.
[sarcasm] yep, they’ve forgotten that they produce an operating system, and soon they will lose focus as they focus on music stuff that sells, and in contrast to the hugely focussed efforts over at Microsoft. [/sarcasm]
Seriously, this is entirely different from Be’s change of focus (prompted by the aggressive tactics of Microsoft with OEM vendors)…
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110
Be left a market (the desktop OS market) due to pressure from Microsoft, they didn’t enter a new one while retaining the old. Apple are entering the music market aggressively, without losing their focus on their OS – this is a good thing. I hope they port a few more carefully chosen apps over to the PC (with a one year lag or so on the mac), perhaps iChat for a start to sell more of their iSight cameras.
Curious that this article (below) has the same quote, but with something different after it – I wonder which is the original; last I heard Reuters was a syndication agency…
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7529116.htm
I can’t remember where I read it, but Ipod sales contributed to less than 10% of Apple’s recently shown financial statements. I wonder if this number will increase very much with the heating competition in HDD based MP3 players. I guess Apple will be able to lead the industry because of the amount of momentum it is gathered, but sooner or later the competition will catch on. Apple also has to be careful about price wars that I think are going to hit the MP# player market as HDD prices come down with volumes increasing.
A better and cheaper music store and app will come along. A better and cheaper version of the Ipod will come along. This is the story of every product Apple has ever marketed. First to market and then everyone else makes the real money on it and carries it to a height that Apple never is able to reach. Where will Apple be then?
There have been more than onde review stating that GarageBand alone could drive Apple’s hardware sales through the ceiling. Apple IS seeing revenues from their efforts into the music market. Logic, GarageBand, iTunes, low latencies in the OS core thanks to CoreAudio, it all makes sense.
If there’s anything that can drive the hardware sales up, it’s the media market. Just like before. The thing is, because of PC hardware commoditization, Apple became a less compelling platform for art creation. However, the pros (the real pros) always, always, always used and will keep using Macs. And the new software and platform (speedy processors, huge amounts of RAM, 64-bit optimizations) has the potential to lure new customers, and also those who traditionally used the Mac platform for music and media production/creation. Kairos, right, Eugenia? Having the right tools on their hands and seeing the huge momentum created by iTunes, iPod, the G5 and GarageBand – Macintosh is once again becoming synonym of multimedia creation platform -, now it’s clearly time to “carpe musicum”: seize the music (market). Again. I hope they get it right, this time.
“A better and cheaper music store and app will come along. A better and cheaper version of the Ipod will come along. This is the story of every product Apple has ever marketed. First to market and then everyone else makes the real money on it and carries it to a height that Apple never is able to reach.”
Except that it wasn’t Apple that was first to market with the iPod. This time Apple is the company that “caught up” and offered the better product after the market was already established.
(Stop trying to paint Apple doomsday scenarios)
since they don’t earn a single cent with their downloads.
umm….Music downloads are not the only part of Music that apple has a focus on….hardware plays into this a lot….in the music players, the Computers that use the best creation software, and all of that. that is where APple has made a major focus and is winning right now.
I love Apple’s solutions…
Consumer: GarageBand for music
ProSumer: Logic Express
Specialized Pro: Logic Full
Consumer: iMovie
ProSumer: Final Cut Express
Specialized Pro: Final Cut Pro
ALL USEFUL!!! Priced JUST RIGHT! Apple ‘had’ lost a lot of media content creators, now they’re wooing them back with some AWESOME Software.
Jb
Companies usually have a lot of number one priorities,
so i am sure all will be ok.
“We’re trying to be a part of the music evolution overall” he said. Our Take: I wonder where that leaves Apple’s Mac OS X. While Apple always was and remains a hardware company, MacOS was always at the core of the whole deal. Is the Mac OS X and Macs of the future going to serve merely as the platform to do the “music stuff that sell” instead of being the main focus of the product line?
Actually, this could be a good thing for OS X. If Apple is developing more revenue streams, and is less dependent on the Mac for survival, they may actually decide it’s to their advantage to license the OS.
Obviously, even if they decide to focus on the music business rather than the computer business, there’s still a nice buck in licensing fees. Just ask IBM.
Be’s focus shift was for a much simpler reason than some people want to imagine. Be was out of money, couldn’t find any VC money any more, and found out that nobody wanted to invest in a desktop OS company – but that there was some money for companies working on internet appliances.
No need to invent big conspiracy theories. Engineers don’t want to work for free, and at the time investors didn’t want to pay engineers to work on a desktop OS.
The iPod and the music store *could* contribute more money to the bottom line if apple makes the iPod mini more of an option. I have friends that are looking into *512MB* players because the iPod is too expensive (even the mini), and they are content with that because they are paying 100 USD or less. If apple prices the iPod right, and if it markets it in europe and asia agressivelly (and of course gets asian and euro artists/labels on board with iTMS) then they’ve got something.
I saw it as a pitch towards hardwaret though to produce more music.
I seriously doubt apple will go the intel route and create OS X for intel because if they do they are plagued with the same problems as windows –> driver-drivers-drivers-drivers-incompatibilities-incompatibilities-inc ompatibilities-incompatibilities-incompatibilities (sorry had a steve palmer moment there)
mini-me
When Apple say music is their number one focus, they mean its their current plan for selling a shedload of macs NOT that they’re leaving the computer hardware market.
In Mr Jobs recent spheel introducing Garageband @ macworld he made it very clear that amateur musicians were an attracitive target for selling Macs – -(Memory tells me that he quoted 50% of US households having one or more musicians).
NOT a new direction for Apple. A new ad campaign.
“wonder where that leaves Apple’s Mac OS X.”
Did you consider that the person speaking was head of APPLICATION MARKETING? That he is talking about marketing and selling new product, not development. Hell, Schoeben isn’t even VP of ALL Marketing, just APPLICATION marketing.
“Memory tells me that he quoted 50% of US households having one or more musicians”
Actually, I think it was a much greater number than that… something like 80%
I remember because I sat there thinking to myself that it was such an astounding number. I think Steve was being a little liberal with the numbers… some people call themselves musicians but only tinker a bit on the Piano for example. Regardless, thats still an individual within Apple’s target audience for Garage band software… so he’s right.
I personally am a Pianno tinkerer… and went out and bought iLife 4.0 the day it was released and have been making music every night ever since.
In Be’s case they decided to shift away from their main platform, which was viable theoretically, but never made it, as it ran on hardware everyone owns (x86), as well as Macs (ppc, although limited support). Apple’s situation is almost the opposite, as they focus on their secondary service, while their primary product, while having kept the company afloat all this time (I don’t know how) the Mac is relatively limited. iTunes can reach everyone, 99%. The Mac can reach, what, under 3 % currently? Personally, I think Apple is satisfied being the Ferrari of computers. You have to be a previous Ferrari owner to buy an Enzo. It’s an elite club, and in fact, that eliteness is the whole point. I have 1 friend out of 20+ who owns a Mac. The reason for this is he’s the only one who could afford it.
“The Mac can reach, what, under 3 % currently?”
Apple has reached a far greater number than that. You are referencing market share which is a figure gathered solely by quarterly sales figures.
Such a means of generating overall usage base would be correct if all computers/platforms had the same levels of life expectancy relative to its usefulness. it’s commonly known that Macs remain useful (or at least remain in use) longer than the average PC.
What that means, is that the number of Mac users are greater than what the “market share figures dictate. The reason for this is because they didn’t upgrade their computer as often as Windows PC users did… hence the misleading statistic.
Although there aren’t any hard figures that I’ve found as of yet to support my estimate, but it is commonly understood (at least by those that understand the market share is calculated and the life expectany of macs and PCs) that Apple’s “user base” is somewhere in the range of 10-12%.
he should have bought Be Inc and BeOS from the $480 million he got for NeXT, and built OS X from Be OS rather than NeXT.
BeOS was and still is a better media OS for Apple’s core market than NeXT ever was.
also, a OS X built on top of BeOS probably could run on my ancient 603’s as it would use less resources than NeXT-OSX.
my current apple G3 is a mere 350mhz and has 192mb of ram, probably insufficient to run OS X but definitely runs BeOS fine.
“some people call themselves musicians but only tinker a bit on the Piano for example. Regardless, thats still an individual within Apple’s target audience for Garage band software… so he’s right.
I personally am a Pianno tinkerer… and went out and bought iLife 4.0 the day it was released and have been making music every night ever since.”
And I’m just a wannabee tinkerer who does a lot of humming but I’ve been pricing USB keyboards since the Garageband launch to maybe – sorta – kinda act on that vague learn-the-piano notion so – perhaps this will be the ad campaign to beat all!
anytime i go to a gig and the band has a computer on stage, it’s usually an ibook or a powerbook. i remember reading in nme a few years back that some producer guy was saying that most people he knows use powerbooks for music production. what are they gonna do to further this?
this is nothing to worry about, the reason? Jobs.. Steve is a very proud man… he considers desktop computing to be essentially his invention… he isn’t going to turn his back on it…
Also music doesn’t mean iTunes + iPod, it means iTunes + iPod + Soundtrack + GarageBand + logic + A Mac… all these things are to get more people on the mac platform, current the best way is with music software, so that’s where they’re going… in 3 years video could be their number one priority, but these are all short-lived priorities to get more people on the mac.
I also see MANY powerbooks on stage at shows. It would appear that they are the choice for mobile audio but with that FSB speed I wonder how practical it really is for audio use.
Our Take: I wonder where that leaves Apple’s Mac OS X. While Apple always was and remains a hardware company, MacOS was always at the core of the whole deal. Is the Mac OS X and Macs of the future going to serve merely as the platform to do the “music stuff that sell” instead of being the main focus of the product line? This reminds me a whole lot of Be, Inc.’s focus shift to Internet Appliances and the grandual demise of BeOS.
And on what basis do you come to that conclusion? BeOS lost money when they sold BeOS as a desktop operating system and the media centre/appliance was the hype of the time, basically it was a last despirate attempt by Be Inc to make a dollar, and they failed. They failed because they beated their whole company on a piece of hype rather than something that was real and long term.
“Also music doesn’t mean iTunes + iPod, it means iTunes + iPod + Soundtrack + GarageBand + logic + A Mac… all these things are to get more people on the mac platform, current the best way is with music software, so that’s where they’re going… in 3 years video could be their number one priority, but these are all short-lived priorities to get more people on the mac.”
You are forgetting QuickTime/mpeg. This is the key, and I don’t understand why people aren’t seeing that. For a while, it looked as if Microsoft could win a format war, not based on merit, but simply on licensing their format cheaply and engaging in deals with every device manufacturer, recording studio, movie studio, etc… Now, Apple is dominating all aspects of media production, editing, listening/viewing whether it be audio or video (it is simply too premature for video to be the mass market) and this is returning attention and status to the ISO standards which are core components of Apple’s QuickTime.
I like your point, but I think the issue is not so much “to get more people on the mac” as it is to prevent wma/wmv from becoming the de facto standard for media. Such an outcome could ultimately hurt Apple more than progressive declines in market share.
If Apple had opted for BeOS instead then Jobs would still be at NeXT.
Apple would be dead.
BeOS would not’ve saved Apple. Steve Jobs saved Apple. He and he alone, pulled the aged guts from the Apple beast and remade it in his image again, bringing back the true Apple we loved and love today.
You think Jobs is gonna use BeOS to power MacOS X, when it was “his OS” (NeXTstep) that Apple bought up? If he had wanted to use BeOS, why not buy up Be, Inc. when he was at NeXT? Coulda done it… especially with the money pooled from Pixar or such.
No, you buy Steve Jobs, you buy what Steve Jobs has to offer… and he had plenty to offer Apple, if NOTHING but his abilities to revive a dying company like Apple… his and Woz’s baby from the beginning…. out of a garage, no less!
Yes, BeOS may have been a better OS choice, but it would have done nothing for Apple, because Steve Jobs is what they needed, plain and simple.
“If Apple had opted for BeOS instead then Jobs would still be at NeXT.”
not necessarily true.
given that steve jobs received $480 million for NeXT,
he could have turned around and bought be inc for $100 million.
you get BOTH be os AND steve jobs (not to mention JLG and be inc’s engineering team + next engineering team).
by way of example, via bought BOTH
cyrix AND Centaur
“Yes, BeOS may have been a better OS choice, but it would have done nothing for Apple, because Steve Jobs is what they needed, plain and simple”
with $480 million you can have both.
“Steve Jobs saved Apple”
he killed the clones. he may have saved apple in the short term but i suspect he doomed apple in the long run, by killing the clones. i, and my classmates at UIUC, bought power computing. (which was running and still is running be os as well as mac os 8)
Its really a matter of opinion. I personally thought NeXT produced a better os then Be. Again that is just an opinion. My guess would be that Apple bought NeXT for:
a) Steve Jobs
b) openstep
I’ve never seen a better api to program for.
Openstep is just an api that sits on ths os. It could’ve been ported to Be. So whether OS X is a better at multimedia apps than Be is up to Xnu.
“given that steve jobs received $480 million for NeXT,
he could have turned around and bought be inc for $100 million.”
They considered Be for 400 mill. Be refused and wanted 1.5 billion. Apple bought NeXT and through a few (80) mill in extra to spite JLG.
And what’s so special about JLG and Be’s engineer’s? Most of Be’s engineer’s are sitting around trying to reverse engineer BeOS or are already working for Apple and JLG seems to have been a royal @ss, buffoon, and moron.
Only people still twiddling around with 7 year old copies of BeOS claim that Be was a superior system to NeXT.
The rest of operations at apple will resume as normal, Apple just stumbled into a huge source of revinue they didn’t even expect. ipod is currently 10% but it is expected to grow much larger. The fact that they call it a focus just means they will be using the money to bring more multimedia apps to OSX. Apple may change with the market but I believe it is going to be around for some time to come.
They considered Be for 400 mill. Be refused and wanted 1.5 billion. Apple bought NeXT and through a few (80) mill in extra to spite JLG.
Would my calling BS on those numbers be anything more than a formality?
And what’s so special about JLG and Be’s engineer’s?
I’m sorry to hear you never used BeOS.
Most of Be’s engineer’s are sitting around trying to reverse engineer BeOS
Which of them are doing that, specifically?
Apple’s latest Panther UI hardly even works right on systems with dual monitors. Using two apps on two different screens is an exercise in painful futility. All over the OS, Apple continues to utilize interface paradigms that are old and obsolete. Not to mention ugly and unchangeable. Maybe I don’t like shiny metal on everything?
The fundamental ergonomics of Apple’s keyboards and mice are flawed. A giant F13 key anyone? Contrary to what the usual Mac-head says, third party mice do not work worth shit on Mac. There is spotty and/or nonexistant support for back-click, right-click, scroll, etc.
Even Apple’s basic mouse tracking leaves much to be desired and is not changeable from within the OS.
Apple has not fixed the LCD fonts. Linux and Windows offer better LCD fonts. I suppose Apple have to ‘steal’ more free software for their closed-OS bloatware to fix the problem.
Apple’s new 90nm 970FX chips are going to market… allegedly next month… at the same low MHz as the 130nm chips. What gives? How is Apple going to meet their goal of shipping 3Ghz by June?
Apple’s G5 original SPEC benchmarks were found to be completely bogus. So Apple took them down and replaced them with new completely bogus benchmarks. Apple has never submitted any official results to SPEC… what is going on?
Using any modern Linux you can breathe in the freedom. Using Panther OS, all you feel is the closed box with no options and no choice.
Altogether, it’s no surprise that Apple is focusing on “play” apps. Anything else is beyond the core competencies of “the new Apple”. Real computing is Linux and Windows. Mac is play computing for the trust fund scene.
mac will doom if they lose their chance releasing the so called ‘marklar’ x86.
its risky yet its their last hope.
by the way, the 970FX at 90nm is in the current XServe.
sell Apple to sony, if music is their 1st priority.
They considered Be for 400 mill. Be refused and wanted 1.5 billion.
do you have a source on this?
They considered Be for 400 mill. Be refused and wanted 1.5 billion.
“http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/history.html“
“At this point Apple became interested in buying Be, a company that was becoming popular as the maker of the BeBox, running the BeOS. The deal between Apple’s Gil Amelio and Be’s Gassée never materialized – it has been often reported that Apple offered $125 million while Be wanted an “outrageous” $200 million plus. The total investment in Be at that time was estimated to be only $20 million! “
Apple Records (The Beetles) has already filed a lawsuit against Apple Computer over terms of an earlier settlement. Mainly that in order for Apple Computer to use the name Apple, they (AC) are not to enter the music industry. Apple Computer has already has already lost two previous lawsuits with Apple Records. iTunes, iPod, GarageBand and itunes.com violate the terms of the original settlement big time.
Apple has the best technology, they have a product that people actually want and they are the current market leaders. But this may end up being a case where Apple is the big loser because of legal judgements against them that date back to the beginning of the company.
It’ll be interesting to watch.
“Using any modern Linux you can breathe in the freedom. Using Panther OS, all you feel is the closed box with no options and no choice. ”
I use Open Office, Mozilla, Photoshop (NATIVE) and numerous Xwindows applications! What are you talking about? I can even run GNOME and KDE if I wanted ?!?!?
Once a Linux version of iTunes comes out you will calm down I suppose.
You may read the VP statement as a message directed to two actors:
1) Other contenders in the market, in the context of an article precisely devoted to cover the music business… Apple is saying its putting everything behind music, hence raising the barriers of entry. To be effective, it must be credible, hence it’s the VP talking.
2) Third party software developers. You can read it as a signal by the application marketing guy that Apple will improve its music applications and leave the rest of the market mostly to 3rd party developers.
If the second is true and apple succeeds in luring more users to the platform with music & multimedia, then this focus shift could bring new dynamism to the Mac world.
mmm.. Das Omen, We can tell you are a Linux devotee, but some of your comments are biased as fuck dude. If the Mac platform is such a ‘closed box with no options’ why is it that I can run Windows xp / MacOS9 / KDE / GNOME within OSX…. gee what a claustrophobic OS to be burdened with :p
I dont want to get in a Mac / Linux / Windows debate- as such arguments have no conclusion. I would just like to say to you Das Omen: try and not feel threatened by Apple products. Why take sides when you can enjoy all sides
You see, when you defend your OS flavor what inadvertently happens is many people get the shits at the remarks made, as I did- because your shitting on their favorite choice- and therefore shitting on them for nothing more than a preference
Linux is cool, Windows has its good points, and OSX rawks. its all good.
Just wait and see
When Indie and Metal bands start releasing CDs and publicly admitting that they were mastered at home in a garage using a Mac and a $100 software package…
..then you’ll suddenly have Mac awareness in a LOT of teenage and 20-something people. Are they going to want a PC then?
Musicians have a lot of clout when it comes to endorsement advertising.
“my current apple G3 is a mere 350mhz and has 192mb of ram, probably insufficient to run OS X but definitely runs BeOS fine.”
it’ll be OK, i used to run it on that until i upped the RAM to about 320MB. slow sometimes but much of the time it’ll be perfectly usable
I wonder if Apple is planning to contest the old ruling about not being in the music industry. Apple Records, AFAIK, hasn’t released anything new in decades, while Apple has certainly garnered far more mindshare in the music industry.
I seriously doubt that anyone would confuse the two now, and I can’t imagine that Apple Records would suffer any appreciable damage if anyone did – so maybe there is room for change.
So how come you’re all fearing lawsuits and so forth?
Apple can afford it.
>I also see MANY powerbooks on stage at shows. It would appear
>that they are the choice for mobile audio but with that FSB
>speed I wonder how practical it really is for audio use.
Laptops on stage are not (usually) used for sampling, synthesizing or such. They are used as MIDI controllers/sequencers for real music hardware. MIDI bandwidth is very low (I remember) and even an Atari is just fine for such a job (and they are still used).
In studio work Macs with ProTools make a good DAW by specialized hardware which does most of the work. Poor G3 is enough.
And for PC: at home my 600Mhz Duron runs okay with ASIO and RT synths and MIDI sequencers. I guess most home amateurs will still use either PC with a good soundcard or dedicated, real, hardware. (I start to prefer hardware).
Teo:
>to prevent wma/wmv from becoming the de facto standard
>for media
I prefer TIFF sequences over such formats
“Laptops on stage are not (usually) used for sampling, synthesizing or such. ”
Nope.They are also used as software synths, samplers and real time effects.
any NI vst instrument works very nicely on a powerbook.
Spectrasonics Trilogy, Atmosphere, and Stylus Also run Fantastic sampled sounds on a portable.
Ableton Live runs fantasicly on a PB and plays all sorts of samples- all run from the PB.
Guitarists also use PB’s to process their guitars real time using amplitube,etc.
Using PB’s as mere midi controllers and sequencers is sooo last century.
Rock on.
You are forgetting QuickTime/mpeg. This is the key, and I don’t understand why people aren’t seeing that. For a while, it looked as if Microsoft could win a format war, not based on merit, but simply on licensing their format cheaply and engaging in deals with every device manufacturer, recording studio, movie studio, etc… Now, Apple is dominating all aspects of media production, editing, listening/viewing whether it be audio or video (it is simply too premature for video to be the mass market) and this is returning attention and status to the ISO standards which are core components of Apple’s QuickTime.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
YOU get it!
People need to step back and look at the WHOLE (chess) board.
This is interesting to contemplate. When you look at the suite applications (iLife) that Apple has produced:
iMovie
iPhoto
iTunes
GarageBand
iDVD
I’ll bet these all have a large QuickTime component to them. I’d go so far as to say that iPhoto and iTunes ARE QuickTime applications (with a database attached to them).
What is even more interesting is that Apple (contrary to times past) originally did not develop many of these:
iTunes was bought
iMovie was bought
GarageBand was probably developed from the Logic acquisition
Apple is becoming a smarter company.
History MAY NOT repeat itself this time.
A better and cheaper music store and app will come along.
But how? Apple claims they are NOT MAKING MONEY on selling MUSIC. How is anyone else going to? Napster? If this is your sole source of profit, you’re in trouble. So…if no one (except the music companies) can making money selling (digital download) music because Apple has set the price ($0.99/song) and this price is too low to make a profit, then you have to make the money some other way (hardware for example)…well this leaves out all of the music stores I’ve heard so far…and leaves us with the device makers.
Problem…those devices may play songs from music stores that are soon out of business. Ouch. This is where is Apple is a bit more clever than people realize. You can’t make money selling the songs. Okay. You can make money selling the devices, but people want devices for which they can get songs…but they can’t get songs for the WMA players because those stores can’t make money (and thus, go out of business). So they go to where they can get songs just as cheap as anywhere else, but won’t go out of business (because the profits are made elsewhere). Apple establishes a dominant (do I hear monopoly) position in the digital music DRM space. Hmmm…
A better and cheaper version of the Ipod will come along.
Yes…but they can’t play music from the iTunes Music Store. Unless…unless…Apple decides to license the Fairplay DRM.
Suddenly…Apple looks like Microsoft (hopefully nicer) for the digital media world.