Slashdot Mirror
Apple Sells Two Million Songs in 16 Days
burgburgburg writes "According to Apple's latest press release, iTunes Music Store has sold over two million songs in the 16 days that it has been open. Quick calculations show this is around 1.44 songs per second. And as was the case last week, over half of the songs purchased so far were purchased as albums. Over 4,300 songs were added to the system yesterday, including older catalog stuff (Doors, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus), new albums (Cold, Lizz Wright, and Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), prerelease tracks (Michelle Branch, Da Brat, Jesse Harris and Kenna) and more."
Steve Jobs said that the most important thing in the beginning was to get the big 5 record labels on board. Once they did that, and got the thing up and running, they could start courting the indy labels. According to a interview with Time Magazine the indy labels have been calling nonstop since the Music Store started. We'll see indy music soon enough. I can't wait for an extended trance library...
Sosumi
I hear that some euros have put together a method for using the iTunes store already. This tomfoolery, along with comments from Sony Music that they don't want Windows users to have the same freedom as Apple users do now, makes me think that the RIAA is already getting cold feet, despite the money.
Europeans are too smart, and the RIAA is getting nervous because they don't have control over all those Montenegrins, Serbians, and Andorrans.
When all those German techno records starting moving to the top of the store, Steve Jobs new there was a problem. He put on his best black turtleneck and headed for the server room, but when he looked in the mirror, he realized that he was Dietre from Sprockets.
Man! That was a weird dream!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I can give you one data point.
128 bit ACC ->AIFF -> 128bit mp3
produces 11% RMS distortion of the original waveform. enought to hear.
on the otherhand
128 bit ACC -> AIFF -> 128 bit ACC
produces 6% RMS distortion.
I have not yet tested higher bit rates for MP3. however I would be surprised if 6% was not an aupper bound. This is not a pyscho acoustic test, merely an RMS test. 6% is quite acceptable for most listeners since a change of speakers or room can produce a simmilar effect. what is not clear is how this affects sounds humans are espically perceptive too such as the crach of symbols or noise in quiet passages.
Finally I have made an intriguing observation. I compared the AIFF I got off my CD to the ACC-> AIFF I downloaded from iTunes Music store. interestingly, the waveforms are not only different but the Pitch isdifferent. that's right the music plays just slightly (imperceptibly) slower on the iTunes version. I'm not sure why. Are not CD's digital, and if so what could cause the rate of playback to change. (were talking millseonds per second shifts in rate of play). It's also unlcear why the waveform of the ACC I purchased and the one I generated off the CD differed in ways besides pitch. The difference was larger than the difference between MP3 and ACC encoding using itunes. this suggests that the en-codec that apple is using is not the SAME one as the one found in itunes and introduces considerably more distrotion than the one found in itunes.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It ess time for zee apple money dance!
About time. Apple got a clue. Cheap singles, downloadable, mix and match. Just the formula that's been obvious for years now, just needed to be done on a big scale from a brand name outfit. Any of the big guys could have done this, software side, hardware side, music industry side. People asked them, they knew about it.
Just shows how many bad ideas can get investor money and interest, and how long a good idea can lay there begging to be picked up, even when millions of people are pointing at it, going "hey, look, a good idea!"
And just think the bigger push for better and cheaper broadband now, just from this one move, and it's a "legit" move, too, zero "controversy" about it or it's legality. It would be *nice* if it was cheaper than a dollar,and a scosh more flexible, but all in all it's a good start anyway.
Like Coldplay's Parachutes album. It's priced at $11.99 -- WTF happened to 9.99 albums? But it's only 10 songs (one of which is a whole 46 seconds long). OK, so buy them individually. Sorry, nope. Track 10 is marked "album only." The other Coldplay Album is 10.89 for 11 songs, basically the price per song.
Now perhaps the record labels are forcing these limitations on Apple. Maybe they are the reason that a CD of 18 songs is for some reason missing one track and available "partial album only" so you have to buy all remaining 17 songs at 99 cents per. I mean, how can you sell some albums like Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory or 6DOIT which are complete album-long epics and offer it as "partial album only?" Heaven forbid I get 70 minutes worth of music for only $9.99. If you sell little 3 minute songs you can get over 20 songs on a CD that way... That's less than 50 cents a track. Oh my guiddy aunt, can't allow that.
(Maybe I *will* go back to aquiring my CDs the old fashioned way after all... Maybe the record labels want that to happen. Maybe they want iTMS to fail. Maybe I will fail to clarify what I mean by "old fashined way" with respect to aquiring my CDs.)