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iTunes Music Store - 'Coolest Invention of 2003'
Pingsmoth writes "Time Magazine has just named the iTunes Music Store as their Top Coolest Invention of 2003. Also among this year's favorites are 'fish-skin bikinis, a new love drug, the car that parks itself, and the invisible man'."
Making some digital media available online is not new.
I remember having the possibility to purchase media online long before this.
Now, if, of course, having these integrated in iTunes is cool, I somehow doubt it is that "cutting edge" (even though I am a Mac enthusiast and I love OSX).
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Much as I think Apple have created an amazing proof of concept in the Apple Music Store I am not convinced it qualifies as an invention.. Downloading music off the internet is not new and paying for it is not new either... Now if they radically opened up the distribution to bypass the majors... now that would be rather revolutionary... but we'll have to see how far they take it..
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
A pocket nuclear fusion reactor is an invention, a biplane made out of recycled cheese is an invention, a new kind of breaking system for cars is an invention.
iTunes is a store. It happens to be on the internet. That's not an invention, no matter how well executed it is.
Beep beep.
Must have slept in longer this morning then I thought. Good thing 2003 is over. Those last 2 months went buy really quickly. Nothing significant must have been invented...
Sorry, but something that gives you a longer erection is hardly the successor to MDMA.
Peace and love, y'all
Ethics:
iTunes - Apple takes it's (big) cut and then the Artist's (frequently RIAA affiliated) label takes most of the rest.
Magnatune - The artist gets 50%!!!
Again, no contest. Instead of feeling guilty about fueling a powermad monster when you buy music you can feel good about supporting the people who actually made it!
Actually, according to Steve Jobs, Apple doesn't make any profit from the iTMS. Their cut of the proceeds barely covers their costs, apparently, while the RIAA takes the lion's share (leaving the artist with a pittance, of course).
(This info came from Jobs' recent financial results conference call (of which the iTMS data can be found in this CD Freaks new item (with a link to the original story from The Register.))
Other than that, I mostly agree with the points that you raised in your post.
D.
From the article:
"At most, Jobs is left with a dime per track, so even $500 million in annual sales would add up to a paltry $50 million profit. Why even bother?"
Excuse me? A paltry $50 MILLION dollar profit?!?
'Paltry' and '$50 million dollar profit' don't belong in the same sentence.
This mentality is what's screwing the entire downloadable music process. It's not about whether it's profitable, it's about whether it's profitable enough.
Just for them saying that, I'm going to download some MP3s tonight. WTF...
Tal
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
I can see people having trouble with Time's use of the word "invention". It's their language, not Apple's. So many have used patents in an abusive way, it's easy to get into a defensive posture on even hearing the word invention. In the context of the Time article, "creative consumer offering" would better fit what they are talking about.
A product is more than a list of features. It's also about philosophy. Fairness, paying attention to the overall experience, and caring about behind the scenes detail is all part of this. Most consumers aren't likely to know that Apple is paying for the high-quality Fraunhofer IIS MP3 codec to let them use it for free in iTunes. Don't expeect to see things like that from MS/Napster. As any Linux user can tell you, beauty is more than skin deep.
It's so cool that anybody who doesn't live in the United States can't use it! THAT'S SO FREAKING COOL, ISN'T IT!? ARRGH!!
[Breathes]
Seriously though. One would have thought that, when releasing a product to a world-wide audience, the software would be usuable by said audience. As it stands, when things like this happen, it just demonstrates that the United States still thinks that it's the center of the Universe. Grrr.
I think all the Segway proves is that throwing lots of cutting-edge technology at something does not guarantee its success. Nobody wants to pay the price of a good used car for an electric scooter, no matter how hard it is to tip over. You can buy a bike for a whole lot less.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Notice how it says "Coolest Invention of 2003." The Segway was released in 2001.
Well, I can say I pretty much agree that the coolest invention of 2003 should be something to "wow" a person. But I'd just like to point out that iTunes itself did not recieve the award, but iTMS did. So I don't think Time saw it as an "integration" as much as they did an alternative to a rising music piracy problem, and the first of it's kind (I think, were there others?).
I suspect ripping over five hundred CDs takes a little more work than a single mouse click...
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
and wash your hands once with it on and it's toast.
USB watch = cool if it can stand the tortures of living on a human... most regular watches cant.
call me when they make a bluetooth one that is waterproof and shock proof.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So iTMS is all cool and stuff, but better than a flu vacinne (sp?), or a water purifier? I mean, this stuff could save lives, while the iTMS is just for downloading music. Mabey it's that Time is par of TimeWarner and they own the music companies...
I believe we might be overlooking what the phrase "at most" means. Apple's probably outlaid millions in R&D, hosting, advertising, etc to make -- at most -- $50 million annually. At the least, Apple might not even be making the dimes mentioned above. The return on investment is perhaps not the best as far as Apple's stockholders are concerned, as another post mentions -- if taken at face value.
That's why iPod sales are so important. When increased iPod sales, or even sustained iPod sales to Windows users in the face of new competition, and only then, is "WinTunes" a good idea and produces a better ROI than buying US Treasury bonds.
Folks, Apple's a big corporation. A fifty million dollar gain annually is, whether we like it or not comparing it to the scale of dough in our bank accounts/wallets, not horribly big money.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
A meaningless question in the real world. You need to look at the downside, or the overall risk. For example, what's the odds of either investment resulting in a -100% result? Most likely the 20% potential return is riskier. There's also questions of liquidity.
There's also the concepts of building a brand image and getting in early to grow a market which is still pretty nascent. *That's* how a CEO serves his long term shareholders properly. The "gimme billion percent profit margin now!" daytrader "I've owned this stock for two hours and I haven't doubled my money yet!" types can go get bent. It's their influence that has led to so many BS products and ripoffs and overpriced junk, especially in the tech market.
--- Ban humanity.
So what this is saying is...
If I build a mouse (click click, not squeak squeak) that just happens to be the most responsive, comfortable mouse on the market... Does that mean I invented the mouse?
BMW makes very nice cars... Does that mean they invented "very nice cars"? No, of course not.
Maybe if I had something truely original and revolutionary in the new design, I could claim to have invented that part of it. But just because you came up w/ a better version of what's already out.
Nitpicking I know, but I get peeved when people say Edison invented the light bulb.
Besides, I never considered Time to be a good source of judging ANYTHING. There's better stuff out there.
now you understand how I think. I used to use unix for 10 years, windows for even longer, and now I have nothing but Macs in my house, I feel like I have it all in one OS now.
may not be overclocked, water cooled, but y'know what? I actually use my computer now, isntead of spending my time "modding" it and "upgrading" it, and all that stuff....
heh... whatever.. right.. but iTunes is cool.
Just because some of you prefer to use lower quality software and non-intuitive buggy crap does't mean that us Mac users are retards. I know fellow mac users that could run circles in unix knowledge and/or programming knowledges and I also know mac users who know nothing beyond clicking their icon in the dock. Truth is..you can go any way you want in the Mac world, even if you just want something that 'just works'.