iTunes Sales 'Collapsing'

Alien54 writes to tell us The Register is reporting that based on reported revenues this year iTunes sales are plummetting. From the article: "Secretive Apple doesn't break out revenues from iTunes, but Forrester conducted an analysis of credit card transactions over a 27-month period. And this year's numbers aren't good. While the iTunes service saw healthy growth for much of the period, since January the monthly revenue has fallen by 65 per cent, with the average transaction size falling 17 per cent. The previous spring's rebound wasn't repeated this year."

Comments

Front Row

[Savage-Rabbit]

I would like to see a mac mini with TiVo-killer hardware and software, but I doubt it will exist as long as Apple is selling TV shows in their store.

The movies and TV shows are in crappy quality aimed at the iPod screen size too, so they're a gross ripoff given that they're priced like DVDs.

I can't comment on the accuracy of your description since iTunes isn't available where I am living at the moment so I haven't been able to take a look at these services and I am to lazy to go to the trouble of making use of the loopholes. However, if that's really true and iTunes movies and TV shows are aimed at the iPod then Apple is barking up the wrong tree. Selling Movies and TV shows through iTunes is a good idea but they should tie it into Front Row and aim the sales at the desktop/mediacenter user not the iPod user. The iPod is a music player... period. I don't understand why Apple hasn't done more with Front Row and Mac-Mini combo. Perhaps they are so busy trying to wring the most out of the iPod they have forgotten about their other media products. I use a Mac-Mini as a media center along with an Elgato tuner and it works brilliantly but only because Elgato tacked a home made extension onto Front Row for their TV tuner which is a good thing since the remote Elgato ships with their tuners is (in my experience at least) complete crap. How hard can it be for Apple to create an API for TV tuner manufacturers like Elgato to use to integrate their products into Front Row? Still, it's cool to be able to control a DVD player, music jukebox, photo slideshow viewer, movie player and a TV tuner complete with recorder using a 6 button Front Row remote.

Not aimed *only* at iPods

[LKM]

The movies and TV shows are in crappy quality aimed at the iPod screen size too, so they're a gross ripoff given that they're priced like DVDs.

iPod screen: 320 by 240 pixel resolution.

iTunes movies: 640-by-480-pixel video.

While not quite as good as most DVDs, It's certainly not crappy, and certainly not aimed at iPod screens.

Re:Not aimed *only* at iPods

[Abcd1234]

Now as far as movie quality goes, I think ntsc is 480p, right?

No, NTSC is 480i (ie, 720x480), though it's actually more like 640x480 or so, thanks to signal loss, etc.

Meanwhile, a DVD is straight 480i. And the reduction in quality from that to 640x480 is probably barely noticeable (since the human eye is more sensitive to changes in verticle resolution). So are you saying DVDs are "crappy"?!?

Re:More to it than perhaps that

[Lumpy]

All of your wishes answered....

www.mythtv.org

I personally don't like it(Mediaportal is far better), but there is a myth2ipod plugin that will take all your recorded Tv shows and convert them for the ipod AND create a rss feed so that Itunes will grab the shows and shovel them to your ipod.

I have a setup for my daughter, she stopped wasting money on Itunes Tv show downloads since they load up off an RSS feed magically for her now.

Guess what, she simply fast forwards through the Commercials that the commercial skip misses not a real problem as the clickwheel makes it easy.

Not in my experience....

[shaneh0]

The TV shows I've purchased look great on my television. The idea that they're somehow designed for small screens is incorrect. A 22 minute TV show is about 250MB.