After the Apple icon came up, it wouldn't mount on my Powerbook. It's a frustrating little device to troubleshoot since there are only so many things that can happen to it.
I'm very curious as to what Apple says the problem is because my laptop shouldn't be able to cause hardware failure in 4 iPods.
What software can I use to erase and zero the iPod's hard drive?
I have been through 4 ipods in the last week, and the 5th is on the way.
iPod #1
I had a 4th generation iPod for about 9 months when I started getting errors saying "unable to read/write to iPod" and after I did a soft reset it wouldn't go beyond the Apple symbol. So I brought it to the Apple store, it was under it's 1 year warranty, but after the 6 month mark, so for $30 shipping and handling, I got a new iPod.
iPod #2
In 3 days, I picked up the iPod from the Apple store, brought it home and the SAME @#$#@ problem. "Unable to read/write to iPod" and after a soft reset it wouldn't go beyond the Apple symbol. A second Apple store had just opened up, so I brought it there (and also picked up a MacBook), and same great service: walked in, under warranty, hand me a new iPod.
iPod #3
This one got farther than iPod #2, I didn't get any errors while syncing it, but songs were missing in playlists when I started playing songs. I did manage to listen to it for a day. However, after I plugged it into the wall outlet, same problem, it wouldn't go beyond the Apple symbol. So I brought it back to the 1st Apple store.
iPod #4
Same problem as iPod #3, no errors while syncing, but missing songs, and then after the battery drained once, it wouldn't move beyond the Apple symbol. This time I called Apple.
iPod #5
I don't have this one yet, but they sent me a postage paid DHL mailer to ship iPod #4 back to them. They're trying to track down all 4 of the dead iPods so they can figure out what's wrong with them. I have NO idea. Some used firewire, some used USB 2.0, some were plugged into my Powerbook, some were plugged into a wall charger. I also have a nano and a 30 GB 5th generation iPod without any problems. The only thing I can think of is that it's a bad batch of iPods.
The nice lady on the phone said if they can't figure it out then I should call her and she'll see what she can do for me, which I hope means just giving me a 5th generation iPod. I'm really suprised they care so much. Why do they care if they fix a problem with a 4th generation iPod that doesn't appear to be a problem with the latest ones? I mean this time isn't free for Apple or for me. They have technically done a very good job honoring their warranty, but then again for $400, they better be. However, I wish they would find better solutions than giving me broken iPods after I returned iPod #3.
I am looking at doing this. I just haven't found a relatively simple, mostly foolproof way of syncing ratings and playcounts with multiple copies of the same song. it will be my next big project.
I would LOVE it if iTunes could handle multiple copies of the same song. It would just need to point to the two files in the database, the front end wouldn't know the difference. It would default to the highest bitrate in iTunes and then you could set a max bitrate threshold for when it copies the songs to the iPod. I would love if it could pull off the iPod Shuffle thing where it transcodes them on the fly, but with 60 GB that would take tooooo long.
That's why I LOVE my iPod and would never get rid of it. That I even get to listen to my Bon Jovi CDs from the 80s. I would never sit down and go "gee, what do I want to listen to today? Oh, I know, I'll put in my Bon Jovi CD." No, I wouldn' do that, but now that I have all of my CDs ripped and I'm about 90% through rating all of my songs, then every once in a while a highly rated Bon Jovi song will come up in my music and it will make me happy.
Disclaimer: Bon Jovi is used for example only.:)
Once you graduate from college and a free T1 line and get a job and have a life, buying CDs is one of the fastest ways to get full albums with the least hassle and there are tons of cheap places online. Between columbia house and my free 2 day shipping on Amazon.com with Amazon Prime.
When you think about it, that comment makes no sense. Why did I buy CDs over the last 10 years, before I knew that there would now be a format and cheap enough storage that allows me to store all my music on my computer?
I'm not a DJ, and there aren't that many songs that I even have multiple versions of. Classical is some of it. But I also happen to like a lot of different genres of music spanning the last 50 years. And if you're going to argue that there is only a month of music worth listening to recorded over the last 50 years, then you need to broaden your taste in music.
If there is one thing I can't stand is listening to songs over and over and over again.
And I do notice it. I can only fit about 3000 songs of my 11,500 song library on my iPod at a time at the moment. I haven't gotten around to experimenting with keeping multiple copies of songs in multiple formats yet.
Ever hear of a little thing called Apple Lossless? I have over 200 GB of music, and while I obviously don't listen to all of it, most of it is from the 800 or so CDs I have bought and ripped. I listen to it through my stereo using my Airport Express. I can now get rid of my CDs. And while my 60 GB iPod isn't big enough for my entire collection, it'll have to do for now. Either way, it's not that hard to acquire a large collection of music that is not crap.
I would be really curious to see how much battery life they could get out of an iPod with the new battery and whatever else they put in the photo iPod but still using the monochrome screen? If they could get 20 hours of battery life out of the 4G iPods, they'd at least be able to beat down one of the biggest features of the new players such as the Sony Network Walkman.
Honestly, would someone please explain to me, on a device that can hold 60 GB of data, how the @#$#@$ the compression or "features" of ogg vorbis are any better than any other format such as high quality mp3s or AAC files? What on earth is the big deal?
With compressed audio files, the goal is to get a certain audio quality, X, in a given file size. So, if you can get that quality using Ogg Vorbis in file size Y, but using MP3 or AAC you can get that exact same audio quality, but the file is 10 % larger, BUT the device holds 60 @#@#$ Gigabytes, WHO CARES.
I understand that a lot of people have large music libraries in formats other than MP3 or AAC, and for that, I don't have a response, but aside from that, who cares what format it's in, as long as it's a relatively small file size and you are able to achieve that X audio quality that you as a listener prefer?
At some point, time really plays a factor here. If can get 5% better sound quality by rippign it using program X and then running it through program Y and then tagging it using program Z, OR I can just increase the bitrate by 32 or 64 kbit in iTunes. I'm just going to buy a bigger hard drive and use iTunes. It's soooo easy.
You put the CD in and hit Import, AND if you have already imported the CD and you're just changing the format (for example, I am now ripping my CDs in Apple Lossless so I can listen to them at full quality using my Airport Express) it replaces them which saves hours of time by not having to go back and delete duplicates and add them to playlists, etc.
I have about 10,000 songs in iTunes right now, and that's growing as I rip about 600 of my CDs, in that situation, as long as I can achieve that audio quality X that I desire (Lossless for my Airport Express, or 192 AAC for my iPod), I really couldn't care any less what format the music is encoded in.)
The 30 gb iPods cost $500 in June of 2003, so just think, now you get 40 gb AND color and photo capabilities. Now THAT's progress. I only wish I had $500 to spend now:), but I think 30 gb will do for now.
Re:At least Real Supports linux, Mac's iTunes won'
on
Real Feels iTunes Backlash
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Apple is hardware company. The reason they make great software is to sell more hardware. The iTunes music store and iTunes even exist so they can sell more iPods and Macintoshes.
They are a corporation who's goal it is to make a profit. They don't get anything from giving away their software to people who will run it on other people's hardware, so why would they do it. They give iTunes away for free so that more people will buy iPods.
Real on the other hand is a pure software company. They don't care what hardware you're running. Real supports Linux because they give away a free software application to entice you to buy a not-free software application.
I just spent 2 weeks in Italy on vacation, in one pocket was my iPod, in the other was my Sony Cybershot DSC-T1 (you know, the tiny one). I think the T1 is a little shorter than the iPod, but it's a bit thicker due to the lens cover. Quite honestly, I couldn't even tell you which one is heavier. It doesn't matter, they both fit into my pocket. One of their biggest drawbacks is that I don't know they're there (which means you don't notice if they're not there, as in if you lost them). Obviously, smaller is usually better, but at this point, they both fit comfortably into your hand, so I'm happy.
I like Sony, I have a Sony receiver (cheap one, but it has served me well for years), CD player, TV, and my new DSC-T1 Digital Camera. I love them all.
I also love my iPod. And I will stick with it for a long time until someone else does it better. I have a 30 gb, and I'm VERY tempted to get the new 40.
"My next project is getting Rendezvous going on Fedora so that it plays nicer with the iBooks."
That's EXACTLY why I use OS X!!! "getting Rendezvous going" on my computer consists of...well...nothing. It already works. I am willing to pay a premium (actually, my boss made me the happiest employee ever by unexpectedly paying for half of my powerbook) to buy a mac because it makes me more productive so I don't need to spend time "getting things going".
Yet, I still have the flexibility to dig into the deepest darkest depths of it's UNIX underbelly IF I want to. And I have Virtual PC (it came with Office) if there is anything I need to run in Windows, although after installing it, I have yet to think of a reason to open it up:).
The cost of the literally 5,000 spam e-mails I get per month is essentially making those e-mail address 100% useless.
I can check my e-mail on my cell phone. It will even notify me if I get a message. But that feature is completely useless if I get a notification every 5 minutes. While we can discuss the philosophy of this later EVERYHING = NOTHING, if I get alerts constantly, then that's the same is getting no alert.
Also, I couldn't afford to have to even scan through my inbox if I had to pay for the bandwidth of all the spam being sent to my phone.
So there are many many implicity as well as explicit externalities of @#$@#$ SPAM
I think one cost of Spam that gets overlooked is the cost of false positives being identified by the filters.
I get literally about 5,000 spam e-mail messages a month. And while Panther's Mail program has an excellent spam filter that catches over 95% of it, I still have to go through the Junk e-mail box by hand to make sure I am not deleting any real e-mail messages.
I think this cost is higher than the time required to delete them. It would be easy to just have the filter delete the spam, it would save me a ton of time, but if I miss those 5 or 10 e-mails a month that is huge.
False positives have especially been a problem for me recently for two reasons:
I just graduate from college and our e-mail addresses are going to expire, so a lot of my friends have hotmail accounts and such, and have been sending their contact info to lists of their friends so those get identified as spam. If I miss these e-mails I may not be able to contact some of my friends
Even worse is looking for a job. I am constantly sending out my resume and then getting responses back, some of which are auto responses, from unfamiliar e-mail addresses in response. If I miss these e-mails I could miss a great job offer.
Stupid @#$#$ spammers, I think Federal fuck you in the ass prison is definitely acceptable.
I REALLY like this idea. While everyone is debating whether or not being sentenced to a Federal "fuck you in the ass" prison is justified or not, Why don't we just spam THEM?
As described above, lock them in a set of stocks and anyone who wants to can throw spam at them for a few years.
because they took my mom's sewing scissors away from her, they have blades that are about 1/2 an inch long and are used to cut thread. However, she is allowed to carry knitting needles! Why don't they just let people bring knives on with them? I just don't understand.
How did you get...
"small labels would get exactly the same deal as big labels"
from the actual quote in the article...
"We're going to give you the same BASIC deal we gave the big 5 major labels"
I'd say their deal is pretty damned good, they just don't have time to negotiate anymore, so they're taking what they've learned from the hell they've been through with the 5 majors, and just letting others in on the action.
Could someone please clarify this for me?
* Rights are a 3 year term. For iTunes only, of course. This is totally non-exclusive.
Can they sell their music through other online stores? It says it's non-exclusive, but then what does that "For iTunes only" refer to?
Thanks
Ogg Vorbis has its benefits, but with so many other formats out there, there's no dying reason for people to switch to it when other formats give similar quality, and are a hell of a lot easier to use. Please tell me why on earth would the record industry, which has been doing everything in its power to prevent anyone from copying anything, switch to an open source format?!? Does this sound like a good idea to anyone else?
I don't think (m)any people are "switching" their music collection to AAC files they've bought at the Apple Music store. The article said itself that the most popular (profitable) tracks are new releases and exclusive tracks, not available on CD (and I'm assuming not on vinyl either). The Apple Music Store is NOT the economical way of getting music you already own into a new format. I don't think we're going to see any rapid drop off sales anytime soon, especially before they get the windows version of iTunes out.
No, I'm still right. I can read Apple's financial reports on Yahoo too, but you need to think about that number for a second. Apple sells a lot of products other than imacs and ipods. The profit margins on all of these products varies widely. Obviously, the profit on software will be much higher, meaning the the profit margin on [at least some of] the hardware will be lower than that.
I would like to qualify it by saying they were probably refering to the 15 Gb or 30 Gb iPods. A 30 gig iPod costs FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, can' you honestly tell me that it costs ($500 *.7) = $350 to manufacture the 30 gig iPod when they're selling the 10 gig one for $299? I'd be willing to bet it costs less to manufacture any of them than the cost of the cheapest iPod. Which means they're making possibly $250 to $300 gross profit off the sale of one of the higher end iPods. And I don't believe they make $450 profit off an iMac, due to strong price competition in that market. I stand by my original statement.
The iPod is a cash cow for Apple. They've managed to capture 25% of the Mp3 player market (that has to be based on sales figures, not # of players sold), and that's with most PCs not even having a firewire port on them. Now that they're adding USB 2.0 support, AND the ease of integrating with a windows version of iTunes, how can they lose? It's a lot easier to convince someone to spend $400 on an iPod (probalby even easier to convince 3 people) than one person to switch from a PC to a Mac and shell out $1500 on a new iMac......end rant:) Have a nice day.
I read somewhere [reputable] that Apple makes almost as much profit off of an iPod as an iMac. When you think about it, it makes sense. Thanks to all the $599 P.O.S. machines Dell keeps putting out, the lower end desktop market has rather thin profit margins. On the other hand, the cheapest iPod is 300 @#$@#$ dollars (but god do I want one;)). So, if they can port iTunes to Windows and instead of requiring people to change their entire way of life and buying a mac, all they have to do is buy an iPod, then they've made almost as much money PLUS revenues from the music store, which selection aside (give it some time), is one of the easiest things in the world to use. They can't lose.
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After the Apple icon came up, it wouldn't mount on my Powerbook. It's a frustrating little device to troubleshoot since there are only so many things that can happen to it. I'm very curious as to what Apple says the problem is because my laptop shouldn't be able to cause hardware failure in 4 iPods. What software can I use to erase and zero the iPod's hard drive?
I have been through 4 ipods in the last week, and the 5th is on the way. iPod #1 I had a 4th generation iPod for about 9 months when I started getting errors saying "unable to read/write to iPod" and after I did a soft reset it wouldn't go beyond the Apple symbol. So I brought it to the Apple store, it was under it's 1 year warranty, but after the 6 month mark, so for $30 shipping and handling, I got a new iPod. iPod #2 In 3 days, I picked up the iPod from the Apple store, brought it home and the SAME @#$#@ problem. "Unable to read/write to iPod" and after a soft reset it wouldn't go beyond the Apple symbol. A second Apple store had just opened up, so I brought it there (and also picked up a MacBook), and same great service: walked in, under warranty, hand me a new iPod. iPod #3 This one got farther than iPod #2, I didn't get any errors while syncing it, but songs were missing in playlists when I started playing songs. I did manage to listen to it for a day. However, after I plugged it into the wall outlet, same problem, it wouldn't go beyond the Apple symbol. So I brought it back to the 1st Apple store. iPod #4 Same problem as iPod #3, no errors while syncing, but missing songs, and then after the battery drained once, it wouldn't move beyond the Apple symbol. This time I called Apple. iPod #5 I don't have this one yet, but they sent me a postage paid DHL mailer to ship iPod #4 back to them. They're trying to track down all 4 of the dead iPods so they can figure out what's wrong with them. I have NO idea. Some used firewire, some used USB 2.0, some were plugged into my Powerbook, some were plugged into a wall charger. I also have a nano and a 30 GB 5th generation iPod without any problems. The only thing I can think of is that it's a bad batch of iPods. The nice lady on the phone said if they can't figure it out then I should call her and she'll see what she can do for me, which I hope means just giving me a 5th generation iPod. I'm really suprised they care so much. Why do they care if they fix a problem with a 4th generation iPod that doesn't appear to be a problem with the latest ones? I mean this time isn't free for Apple or for me. They have technically done a very good job honoring their warranty, but then again for $400, they better be. However, I wish they would find better solutions than giving me broken iPods after I returned iPod #3.
I am looking at doing this. I just haven't found a relatively simple, mostly foolproof way of syncing ratings and playcounts with multiple copies of the same song. it will be my next big project. I would LOVE it if iTunes could handle multiple copies of the same song. It would just need to point to the two files in the database, the front end wouldn't know the difference. It would default to the highest bitrate in iTunes and then you could set a max bitrate threshold for when it copies the songs to the iPod. I would love if it could pull off the iPod Shuffle thing where it transcodes them on the fly, but with 60 GB that would take tooooo long.
That's why I LOVE my iPod and would never get rid of it. That I even get to listen to my Bon Jovi CDs from the 80s. I would never sit down and go "gee, what do I want to listen to today? Oh, I know, I'll put in my Bon Jovi CD." No, I wouldn' do that, but now that I have all of my CDs ripped and I'm about 90% through rating all of my songs, then every once in a while a highly rated Bon Jovi song will come up in my music and it will make me happy. Disclaimer: Bon Jovi is used for example only. :)
Once you graduate from college and a free T1 line and get a job and have a life, buying CDs is one of the fastest ways to get full albums with the least hassle and there are tons of cheap places online. Between columbia house and my free 2 day shipping on Amazon.com with Amazon Prime. When you think about it, that comment makes no sense. Why did I buy CDs over the last 10 years, before I knew that there would now be a format and cheap enough storage that allows me to store all my music on my computer? I'm not a DJ, and there aren't that many songs that I even have multiple versions of. Classical is some of it. But I also happen to like a lot of different genres of music spanning the last 50 years. And if you're going to argue that there is only a month of music worth listening to recorded over the last 50 years, then you need to broaden your taste in music. If there is one thing I can't stand is listening to songs over and over and over again.
And I do notice it. I can only fit about 3000 songs of my 11,500 song library on my iPod at a time at the moment. I haven't gotten around to experimenting with keeping multiple copies of songs in multiple formats yet.
Ever hear of a little thing called Apple Lossless? I have over 200 GB of music, and while I obviously don't listen to all of it, most of it is from the 800 or so CDs I have bought and ripped. I listen to it through my stereo using my Airport Express. I can now get rid of my CDs. And while my 60 GB iPod isn't big enough for my entire collection, it'll have to do for now. Either way, it's not that hard to acquire a large collection of music that is not crap.
I would be really curious to see how much battery life they could get out of an iPod with the new battery and whatever else they put in the photo iPod but still using the monochrome screen? If they could get 20 hours of battery life out of the 4G iPods, they'd at least be able to beat down one of the biggest features of the new players such as the Sony Network Walkman.
Honestly, would someone please explain to me, on a device that can hold 60 GB of data, how the @#$#@$ the compression or "features" of ogg vorbis are any better than any other format such as high quality mp3s or AAC files? What on earth is the big deal? With compressed audio files, the goal is to get a certain audio quality, X, in a given file size. So, if you can get that quality using Ogg Vorbis in file size Y, but using MP3 or AAC you can get that exact same audio quality, but the file is 10 % larger, BUT the device holds 60 @#@#$ Gigabytes, WHO CARES. I understand that a lot of people have large music libraries in formats other than MP3 or AAC, and for that, I don't have a response, but aside from that, who cares what format it's in, as long as it's a relatively small file size and you are able to achieve that X audio quality that you as a listener prefer? At some point, time really plays a factor here. If can get 5% better sound quality by rippign it using program X and then running it through program Y and then tagging it using program Z, OR I can just increase the bitrate by 32 or 64 kbit in iTunes. I'm just going to buy a bigger hard drive and use iTunes. It's soooo easy. You put the CD in and hit Import, AND if you have already imported the CD and you're just changing the format (for example, I am now ripping my CDs in Apple Lossless so I can listen to them at full quality using my Airport Express) it replaces them which saves hours of time by not having to go back and delete duplicates and add them to playlists, etc. I have about 10,000 songs in iTunes right now, and that's growing as I rip about 600 of my CDs, in that situation, as long as I can achieve that audio quality X that I desire (Lossless for my Airport Express, or 192 AAC for my iPod), I really couldn't care any less what format the music is encoded in.)
The 30 gb iPods cost $500 in June of 2003, so just think, now you get 40 gb AND color and photo capabilities. Now THAT's progress. I only wish I had $500 to spend now :), but I think 30 gb will do for now.
Apple is hardware company. The reason they make great software is to sell more hardware. The iTunes music store and iTunes even exist so they can sell more iPods and Macintoshes.
They are a corporation who's goal it is to make a profit. They don't get anything from giving away their software to people who will run it on other people's hardware, so why would they do it. They give iTunes away for free so that more people will buy iPods.
Real on the other hand is a pure software company. They don't care what hardware you're running. Real supports Linux because they give away a free software application to entice you to buy a not-free software application.
But I'm sure you know all of that already.
I just spent 2 weeks in Italy on vacation, in one pocket was my iPod, in the other was my Sony Cybershot DSC-T1 (you know, the tiny one). I think the T1 is a little shorter than the iPod, but it's a bit thicker due to the lens cover. Quite honestly, I couldn't even tell you which one is heavier. It doesn't matter, they both fit into my pocket. One of their biggest drawbacks is that I don't know they're there (which means you don't notice if they're not there, as in if you lost them). Obviously, smaller is usually better, but at this point, they both fit comfortably into your hand, so I'm happy. I like Sony, I have a Sony receiver (cheap one, but it has served me well for years), CD player, TV, and my new DSC-T1 Digital Camera. I love them all. I also love my iPod. And I will stick with it for a long time until someone else does it better. I have a 30 gb, and I'm VERY tempted to get the new 40.
"My next project is getting Rendezvous going on Fedora so that it plays nicer with the iBooks." That's EXACTLY why I use OS X!!! "getting Rendezvous going" on my computer consists of...well...nothing. It already works. I am willing to pay a premium (actually, my boss made me the happiest employee ever by unexpectedly paying for half of my powerbook) to buy a mac because it makes me more productive so I don't need to spend time "getting things going". Yet, I still have the flexibility to dig into the deepest darkest depths of it's UNIX underbelly IF I want to. And I have Virtual PC (it came with Office) if there is anything I need to run in Windows, although after installing it, I have yet to think of a reason to open it up :).
The cost of the literally 5,000 spam e-mails I get per month is essentially making those e-mail address 100% useless. I can check my e-mail on my cell phone. It will even notify me if I get a message. But that feature is completely useless if I get a notification every 5 minutes. While we can discuss the philosophy of this later EVERYHING = NOTHING, if I get alerts constantly, then that's the same is getting no alert. Also, I couldn't afford to have to even scan through my inbox if I had to pay for the bandwidth of all the spam being sent to my phone. So there are many many implicity as well as explicit externalities of @#$@#$ SPAM
I get literally about 5,000 spam e-mail messages a month. And while Panther's Mail program has an excellent spam filter that catches over 95% of it, I still have to go through the Junk e-mail box by hand to make sure I am not deleting any real e-mail messages.
I think this cost is higher than the time required to delete them. It would be easy to just have the filter delete the spam, it would save me a ton of time, but if I miss those 5 or 10 e-mails a month that is huge.
False positives have especially been a problem for me recently for two reasons:
I just graduate from college and our e-mail addresses are going to expire, so a lot of my friends have hotmail accounts and such, and have been sending their contact info to lists of their friends so those get identified as spam. If I miss these e-mails I may not be able to contact some of my friends
Even worse is looking for a job. I am constantly sending out my resume and then getting responses back, some of which are auto responses, from unfamiliar e-mail addresses in response. If I miss these e-mails I could miss a great job offer.
Stupid @#$#$ spammers, I think Federal fuck you in the ass prison is definitely acceptable.
I REALLY like this idea. While everyone is debating whether or not being sentenced to a Federal "fuck you in the ass" prison is justified or not, Why don't we just spam THEM? As described above, lock them in a set of stocks and anyone who wants to can throw spam at them for a few years.
because they took my mom's sewing scissors away from her, they have blades that are about 1/2 an inch long and are used to cut thread. However, she is allowed to carry knitting needles! Why don't they just let people bring knives on with them? I just don't understand.
A lot of the TV, radio, and print iPod ads say "For Mac and PC," that is what the previous poster was referring to.
How did you get... "small labels would get exactly the same deal as big labels" from the actual quote in the article... "We're going to give you the same BASIC deal we gave the big 5 major labels" I'd say their deal is pretty damned good, they just don't have time to negotiate anymore, so they're taking what they've learned from the hell they've been through with the 5 majors, and just letting others in on the action.
Could someone please clarify this for me? * Rights are a 3 year term. For iTunes only, of course. This is totally non-exclusive. Can they sell their music through other online stores? It says it's non-exclusive, but then what does that "For iTunes only" refer to? Thanks
Ogg Vorbis has its benefits, but with so many other formats out there, there's no dying reason for people to switch to it when other formats give similar quality, and are a hell of a lot easier to use. Please tell me why on earth would the record industry, which has been doing everything in its power to prevent anyone from copying anything, switch to an open source format?!? Does this sound like a good idea to anyone else?
I don't think (m)any people are "switching" their music collection to AAC files they've bought at the Apple Music store. The article said itself that the most popular (profitable) tracks are new releases and exclusive tracks, not available on CD (and I'm assuming not on vinyl either). The Apple Music Store is NOT the economical way of getting music you already own into a new format. I don't think we're going to see any rapid drop off sales anytime soon, especially before they get the windows version of iTunes out.
Maybe you should find an new bank to get your VISA card from.
No, I'm still right. I can read Apple's financial reports on Yahoo too, but you need to think about that number for a second. Apple sells a lot of products other than imacs and ipods. The profit margins on all of these products varies widely. Obviously, the profit on software will be much higher, meaning the the profit margin on [at least some of] the hardware will be lower than that. I would like to qualify it by saying they were probably refering to the 15 Gb or 30 Gb iPods. A 30 gig iPod costs FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, can' you honestly tell me that it costs ($500 * .7) = $350 to manufacture the 30 gig iPod when they're selling the 10 gig one for $299? I'd be willing to bet it costs less to manufacture any of them than the cost of the cheapest iPod. Which means they're making possibly $250 to $300 gross profit off the sale of one of the higher end iPods. And I don't believe they make $450 profit off an iMac, due to strong price competition in that market. I stand by my original statement.
The iPod is a cash cow for Apple. They've managed to capture 25% of the Mp3 player market (that has to be based on sales figures, not # of players sold), and that's with most PCs not even having a firewire port on them. Now that they're adding USB 2.0 support, AND the ease of integrating with a windows version of iTunes, how can they lose? It's a lot easier to convince someone to spend $400 on an iPod (probalby even easier to convince 3 people) than one person to switch from a PC to a Mac and shell out $1500 on a new iMac. .....end rant :) Have a nice day.
I read somewhere [reputable] that Apple makes almost as much profit off of an iPod as an iMac. When you think about it, it makes sense. Thanks to all the $599 P.O.S. machines Dell keeps putting out, the lower end desktop market has rather thin profit margins. On the other hand, the cheapest iPod is 300 @#$@#$ dollars (but god do I want one ;)). So, if they can port iTunes to Windows and instead of requiring people to change their entire way of life and buying a mac, all they have to do is buy an iPod, then they've made almost as much money PLUS revenues from the music store, which selection aside (give it some time), is one of the easiest things in the world to use. They can't lose.