Most Apple-afficianados would have never thought they'd be on the other side of the coin in an antitrust case, but here they are. Clearly, Apple is the dominant player in the online music market, as well as the HD-based portable music player market. But there is more than one way to listen to music purchased iTunes music store: you can also make CDs of the songs and play them in and Compact Disc player, many of which would be considered portable by many standards. Furthermore, to negotiate the landmark rights deals with record companies, Apple surely had to show the labels that the iPod would not become a liability as a means to proliferate music easily to others, and the closed system accomplishes that feat. The question is, as much as many of us push for an open-source world, where do we draw the line between our right and our desire to use different technology platforms amongst each other? My personal (and knowingly imperfect)analogy is that I love my PS2...but I really like Halo 2...should antitrust litigation dictate if I should be able to play halo on my ps2?
Competition is a good thing, and it is what makes capitalism work. If Apple can't adapt and survive, then that's their own problem.You and I will both be better off when they cut prices in iTMS to compete with Real
you are absolutely right. but there are more people out in the world that use iTMS than those of us on/. currently it is still valuable for those other users to purchase songs for $1 each, and as long as that holds true, it isn't likely for prices to drop...capitalism works through competition, true, but it also works well with the help of antitrust legislation. Many people feel real's storming on to apple's platform is their own form of antitrust legislation, but i see that akin to p2p downloaders grabbing free music as music industry legislation...real is free to go through the traditional antitrust channels if they feel they are unfairly kept out of the market....just like apple, sun, and netscape did against MS while also trying to develop superior products.
I applaud your well thought out rebuttal, and i must give a nod yo your well-documented points. I feel that the console analogy, while it may not be perfect, does offer similarities in that both the iPod and a console (the ps2 for instance) are complete hardware and software solutions provided by the same company (sony's software for games to operate on the ps2). licenses to run that software on the ps2 or iPod are readily available for sale (moto just purchased a "sort of" license for their mobile phones, just like EA purchases a license for their madden game to run on the platform.) sure, microsoft could develop a game to run on the PS, and sell it like it sold Netscape to drive sony out of business in the console market. but as far as i see it, there are checks, (i.e. copyright and intellectual property legislations to prevent this from happening). i hope this makes the point i was trying to make a bit clearer.
Their entire PR campaign is just that, a PR campaign. It isn't the way the company really does things.
but isn't real's as well? i don't see the clear point here. Apple's has worked hard to appease record labels to stay within the bounds of the DMCA balancing consumers fair use rights and copyright law, it seems that it would be only fair for them to use the law that governs them to also protect them. It seemed a valid use of precent by apple, remember when sony went after connectix for making virtual game station...a psx emulator!
of course i'd be jumping for joy (especially if some rogue members of bungie were able to port halo2 to the ps2) but this so called "interoperability" undermines the value proposition which apple and others bring to the table. lest we not think about apple for a bit, what happens to creative and those guys now if their attribute sets are further hurt that the iPod can play more formats?
I posted this on the last apple/real thread, but i don't think it was ever read. (note IANAL) Many people (including real) are expressing that they have a right to listen to whatever formats they wish on the iPod. Yet, no one was ever forced to purchase an iPod. As far as I see, the freedom to choose your selected audio formats is with the consumer before they purchase a music device. If a consumer is unhappy with their purchase, they are free to obtain a player that will utilize other music formats. my Ogg buddies love their machines knowing the functionality was more imporatant than the coolness factor, and I have my iPod due to my own journey through the MP3 player purchasing decision. Apple has spent a ton of money on R&D and adverting, and any other company is free to do the same to create and sell a product of superior value offering. for real to piggyback on Apple's success is not only an admission of the lack of success with their own downloading venuture, but their failure to as of yet provide their own superior offering. it is in this spirit that we have such an excellent race with game consoles vying to prove they are the best value for specific consumers.
(note IANAL) Many people (including real) are expressing that they have a right to listen to whatever formats they wish on the iPod. Yet, no one was ever forced to purchase an iPod. As far as I see, the freedom to choose your selected audio formats is with the consumer before they purchase a music device. If a consumer is unhappy with their purchase, they are free to obtain a player that will utilize other music formats. my Ogg buddies love their machines knowing the functionality was more imporatant than the coolness factor, and I have my iPod due to my own journey through the MP3 player purchasing decision. Apple has spent a ton of money on R&D and adverting, and any other company is free to do the same to create and sell a product of superior value offering. for real to piggyback on Apple's success is not only an admission of the lack of success with their own downloading venuture, but their failure to as of yet provide their own superior offering. it is in this spirit that we have such an excellent race with game consoles vying to prove they are the best value for specific consumers.
A recent Volvo concept car (YCC, or Your Concept Car) designed with a woman in mind in fact features a latched hood only user serviceable by the authorized Volvo dealer...
Sure this is going to "possibly" prevent the spread of modchips...but what consumer benefit (i.e. lower prices) will be seen as a result of this legislation??
I think you all know that answer.
now i can finally get rid of that VoodooPC and my 20" lcd monitor i got in December...you know, 128MB of vRAM was SOOOO last year!
In all seriousness, I will definitely take this offer up on my truly vintage crap.
As usual, most/. ers here are using this announcement to a) complain about how Apple is being unfair to artists and b) complain about how the iTMS is too expensive.
When the store originally debuted, Jobs spoke on his justification for spending $1 on a song, which was, in fact, that it was marginally more convenient and valuable for a user to DL a song from the store than to spend time hunting on p2p sites for music and runing into cancelled downloads, poor quality music, mixtapes with DJs shouting over it, or viruses in some newer cases. In his words, to download off a p2p site and deal with the hassles is like working for under minimum wage. While we can all agree that there are some holes in Jobs' argument, especiually for those whose sharing avenues are quite advanced, what seems apparent is that with the sale of 100,000,000 songs, many users do find that convenience of the iTUMS to be valuable. Obviously, the store is far from perfect, but content like the motown collection and iTunes exclusives is exciting for users both young and old, and can persuade users from hardcore music fans to those who are discovering new music to broaden their horizons.
The new airbus A380 will be capable of holding over 800 passengers in full economy mode. Knowing the general vicinity of your bag out of 1200 (assuming 1.5 bags stowed per psgnr) is still only limiting it to a pile of 800.
Lest you forget...no one WANTS to buy the dell DJ, or Dell probably wouln't be running this promotion in the first place. Apple didn't have to accept a bunch of crappy old flash mp3 players to launch the mini.
When someone usually tries to play off of Apple's magnificent PR machine (i.e. using the "iPod killer" terminology) Jobs either shuggs it off, makes fun of them in the next keynote, or declares an innovation war. Any kowtowing to this ridiculous offer of lesser quality would be ill-advised on apple's part, yet there might be a way to make this a really cool PR event. Possibly a trade in an iPod and get nothing event? (Hey, since we all know nothing is better than a dell!)
This Dell DJ of search engines could be a testiment to the decline in convential search-engine revenue as a result of "the googleization" of dynamic content delivery systems. A move that will "cost microsoft tens of millions?" I like the creative spin, but I'm sure we can channel that energy elsewhere throughout redmond, and I'm sure they've run the numbers.
...it's all about the eyeballs.
you see, only one part of advertising measures the success, or trial, of an advert. In this case we'll consider success to be a click-through.
The other part of advertising is reach (the number of people whose eyeballs saw or experienced the advert) and frequency (the number of times those eyeballs saw or experienced the advert) from there, industries and companies have ratios that convert reach and frequency into their plausible trial factors, and can be used to predict sales, etc.
While the Open-source people here usually have a hard time comprehending why someone like yahoo would do this, consider the following.
Ad revenue from y! Instant Messenger: $$$
As revenue from user connected to trillian: 0
Of course yahoo understands that their client may not be the best out there, yet without any additional ad revenues it makes it tough to explain to upper management that it is worth allowing any old client to connect.
You can find Linux as the court stenographer. But he's just not transcripting dictated litigation. He's learning. He's adapting. Soon Linux will become the bailiff, judge, jury, court illustrator, public defender, janitor, and CourTV anchor.
GMail's rollout appears to have a two-pronged approach:
1) Force other e-mail providers into costly capital expenditures. remember, 1gb of space initially for a couple thousand invitees is still less than 250 mb for millions of users. MS and yahoo's teams will no doubt be prodded to recoup their capital expenditures for all users, while gmail can stay lean and mean as long as it wants, while at the same time dictate the market structure.
2) generate ginormous buzz. As others have said, "why not go to spymac?" The answer for John Q. public lies in the difference in brand equity between spymac and google. If an average user has decided to make a switch over to a new e-mail provider, johndoe@gmail.com is "worth" more than johndoe@spymac.com, regardless of features.
miniature American flags for others!
If anything, the early success of the iTMS in selected european countries indicates a trend that global internet business models can work in selected markets. Yet the internet in its most basic sense is about bringing information (or data, in this case) to all. Rather than simply transplanting the store to countries with similar capitalstic structures, the true "revolution" will be marked by the universal ability to experience the global art of music.
Apple has not forged a new beachead. yet.
Think of what this would do to the Continental US as we know it. Alas, no more would there be 10-10 numbers that call California, no white meat chicken at the Los Angeles Taco Bell, and higher prices prevailing on all laundry machines at the San Fransisco Sears!
You'll be able to see Linux as the ball boy on the #23 court. By the end of the tournament, he will have mastered prepring the PIMMs and lemonade, mowing the lawns, pitching the rain tent over centre court, judging the semi-final match, win the tournament, and establish himself as owner of the facility.
Sure, soul is a great marketing tool and Mozilla's position as the "browser with soul" is assuredly going to fuel a few more downloads. This one's right out of the Apple Computer playbook.
As far as the web browsing scene goes, the German iCab browser (ahhh, memories) was the pinnacle of soul. hand-drafted icons, a smily face that varied with the level of healthy code on a site, and the ability to fit on a floppy disc. Sure, it wasn't the most stable app in the world, but its imperfections gave it human qualities, and in turn, soul.
There will now be a silent collection.
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Most Apple-afficianados would have never thought they'd be on the other side of the coin in an antitrust case, but here they are. Clearly, Apple is the dominant player in the online music market, as well as the HD-based portable music player market. But there is more than one way to listen to music purchased iTunes music store: you can also make CDs of the songs and play them in and Compact Disc player, many of which would be considered portable by many standards. Furthermore, to negotiate the landmark rights deals with record companies, Apple surely had to show the labels that the iPod would not become a liability as a means to proliferate music easily to others, and the closed system accomplishes that feat. The question is, as much as many of us push for an open-source world, where do we draw the line between our right and our desire to use different technology platforms amongst each other? My personal (and knowingly imperfect)analogy is that I love my PS2...but I really like Halo 2...should antitrust litigation dictate if I should be able to play halo on my ps2?
Competition is a good thing, and it is what makes capitalism work. If Apple can't adapt and survive, then that's their own problem.You and I will both be better off when they cut prices in iTMS to compete with Real
/. currently it is still valuable for those other users to purchase songs for $1 each, and as long as that holds true, it isn't likely for prices to drop...capitalism works through competition, true, but it also works well with the help of antitrust legislation. Many people feel real's storming on to apple's platform is their own form of antitrust legislation, but i see that akin to p2p downloaders grabbing free music as music industry legislation...real is free to go through the traditional antitrust channels if they feel they are unfairly kept out of the market....just like apple, sun, and netscape did against MS while also trying to develop superior products.
you are absolutely right. but there are more people out in the world that use iTMS than those of us on
I applaud your well thought out rebuttal, and i must give a nod yo your well-documented points. I feel that the console analogy, while it may not be perfect, does offer similarities in that both the iPod and a console (the ps2 for instance) are complete hardware and software solutions provided by the same company (sony's software for games to operate on the ps2). licenses to run that software on the ps2 or iPod are readily available for sale (moto just purchased a "sort of" license for their mobile phones, just like EA purchases a license for their madden game to run on the platform.) sure, microsoft could develop a game to run on the PS, and sell it like it sold Netscape to drive sony out of business in the console market. but as far as i see it, there are checks, (i.e. copyright and intellectual property legislations to prevent this from happening). i hope this makes the point i was trying to make a bit clearer.
Their entire PR campaign is just that, a PR campaign. It isn't the way the company really does things.
but isn't real's as well? i don't see the clear point here. Apple's has worked hard to appease record labels to stay within the bounds of the DMCA balancing consumers fair use rights and copyright law, it seems that it would be only fair for them to use the law that governs them to also protect them. It seemed a valid use of precent by apple, remember when sony went after connectix for making virtual game station...a psx emulator!
of course i'd be jumping for joy (especially if some rogue members of bungie were able to port halo2 to the ps2) but this so called "interoperability" undermines the value proposition which apple and others bring to the table. lest we not think about apple for a bit, what happens to creative and those guys now if their attribute sets are further hurt that the iPod can play more formats?
I posted this on the last apple/real thread, but i don't think it was ever read. (note IANAL) Many people (including real) are expressing that they have a right to listen to whatever formats they wish on the iPod. Yet, no one was ever forced to purchase an iPod. As far as I see, the freedom to choose your selected audio formats is with the consumer before they purchase a music device. If a consumer is unhappy with their purchase, they are free to obtain a player that will utilize other music formats. my Ogg buddies love their machines knowing the functionality was more imporatant than the coolness factor, and I have my iPod due to my own journey through the MP3 player purchasing decision. Apple has spent a ton of money on R&D and adverting, and any other company is free to do the same to create and sell a product of superior value offering. for real to piggyback on Apple's success is not only an admission of the lack of success with their own downloading venuture, but their failure to as of yet provide their own superior offering. it is in this spirit that we have such an excellent race with game consoles vying to prove they are the best value for specific consumers.
(note IANAL) Many people (including real) are expressing that they have a right to listen to whatever formats they wish on the iPod. Yet, no one was ever forced to purchase an iPod. As far as I see, the freedom to choose your selected audio formats is with the consumer before they purchase a music device. If a consumer is unhappy with their purchase, they are free to obtain a player that will utilize other music formats. my Ogg buddies love their machines knowing the functionality was more imporatant than the coolness factor, and I have my iPod due to my own journey through the MP3 player purchasing decision. Apple has spent a ton of money on R&D and adverting, and any other company is free to do the same to create and sell a product of superior value offering. for real to piggyback on Apple's success is not only an admission of the lack of success with their own downloading venuture, but their failure to as of yet provide their own superior offering. it is in this spirit that we have such an excellent race with game consoles vying to prove they are the best value for specific consumers.
A recent Volvo concept car (YCC, or Your Concept Car) designed with a woman in mind in fact features a latched hood only user serviceable by the authorized Volvo dealer... Sure this is going to "possibly" prevent the spread of modchips...but what consumer benefit (i.e. lower prices) will be seen as a result of this legislation?? I think you all know that answer.
now i can finally get rid of that VoodooPC and my 20" lcd monitor i got in December...you know, 128MB of vRAM was SOOOO last year! In all seriousness, I will definitely take this offer up on my truly vintage crap.
As usual, most /. ers here are using this announcement to a) complain about how Apple is being unfair to artists and b) complain about how the iTMS is too expensive.
When the store originally debuted, Jobs spoke on his justification for spending $1 on a song, which was, in fact, that it was marginally more convenient and valuable for a user to DL a song from the store than to spend time hunting on p2p sites for music and runing into cancelled downloads, poor quality music, mixtapes with DJs shouting over it, or viruses in some newer cases. In his words, to download off a p2p site and deal with the hassles is like working for under minimum wage. While we can all agree that there are some holes in Jobs' argument, especiually for those whose sharing avenues are quite advanced, what seems apparent is that with the sale of 100,000,000 songs, many users do find that convenience of the iTUMS to be valuable. Obviously, the store is far from perfect, but content like the motown collection and iTunes exclusives is exciting for users both young and old, and can persuade users from hardcore music fans to those who are discovering new music to broaden their horizons.
The new airbus A380 will be capable of holding over 800 passengers in full economy mode. Knowing the general vicinity of your bag out of 1200 (assuming 1.5 bags stowed per psgnr) is still only limiting it to a pile of 800.
Lest you forget...no one WANTS to buy the dell DJ, or Dell probably wouln't be running this promotion in the first place. Apple didn't have to accept a bunch of crappy old flash mp3 players to launch the mini.
When someone usually tries to play off of Apple's magnificent PR machine (i.e. using the "iPod killer" terminology) Jobs either shuggs it off, makes fun of them in the next keynote, or declares an innovation war. Any kowtowing to this ridiculous offer of lesser quality would be ill-advised on apple's part, yet there might be a way to make this a really cool PR event. Possibly a trade in an iPod and get nothing event? (Hey, since we all know nothing is better than a dell!)
This Dell DJ of search engines could be a testiment to the decline in convential search-engine revenue as a result of "the googleization" of dynamic content delivery systems. A move that will "cost microsoft tens of millions?" I like the creative spin, but I'm sure we can channel that energy elsewhere throughout redmond, and I'm sure they've run the numbers.
Now if i could only eat enough mcdonald's meals to get 13,000 free sony connect songs!
...it's all about the eyeballs. you see, only one part of advertising measures the success, or trial, of an advert. In this case we'll consider success to be a click-through. The other part of advertising is reach (the number of people whose eyeballs saw or experienced the advert) and frequency (the number of times those eyeballs saw or experienced the advert) from there, industries and companies have ratios that convert reach and frequency into their plausible trial factors, and can be used to predict sales, etc.
While the Open-source people here usually have a hard time comprehending why someone like yahoo would do this, consider the following. Ad revenue from y! Instant Messenger: $$$ As revenue from user connected to trillian: 0 Of course yahoo understands that their client may not be the best out there, yet without any additional ad revenues it makes it tough to explain to upper management that it is worth allowing any old client to connect.
You can find Linux as the court stenographer. But he's just not transcripting dictated litigation. He's learning. He's adapting. Soon Linux will become the bailiff, judge, jury, court illustrator, public defender, janitor, and CourTV anchor.
GMail's rollout appears to have a two-pronged approach: 1) Force other e-mail providers into costly capital expenditures. remember, 1gb of space initially for a couple thousand invitees is still less than 250 mb for millions of users. MS and yahoo's teams will no doubt be prodded to recoup their capital expenditures for all users, while gmail can stay lean and mean as long as it wants, while at the same time dictate the market structure. 2) generate ginormous buzz. As others have said, "why not go to spymac?" The answer for John Q. public lies in the difference in brand equity between spymac and google. If an average user has decided to make a switch over to a new e-mail provider, johndoe@gmail.com is "worth" more than johndoe@spymac.com, regardless of features.
miniature American flags for others! If anything, the early success of the iTMS in selected european countries indicates a trend that global internet business models can work in selected markets. Yet the internet in its most basic sense is about bringing information (or data, in this case) to all. Rather than simply transplanting the store to countries with similar capitalstic structures, the true "revolution" will be marked by the universal ability to experience the global art of music. Apple has not forged a new beachead. yet.
Think of what this would do to the Continental US as we know it. Alas, no more would there be 10-10 numbers that call California, no white meat chicken at the Los Angeles Taco Bell, and higher prices prevailing on all laundry machines at the San Fransisco Sears!
You'll be able to see Linux as the ball boy on the #23 court. By the end of the tournament, he will have mastered prepring the PIMMs and lemonade, mowing the lawns, pitching the rain tent over centre court, judging the semi-final match, win the tournament, and establish himself as owner of the facility.
Sure, soul is a great marketing tool and Mozilla's position as the "browser with soul" is assuredly going to fuel a few more downloads. This one's right out of the Apple Computer playbook. As far as the web browsing scene goes, the German iCab browser (ahhh, memories) was the pinnacle of soul. hand-drafted icons, a smily face that varied with the level of healthy code on a site, and the ability to fit on a floppy disc. Sure, it wasn't the most stable app in the world, but its imperfections gave it human qualities, and in turn, soul. There will now be a silent collection.