Apple iTunes Hot

Apple
says its music-downloading machine keeps churning as demand for songs
from its online iTunes store continues to grow. The maker of the iPod
says it has sold more than 250 million songs, or approximately 1.25
million a day.

Apple's digital music offering, anchored
by the dominant iPod player, has proven to be the easiest and most
complete service available. Until another company can come up with
something as simple -- but cheaper -- Apple should continue to lead the
market.

 
Serving the Unserved

Apple's leap into the music entertainment
business via its iPod digital music player would have made former RCA
chief David Sarnoff proud if he were alive to see it. But unlike the
old days of radio when RCA had the market and political power to
prevent the launch of FM, Apple does not have control over its
competitors.

"Apple has done the best job at helping
consumers understand how its iTunes music service compliments its
functional and stylish iPod player," said IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian.
"We haven't seen a lot of momentum from competitors while Apple
continues to up the ante, most recently with its flash-based MP3
player," she told NewsFactor.

The new device, called the iPod Shuffle,
is priced starting at US$99. Kevorkian says Apple has remained the
market leader partly because it continues to address unserved
consumers. Apple had been criticized for not having a low-priced device
in its portfolio of offerings.

Push 'Record-Play'

One of the misconceptions of the digital
music business, at least up to this point, is that consumers are
unsatisfied -- or soon will be -- with proprietary technology
offerings. While it is true that Apple music files, as well as the
formats of other technology firms, are not as easily transferable as
good old analog, consumers appear to accept the new rules of
Internet-based media.

There is nothing stopping you from
playing your downloaded iTunes song from an analog output -- e.g., the
line output -- into the analog input on your computer and creating your
own fresh MP3 file to use as you wish. If you can honestly hear the
difference between a digital MP3 copy and a cleanly recorded analog
version using a high quality sound card you are a freak of nature.

The point is, Apple appears to have time
to address the issue of consumer demand for songs that can be played on
any player. At the very least, that time is not now. "The music players
need to support the content that's available," Kevorkian noted. Except
for pirated music, there are few legal sources of songs that can be
played on any device.

As long as the content from Apple, Sony and other major firms remains proprietary -- and those firms have no
incentive to offer anything else -- the market for devices will be
dominated by players that reproduce proprietary content.

If you want transferability, you will have to learn to push "record-play" and wait 3 minutes and 14 seconds.

-- Jason Lopez