Experienced Mac users may not have the perspective that it takes to see what makes Windows users stay with Microsoft, and let’s face it, some Mac users (not you or me, of course) are just downright zealots.

4. Price
The perception by Windows users is that Macs are more expensive than Windows PCs. This may have been true in the past, but the new Macs are very comparably priced to similarly equipped PCs. Unfortunately, the perception remains.

5. Lies
Let’s face it: Apple tends to bend the truth once in a while, especially about Microsoft and Windows.

I remember watching the 20 or 30 minute Vista-bashing session at the WWDC conference and wondering why Steve Jobs is so insecure that he has to berate the opposition. Can you imagine shopping for a car and having the salesman only talk about what’s wrong with the competition’s cars?

8. Mac Users
Okay, I’m not talking about you or me here, but there are some Mac users out there who have just a little too much love for Apple. When they are shouting (or typing in all caps) about how much better Macs are, they’re not convincing anyone to switch, they are scaring them away.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod, Mac, PC, Vista

Labels: iPod, Zune

Labels: Digital media, iPod

The iPhone is a closed system, like the iPods before it, so third parties can only develop software for it if they are EXTREMELY close to Apple. This is an incredibly frightening trend. As Apple gets more and more of its revenue from non-Mac devices, they are also getting more and more of their revenue from devices that simply exclude third parties.

On iPods, Airports, Apple TVs, and now iPhones, Apple wants every app perfect. Which is nice, in theory. In practice, it means innovation only happens at Apple's pace. The marketplace of ideas is much smaller, and the devices are much poorer because of it. (Example: Why can't I stream music from my iPhone or iPod touch to my Airport Express?)

[With] the latest iPods Apple [have] gone a step further, and disabled some docking stations that don't have a special chip in them provided by Apple; forcing customers to use only Apple-approved accessories. Apple's emulating the most pernicious qualities of Nintendo and the Microsoft XBox -- you pay us a tax or you don't work with our systems.

Apple's "approval" just comes from Apple getting a cut. It's a measure of greed, not quality. We're not talking about THX-certification here, we're talking about extortion. This kind of lock-in seems very appealing for the company doing the locking early on, but it always, ALWAYS ends up biting the company in the butt.

Then we come to ringtones. Every phone I've owned in the last ten years has allowed to make my own ringtones. But since Apple is so close to the record companies, and they are already so grumpy with Apple, Apple did a deal that benefits record companies and Apple. Not artists, certainly not consumers.

A million customers don't get to do something cool with their iPhones. Because of greed.

Now we see that iPod owners who upgrade to a newer iPod must re-buy the games they've already bought, because the new iPods are incompatible with the old. No credit given for having already bought an identical game.

Steve ... give up on trying to control everything. It's only going to keep hurting Apple, more and more, to control content and hardware and software. It's going to make them into the kind of mega-monopoly that we always, ALWAYS end up hating. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. 100% of the time.

Apple should license FairPlay, or allow iPods to play PlaysForSure music. Either one. Basically, Apple should allow other music stores to sell DRM'ed music that works on iPods and iPhones.

Faced with the choice between doing what’s right for customers or charging them money for something they shouldn’t need to pay for, Apple chose the latter. There is no middle ground. And any business that hinges on your customers “not knowing any better” is a bad business.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

Apple President Steve Jobs reiterated his commitment to charging the same price for iTunes downloads across Europe as his lawyers defended the company on Wednesday against allegations its prices are not uniform.

"We think prices should be the same. We think anybody in Europe should buy off any store," Jobs told a press conference in Berlin, which he visited in connection with an iPhone deal.

At the same time, Apple officials were defending the company in Brussels.

The Commission charged in April that Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group and Warner Music Group were forcing Apple to curtail cross-border access to iTunes.

Labels: Apple, iPod, iTunes

Forbes takes a look at a product Apple seems to have all but ignored since it was first released last year:

iTV is a flat-out iFlop. Renamed Apple TV upon launch, the ballyhooed box has sold perhaps 250,000 units--far behind the 1 million sold for the iPhone, which was priced twice as high and has been on the market less than half as long. Apple ... provides detailed sales data for the iPod and other digital wonders but won't reveal any numbers for Apple TV; apparently the truth is too humiliating.

Jobs' own ambivalence about the iFlop, however, is evident. At a tech conference in May Jobs took the stage and casually dismissed Apple TV as merely "a hobby." In briefing Wall Street on quarterly earnings on July 25, Apple execs ignored the video product.

Jobs confined Apple TV to handling only the content you could get through Apple's own iTunes. This parochial and proprietary approach, in an increasingly open, Internet-infused world, had relegated the company's Macintosh line to a narrow slice of sales. Yet it also had let the iPod dominate online music, which may be why Jobs believed he could pull off the same thing in video. Wrong.

So here's the thing. In the days leading up to the Apple TV's release, I bemoaned the fact that it lacked DVR capabilities and thus could never be real competition for Microsoft's excellent Media Center software (available since 2002) and Media Center Extender hardware (available since 2004). That's still true today, and as I noted in my review of the Apple TV, the device is really just "an iPod designed for your living room instead of your pocket. It is simply yet another way to consume content purchased from Apple's nearly-ubiquitous iTunes Store." I award the thing 3 out of 5 stars and declared that it is "big on hype but short on functionality."

But is it a flop?

Maybe. I do like the idea of the Apple TV, though again, it's hugely diminished without DVR functionality. If you've completely bought into the Apple digital media ecosystem, it works pretty well. But even then there are limitations: You still can't buy any HD content on iTunes, relegating the box's 720p display capabilities moot. And if you rip your own DVDs to MPEG-4 or H.264 you have some choices to make, as the Apple TV can play back 640 x whatever movies aimed at the iPod, but the reverse isn't true of the slightly higher-resolution movies the Apple TV supports, but the iPod does not. The whole thing is kind of a mess. Technologically, the Apple TV is a mixed bag.

If these sales figures are to be believed, the Apple TV is a sales flop as well. If this were Microsoft, we'd all knowingly nod our heads at the notion that the company would simply issue a few upgrades and eventually get it right. But this is Apple, which tends to bolt from defeats, especially the high profile ones, as quickly as possible.And that's a shame, because the Apple TV could have turned into a cool product. For me, the most damning evidence that this will never happen is Jobs himself and his comments about it being "a hobby". It's just too bad.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

Let me get this straight: Steve Jobs insists that songs on iTunes cost 99 cents and television episodes cost $1.99 because consumers crave simple pricing.

Except, of course, when it comes to Apple’s own products.

There were wrinkles created by all the dynamic pricing. Customers who paid $599 when the iPhone came out two months ago saw their status drop from early adopter to, well, sucker, after Mr. Jobs cut the price of the device by a third. After Mr. Jobs was crucified for playing it too cute on the so-called “Jesus phone,” he issued a non-apology apology and a $100 store credit to help those early buyers salvage some dignity.

A pricing error? Absolutely. And when you think about it, the media companies Mr. Jobs is fighting with want the opportunity to make the same mistake.

Apple saying it would not carry television shows from the coming NBC season because the network wanted double the $1.99 price and NBC saying that was not true.

“Apple is not telling the truth. We never asked to double the wholesale price of our shows," said Cory Shields, a spokesman for NBC Universal. “Our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.”

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPhone, iPod, iTunes

Newsweek:

Last Wednesday Jobs donned his costume of black mock turtleneck and jeans-like Olivier dabbing on the greasepaint-and unveiled to a San Francisco crowd of media and employees a bunch of cool stuff. But this time Jobs lost control of his story.

In June, as you can't help but know, the iPhone became Apple's most-hyped product ever, so much so that the company's fate became intertwined with the groundbreaking device.

Before he left the stage, Jobs dropped a bomb: Apple cut the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399. Slashing the price by $100 might have been high-tech business as usual. But slashing the price tag by a third, only two months after hogging high tech's red carpet, was startling. And it became the story of the day. Since reports had been rife that sales of iPhones weren't soaring, some critics opined that this drastic cut was born of desperation. And wouldn't those who bought one at the higher price now feel like suckers?

Jobs ... was making a timely gamble. A lot of people are going to be giving phones as holiday presents, and Apple's research, he says, shows that they want to choose an iPhone but believe it costs too much. Bringing the price down means making the sale. "We have one chance to go out and go for the holiday season," he said to me. "If we don't take that chance, we wait a whole other year. We're willing to make less money to get more iPhones out there." What about people who just bought one for $599? "I feel for them," he said. "But, you know, we're not harming anybody."

(I find it ironic that the same Apple fans who in June were lofting their newly acquired iPhones in the air like they'd won the Stanley Cup are now complaining that they paid too much.)

Then you don't understand the mentality of these people, Mr. Levy. They're proud and defensive about their insular little private club. Now that they've been revealed as stooges, these guys have lost their cachet and thus their sense of self and ego. Not only are millions and millions of people suddenly getting into their club, they're doing so at a vastly reduced price. Imagine buying a Lexus for $40,000 and then watching the company put it on sale for $25,000 two months later. And no, you didn't get $15,000 worth of use out of in two months, delusional self-justification notwithstanding.

Anyway, Levy is right about one thing: The iPhone price cut certainly did overshadow the new iPods. But that's brilliant, because Apple will sell tens of millions of these new iPods this year regardless. Now they can sell millions of iPhone too. Brilliant.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod

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Labels: iPhone, iPod

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod, Zune

Some of you may have already heard, but tomorrow we’re dropping the suggested retail price for Zune to $199. It’s part of the normal product lifecycle, something we’ve had on the books for months. We just got some research back and customer satisfaction with the 30GB device is really high (around 94%) and we expect even more consumers will now want to discover the Zune experience at the new lower price.

Labels: iPod, Zune

The artificial audio of MP3s is quickly becoming the primary way people listen to music. Apple already has sold 100 million iPods, and more than a billion MP3 files are traded every month through the Internet.

But the music contained in these computer files represents less than 10 percent of the original music on the CDs. In its journey from CD to MP3 player, the music has been compressed by eliminating data that computer analysis deems redundant, squeezed down until it fits through the Internet pipeline.

When even the full files on the CDs contain less than half the information stored to studio hard drives during recording, these compressed MP3s represent a minuscule fraction of the actual recording. For purists, it's the dark ages of recorded sound.

How much the audio quality is affected by the MP3 process depends on the compression strategy, the encoder used, the playback equipment, computer speed and many other steps along the way. Experts agree, however, that the audio quality of most MP3s is somewhere around FM radio. The best digital audio, even with increased sampling rates and higher bit rates, still falls short of the natural quality of now-obsolete analog tape recording.

How good MP3s sound obviously also depends greatly on the playback system. But most MP3s are heard through cheap computer speakers, plastic iPod docking stations or, worse yet, those audio abominations called earbuds.

Labels: Digital media, iPod, iTunes, Zune

Dell announced plans yesterday to acquire a private MP3 software company called ZING Systems Inc., an indication that Round Rock is interested in re-entering the MP3 product ring.

In September 2005, Dell unveiled its own player, the DJ Ditty, to compete with the iPod Shuffle –you may not recall because it all happened so quickly. The Ditty was pulled last August, less than a year after its launch. At the time, a spokesman told the Wall Street Journal the company wanted to focus instead on its core products, like PCs and printers.

ZING licenses its technology to Sirius (SIRI) and SanDisk (SNDK) for their MP3 players, and according to the company’s website, its software lets people not only listen to live digital streams but collect songs from them and make playlists.

Labels: Digital media, iPod, Zune

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPhone, iPod, Mobile

The emerging consensus, in fact, is that the [mobile phone makers'] dread is warranted. That Jobs is about to do it again—to unleash another object of overwhelming, consciousness-drenching, culture-shifting desire. That Apple’s past is merely preface to a period of increasing and metastasizing dominance.

Jobs told friends the company was 90 days away from bankruptcy. [As I've said repeatedly, by the way. --Paul]

"He said, ‘We’re going to do just four things,’ and then he drew this grid: laptop, desktop, consumer, business. That was it. And I was, like, ‘Beautiful!’"

The initial hopes for the iPod were modest. It was conceived as simply another part of the company’s “digital hub” initiative: an assortment of features (iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, etc.) intended to make the Mac as mediacentric as possible. At the launch, Jobs touted the iPod’s functionality as a spare disk drive. The notion that it would transform Apple from an also-ran computer outfit into a consumer-electronics powerhouse never occurred to anyone.

The iTunes Store has ... directly contributed next to nothing to Apple’s bottom line. But Jobs never intended to make a bundle by retailing music. The purpose of the iTunes store was strictly to sell more iPods.

The link between the iPod and iTunes is ... designed to limit consumer choice, to foster reluctance among consumers who own iTunes tracks to switch to other devices. It has prompted complaints by European governments to the European Commission—which so far have come to naught.

“Right now, the download model is necessary because I want to take music in the car or to the gym. But once we have true mobile broadband, the streaming model is going to take off. Then there’s never really going to be a need to own files at all. It’ll all just be there in the cloud.” As for music discovery, Wilson says, “I’ve never found one single artist or song on iTunes … It’s an online version of Tower Records, only worse.”

MusicNet’s McGlade, whose products compete with iTunes, agrees. “The issue with download purchases is that every time you want to hear a track, you’ve got to make a buying decision,” he says. “I gotta tell you, once you put people on a subscription service, they can’t go back.”

The joint interview was revealing on other levels, too. Whereas Gates came across as entirely at ease, almost avuncular, Jobs was coiled as tight as a spring. Whereas Gates spoke happily about the marks, technological and philanthropic, he would leave on the world, Jobs squirmed at the notion of bequeathal, with its intimations of mortality.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod

Apple announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV™. Users can download the free software update using Apple TV’s built-in software update feature, and then easily navigate through YouTube’s familiar video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view and save their favorite videos.

“iPhone delivers the best YouTube mobile experience by far,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Now users can enjoy YouTube wherever they are—on their iPhone, on their Mac or on a widescreen TV in their living room with Apple TV.”

To achieve higher video quality, YouTube has begun encoding their videos in the advanced H.264 format. Over 10,000 videos will be available on June 29, and YouTube will be adding more each week until their full catalog of videos is available in the H.264 format this fall.

Labels: Apple, Apple TV, Digital media, iPhone, iPod

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Labels: Apple, iPod, Mac

Labels: Apple, iPod, iTunes, Mac

Labels: Digital media, iPod, Zune

"We're still about nine months [actually, it's closer to 6 months --Paul] into having Zune in the marketplace. We're very pleased with the progress. We've sold a little over a million Zunes. In the category we're in, the hard-disk-based category, we've got about 10 percent market share. It's a good start. It's not an overwhelming start. I'm not going to pretend it's some gigantic move."

Labels: Digital media, iPod, Zune

Portable Media Center devices - remmber [sic] them? Slightly less cumbersome versions of fully fledged Media Center PCs - are being officially killed off.

Microsoft's David Bono [confirmed that] PMCs are going the way of the dodo:

"We have decided to take what we have learned from our investments in Portable Media Center and focus our product and marketing resources on building media experiences on connected Windows Mobile powered devices....

With the re-investment of resources in media experiences on connected Windows Mobile powered devices, Portable Media Center 2.0 is the last version of our Portable Media Center software under the Windows Mobile brand. We do not plan any future Portable Media Center software upgrades or marketing activities."

Labels: Digital media, iPod, Microsoft

Today we're publishing at the Microsoft Download Center a recommended final compatibility update for users of Windows Vista and the Apple iPod; this same update will be automatically available via Windows Update on Tuesday 22 May. The release is for users worldwide and works with the latest version of Apple iTunes to correct an issue that caused some iPods to become corrupted when ejecting them using Windows Explorer or the "Safely Remove Hardware" function in the System Tray.

The long and short of it is this: Apple and Windows have partnered together to ensure a great experience in using Windows Vista with iTunes and the iPod, and both companies recommend you download this update.

Labels: iPod, Microsoft, Vista

There are ways to make money on an Xbox. Generally it's not on the hardware itself; we'll probably be gross margin neutral on that over the life cycle of the product and try to break even on that.

[Regarding the Zune,] people always want to say, gosh, Apple has such a big lead, what are you going to do, how do you possibly compete with that, and why would you bother? And part of my response is, you know, they've sold 100 million devices. So, let's just do some math. You and I can do this. How many people are there in the world? Five, six billion ... every single one of them has a music experience ... [some math ensues] ... you have a target audience of a 1.5 billion people. Not everyone is going to want a digital device; we can go through the yak-yak around that. But the audience is huge, and we are really early in what's going to happen in the music space. And the music industry is … in the process of reinventing itself.

And so for us, A) there's a big market; B) we think the opportunity is just beginning; and C) if you want to be in what we call connected entertainment, you have to be able to connect movies and video with music, with games, with communications technology to be able to do that. You can't not have a player.

So, early phases of this, we're about 10 percent market share in the category we're in, which is the hard disk. That's a good first step. Like Xbox was before it, the first step is what it is, it's nice, it's not perfect. People have commentary and questions and things we can improve, and we would say, yep, you're right. And we're not stupid, we see all those things, and we're good developers, and we know what we need to do. And you're going to see the product get better and better and better. You're going to see us be relentless in marketing. And you're going to see us expand into other parts of the category beyond the hard disk space. And I think we can be successful; I think we can build a nice business.

[On communities,] Zune today probably isn't a great example in the sense that community is part of the process for Zune that we believe in, and we haven't...really created the community environment.

[Regarding consumer electronics,] From a balanced perspective there are categories where we're not going to do devices. We don't do phones. We don't have plans to do phones ... There are other places like Zune where because of Apple's success, and frankly because of the uneven experience we were able to deliver just by being the platform provider, we decided we had to do it ourselves. I have no desire to do hardware ... Xbox is the hardest piece of consumer electronics hardware to produce in the world, no debate. It just taxes way more of anything you could possibly want to do. Zune technically speaking is dramatically easier. Almost any other device you could describe to me would be dramatically easier than producing what we did in Xbox.

And so by becoming experts at doing that, we are building core skill sets that we can leverage other places if we think the business requires it.

I believe people are going to want an entertainment experience that's always connected regardless of the device and the location they're in. If I want to do that, I've got to be great at video, I've got to be great in music, I've got to be great in games, and I have to be great at communications. Those are the building blocks.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, Microsoft, Zune

When we first went to talk to these record companies ... we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content.

These [music subscription] services that are out there now are going to fail.Here's why: People don't want to buy their music as a subscription. They bought 45's; then they bought LP's; then they bought cassettes; then they bought 8-tracks; then they bought CD's. They're going to want to buy downloads. People want to own their music. You don't want to rent your music -- and then, one day, if you stop paying, all your music goes away.

And, you know, at 10 bucks a month, that's $120 a year. That's $1,200 a decade. That's a lot of money for me to listen to the songs I love. It's cheaper to buy, and that's what they're gonna want to do.

There are approximately 800 million CD's sold in the U.S. a year, I believe. That's about 10 billion tracks, right? About 10 billion tracks in the U.S. -- sold legally. Our next milestones are to get up to 100 million tracks a year, then a quarter a billion, and then half a billion, and then a billion. And that's gonna take a little bit of time.

Movies are very different than music. First of all, they're a hundred times larger. There's only been one way to buy your music -- that's on a CD. Look at the ways there are to legally buy a movie -- you can see it at the theater, you can buy it on home video, you can buy on DVD. But you can also rent it at Blockbuster or Netflix. You can watch it on pay-per-view. You can also watch it on cable or network TV. There are a lot of ways to legally get a movie. There was only one way to legally get music. That's a really big difference. The distribution is much more highly evolved in the movie industry than it ever was in the music industry

People who just make the leap that movies are next are wrong.

There are a lot of examples of people offering services, Internet-based services, that have done quite well [against Microsoft].

One of the reasons Apple was able to do what we did was because we are perceived by the music industry as the most creative technology company. And now we've created this music store, which I think is nontrivial to copy. I mean, to say that Microsoft can just decide to copy it, and copy it in six months -- that's a big statement. It may not be so easy.

Labels: Apple, iPod, iTunes

Apple posted its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday, and results surpassed even the most optimistic expectations. Apple profits jumped 88 percent in the quarter to $770 million on revenues of $5.26 billion, the company said. Sales of iPod portable media players rose 24 percent in the quarter to 10.5 million units, while sales of Macintosh computer systems rose even higher, 36 percent, to 1.5 million units.

Apple's strong performance comes during a time in which it has not shipped major updates to either of its two product lines. Apple will bolster its iPod line with the iPod sometime in June, and the company expects to ship the next update to the Mac operating system software in October. Presumably, Apple will refresh its other Mac and iPod hardware throughout the year as well.

While the iPod continues to dominate the digital music world, Apple's Mac has seen only limited real world gains, despite the strong growth.

Still, there's a growing consensus that Apple's successes with the Mac are not so easily characterized. Though the Mac's market share remains tiny, Macs are indeed selling well and generating plenty of profits for Apple. Presumably, the company can continue as a specialty PC maker whose products are loved for their design aesthetics, performance, and security. And though there are indications that Apple is preoccupied with its consumer electronics products, the Mac market remains both viable and desirable.

Labels: Apple, iPod, Mac

Microsoft announced late Wednesday that its Zune digital media player is "holding steady" and continues to be the number two selling hard drive-based portable media player.

According to NPD data cited by Microsoft, the Zune controlled 9.1 percent of the hard drive-based portable media player market in March, second only to Apple's iPod, which presumably controlled most of the other 90 percent. To bolster sales, Microsoft is adding a "baby pink" Zune model alongside the previous black, white, and brown models. The pink Zune will become widely available in May, Microsoft says.

Labels: Digital media, iPod, Zune

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2007 second quarter ended March 31, 2007. The Company posted revenue of $5.26 billion and net quarterly profit of $770 million, or $.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $4.36 billion and net quarterly profit of $410 million, or $.47 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 35.1 percent, up from 29.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 43 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 1,517,000 Macintosh computers and 10,549,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 36 percent growth in Macs and 24 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.

Labels: Apple, iPod, Mac

Question: Should Microsoft quit the MP3 player market?

Answer: I thought they already did. They’re spending a lot of money, but they’re on a dead end. They always were. They saw the Dip, but instead of embracing it by completely reinventing what it meant to be an MP3 player, they just played it safe and made a piece of me-too.

When you copy something that’s already on the other side of the Dip, you’ve already lost. Microsoft “quit” the MP3 player market when they identified the wrong Dip. They picked the obvious, “safe” one—the one committees of people could live with, but one that is so big and so steep that even Microsoft doesn’t have the money to get through it.

Microsoft has a long history of sticking through Dips, and a long history of quitting dead ends. I have no idea what they’re thinking when it comes to the Zune, but it’s a dead end, through and through.

Question: Should Apple quit the personal computer market?

Answer: Apple has already crossed that Dip, big time. Not the “personal computer Dip” but the Dip of “style-conscious, designer’s, multimedia, student, family computer.” They’re the best in the world at that. They own it. They profit from it. Sure, if Steve hadn’t been arrogant, they could have been best in the world at a much bigger, much juicier market. But they’re not. Once they deal with that—and I think they mostly have—then they can erect a wall behind them, a bigger dip, one that prevents others from following. Over time, personal computers become a profitless commodity while Apple’s market just gets sexier, more fun, and more profitable.

Labels: Apple, iPod, Mac, Microsoft, Zune

Apple today announced that the 100 millionth iPod has been sold, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history. The first iPod was sold five and a half years ago, in November 2001, and since then Apple has introduced more than 10 new iPod models, including five generations of iPod, two generations of iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle. Along with iTunes and the iTunes online music store, the iPod has transformed how tens of millions of music lovers acquire, manage and listen to their music.

The iPod has also sparked an unprecedented ecosystem of over 4,000 accessories made specifically for the iPod that range from fashionable cases to speaker systems, and more than 70 percent of 2007-model US automobiles currently offer iPod connectivity.

Every iPod features seamless integration with iTunes 7. The iTunes Store features the world’s largest catalog with over five million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

The Thompson site says you pay 2% of revenues from a service - or $0.02/song - to use mp3 in a service. The last time I saw a content distribution fee, it was on mpeg-4 part 2, and it pretty much killed that standard. Thankfully, in h.264 mpeg dropped that requirement for free distribution.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes, Microsoft

A day after revealing that it had sent a statement of objections to Apple and the four largest record companies, European Union (EU) antitrust regulators said that the recording industry was the real target of its charges. The EU has alleged that the recording industry and Apple are engaged in unfair pricing of songs sold via Apple's iTunes Store.

"This is an arrangement imposed on Apple by the record companies," an EU spokesperson said Tuesday, agreeing with comments made by Apple spokespeople a day earlier. "The main focus of our attention is the major record companies."

Labels: Apple, iPod, iTunes

Today, the European Union (EU) announced it was investigating Apple for antitrust violations related to the pricing of music sold via its iTunes Store service. The European Commission (EC) has sent a statement of objections to Apple, spelling out how the company and the four major recording companies who supply it with music are violating EU antitrust laws.

At issue is the way Apple charges different prices in iTunes Store for the same content in different countries. This, the EU says, unfairly penalizes those consumers in countries where the content is more expensive.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

Thought I'd lay out some fundamental facts about a few audio formats - some comments show some common misperceptions.

* Mp3 – the jpeg of digital music. Supported by everyone, everywhere. Mediocre compression efficiency, but utterly dominant in personal libraries because users can simply rip to a higher bitrate. Licensable by anyone for a low fee. Universal compatibility is mp3’s key feature.

* AAC – designed for MPEG, by MPEG. Largely associated with Apple at this point, AAC was designed by a licensing body, complete with patent pool, etc.. Licensable by anyone for a (relatively pricey) fee from MPEG-LA. High compression efficiency. Compatibility is fine – as long as you buy Apple products.

* WMA – Microsoft’s audio format. Adopted by most mp3 player skus (but not by most mp3 player units, thanks to the iPod..). Freely licensable for a low fee. Also associated with WMDRM, which is supported by playsforsure devices. High compression efficiency, good compatibility story, but not as good as mp3’s.

* Ogg, FLAC, etc… - Open source codecs. Generally good compression efficiency, but very low support from services and devices. To use these is to enter untested legal waters, but they’re very interesting, and nobody is asking for money for them...yet.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes, Microsoft, Zune

Music giant EMI this morning announced that it would be releasing its entire catalog without digital rights management (DRM) restrictions, the first of the four largest music companies to do so. In addition, EMI announced that Apple's iTunes would be the first online music service to sell these unrestricted files starting in May.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Monday that the DRM-free versions of individual songs will offer twice the quality of the DRM-restricted versions, meaning that they will be encoded using the 256 Kbps AAC audio format, compared to 128 Kbps for the original versions. (In a bit of showmanship, Jobs claimed that the 128 Kbps files already offered "the best audio quality" offered by any mainstream digital music service, which is demonstrably untrue: All Windows Media-based online services already offer dramatically higher quality music files than does Apple.) The new songs will cost $1.29 in the US, compared to 99 cents for the restricted versions.

In a nice nod toward users, Apple will also allow its customers to upgrade any existing EMI song purchases to the new unrestricted format for 30 cents per song.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

We thought it was too good to be true. Mysterious goings-on have put an end to happy hackers' tinkering with Apple TV.

Just days after intrepid telly addicts ripped open Apple TV's innards to install larger drives and extra file support, the guys at Tutorial Ninjas a reporting they've had their boxes remotely reset to remove any additional features they've shoehorned in.

According to their website, the Ninja's awoke to find their freshly hacked TV boxes had several features disabled overnight ... Apple TV is repairing itself overnight using a scheduled reset tool, known as a 'chronjob.'

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

After arguing for years that the success of its iTunes Store rests on low, standardized pricing, Apple on Wednesday unveiled a new feature of the online service, called Complete My Album, that was directly requested by the music industry. Users who purchase individual songs on iTunes can now buy the rest of the album via the service for a discounted price.

Previously, iTunes customers who purchased individual tracks from an album were not credited for those purchases if they later went back and purchased the entire album, meaning they were effectively charged for certain songs twice. Now, customers will receive a 99 cent credit for each song they purchased from an album when they later go back and purchase the full album.

The industry is straining to shore up the album as long as possible, in part by prodding listeners who buy one song to purchase the rest of a collection. Apple, in consultation with several labels, has been planning to offer iTunes users credit for songs they have already purchased if they then choose to buy the associated album in a certain period of time, according to people involved in the negotiations. (Under Apple’s current practice, customers who buy a song and then the related album effectively pay for the song twice).

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

Microsoft noted this week that Zune is maintaining its number two position in the hard disk-based MP3 player market. This data, which comes from market researchers at NPD, shows that Zune accounted for 8.7 percent of the market in February. It's unclear if this number represents retail sales only, or whether it is worldwide or US-only.

"We're pleased that Zune has been able to have such a significant impact on the market in such a relatively short time and look forward to the interest that our next wave of advertising is sure to drive in the coming month," says Zune Marketing Director Jason Reindorp. Of course, Zune is fighting an uphill battle against Apple, which commands most of the remaining 90+ percent of the market in which Zune now competes. Microsoft is expected to release new Zune models in various form factors as well as further software updates over the next year.

Labels: Digital media, iPod, Zune

Here it is, a step by step tutorial on upgrading your Apple TV harddrive.

You can do this via the terminal, or by using some applications (which add $100 to the cost of the process).

What you need:

Hex-bit screwdriver
2.5? hard drive (we used a Western Digital 120 GB WD1200VE drive)
Wiebetech Forensic DriveDock (optional, but recommended) or any 2.5? to Firewire bridge
Subrosasoft’s CopyCatX ($49), or be comfy with the terminal
Coriolis’s iPartition ($45), or use the Apple Factory Restore

[and an Intel-based Mac].

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

Now Paul, you are just being naughty - the retail price of the XBOX is 100 bucks more for the version without the hard drive ($399) and a good 200 bucks more for the version with the 20 gig drive ($499).

Also as a media centre the XBOX is an enormous PC with big BOY connections and is as loud as can be imagined.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

Paul Thurrott does his expected hatchet job on Apple TV. We can't have the SuperSite for Windows being too Apple friendly.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, Linux