10 Years of the ipod
A fascinating article in the Guardian yesterday http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/18/death-ipod-apple-music about the rise and fall of the ipod. The article argues that consumers are now moving on from the original ipod to devices such as ipod touch, iphone and ipod. But I found this paragraph particularly interesting
The article continues
It raises in my mind that if Apple are not really making much from digital music sales, can anyone, especially emusic? If this line of arguement is correct, then Amazon possibly use music downloads as a lead to selling other items on their sites.On iTunes in the US Apple would take 22 cents out of every 99-cent track sold, leaving just 67 cents for the labels to split between the artists, the publishers and themselves. A rather poorer return than those labels had been used to, selling albums for $18. Apple itself wasn't going to get rich on 22 cents a song. But it was going to sell a lot of iPods off the back of it. And the record companies get nothing from iPod sales. "The iPod makes money. The iTunes Music Store doesn't," Schiller has admitted. (Despite the "Don't Steal Music" sticker attached to every new iPod, it makes little odds to Apple where the songs on its devices come from.)
The article continues
A couple of other interesting quotes"The US market for digital music appears to be flat," says Enders. "It has flattened well before everyone, and certainly the music industry, hoped. At this point the real issue is that more than 75% of recorded music sales are still on CD." But that's of little concern to Apple.
andWith its iTunes Store Apple had succeeded in making the one-stop digital superstore that in-fighting and anti-trust competition laws had prevented the record labels from establishing for themselves. Instead, those labels had wasted a lot of time and money trying to set up subscription models: the idea that users would pay a monthly fee to access digital music as and when they liked
Sony, in particular, was hamstrung. On the one hand its hardware division wanted to push a Walkman that would compete with the iPod. On the other, its record label, Sony Music, accounted for the majority of its revenues and was unwilling to push forward with something they thought would be filled with illegally downloaded music. Paralysed, Sony allowed Apple to clean up on both the digital device and the songs to play on it.
Comments
I use an affiliate link when tweeting my listens (don't worry, I haven't made enough to retire yet) and judging by my reports it would seem that MP3s are a loss leader for crockpots. Well, more likely that I bring people into an album page and they end up buying cookware.
My 2nd gen nano isn't holding a charge like it used to. I thought about getting a new one, but I don't like the current square nano with its tiny touch screen. I think I should wait until Sept when they come out with the new stuff.
I'm not sure I'm done with a plain old ipod. Sure a touch would be fun, but they still cost too much to knock around while I'm working out or cleaning the house.
I don't think emusic is making money selling music, except on folks who don't download their monthly allotment.
My 80G classic is running like a champ after, what, 4 years? Charge doesn't seem to last quite as long. I need to keep an eye open if they're rolling out new models this summer, as I want the biggest possible memory and I fear the current 160 G Classic will be discontinued, in these days of looming clouds.
Craig
Somewhere I read that iPod battery life is longer if you never let them run down, so I've generally charged mine every night, with good results. I also continue to use a 1st-gen Shuffle, which still goes a good 6-8 hours between charges. That was originally my daughter's...she's on her 3rd iPod, not because they have run down but because she wants more space.
I will certainly get the 160G Classic eventually...especially if there's any hint that the next gen won't include a unit that size or larger. With video/movies, you would think (wouldn't you?) there would still be market for such capacity.
I've always used them by running them all the way down, then recharging, and my 4 year old and 3 year old gen 2's still hold a 10-12 hour charge.
I was very happy with my shuffles until just recently when Verizon picked up iphones and my wife got one. About a week later I had to get one too.
I'm still trying to get out of shuffle mode (well not shuffle mode really because I never set it to shuffle) and used to having the ability to scroll through.
Anybody want a like-new Gen-4 shuffle?
Craig
As to the original point, until the music industry really strips down and gets rid of the requirement that 200 people get paid for every song d/l'd there isn't much hope for anyone to make decent money selling mp3s.
I find it hard to fathom that making 22 cents a song is unprofitable for Apple. According to this Apple has sold over 10 billion songs. At 22 cents a song that is $2.2 billion. While they do have expenses I can't imagine that the costs outweigh that kind of coin.
BTW: I've never had an iPod... ok, well I did get some such thing given to me by my company as part of my 20 year anniversary gift. I promptly eBay'ed it. I don't use my MP3 player much but when I do I only have 1 brand/model/Style in my stash - The RCA eMuic 1. I had 25-30 of these at one time (down to 3 or so now)... picked them all up when Circuit City was clearing them out at $5.00 a pop a couple years ago (they came with a card for 180 eMusic downloads; 15 downloads/month for 12 months). Those were the days.
No idea how long the ipod will hold out. It lasts maybe 4 hours if I don't rate anything or turn the screen on to look at lyrics, which lessens the joy : (
It's died right in the middle of things. The battery is green and then shoots into the red all of a sudden. Bums me out. I didn't leave it in a hot car or anything.
My husband has a 2G 2nd gen nano and 1st gen shuffle - he never uses either. They will do, in a pinch. The only way I like the shuffle is if I know what's on it. My main fun playlist I like has a mix of favorites and new stuff I haven't listened to yet. That one would drive me bonkers on the shuffle, I'd have to try and remember to rate things after it synced...and there's no way to tell what order htings were played in, since shuffles don't time stamp.
Another reason I like my 2nd gen nano is the lanyard I have for it. It has built-in headphones. Of course it won't fit the new models. Although the newest touch nano has that cute little clip on it, like a shuffle.
I still have the 5G, and had considered upgrading it to 250GB, has anyone tried this hack?
it was kind of comforting to know it was there, but I was not actually playing it and complacent about it because it was always there
Exactly the situation I found myself in w/ my U2 ipod classic. But that's OK, it can all stay there because I'm not as mobile with it as w/ the nano. I have a dumb playlist called "!gotta have it" that stays on the nano, and it's mostly the newest entire albums I've recently added. I like to listen to them all the way through. There are also a few fave songs in that list.
The rest is all my ~Fresh Mix playlist that cycles new stuff in with stuff I haven't listened to, older favorites, blah blah blah, it's a good mix.
I find single tracks to be rather like pennies. For the most part I just throw them in a pot in the bedroom and they stay there and never actually get spent. It has to be at least a quarter to actually circulate as money.
I'm thinking of just getting an 8 or 16 Gig card for my Droid and using that to transport music around more. There is definitely a need for pre-filtering in my life.