iTubes For Your iPod
There's a basic rule that explains the audiophile's role in the audio food chain: The mass market accepts and then audiophiles perfect. Try to reverse that rule with something like, say, SACD or DVD-Audio, attempting to have sound quality drive mass-market adoption, and you get . . . the DualDisc.
iTunes vs the Listening Room
Stereophile readers are clearly in favorhttp://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?327">favor; of our coveragehttp://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/934/">coverage; of products like Apple's iPod. But judging by some of the comments we receive, they're split on whether it's been a kick in the pants for music lovers or just added to the downward low-rez spiral of digital audio.
iTunes 6.0.2 Is Watching!
Apple's release of its latest version of the iTunes software for Macs on January 10 promised "stability and performance improvements" over the 6.0.1 version already in existence. It also included a new iTunes MiniStore feature that "watches" what you click on your library or playlist and, when you double-click on a selection to play it, changes its display to reflect "matches" you might consider purchasing. This means that iTunes 6.0.2 is sending your now-playing information to an outside server.
iTunes Becomes Seventh Largest Music Retailer
At stereophile.com, John Atkinson, Jon Iverson, and I troll the Internet constantly looking for audio-related news, so on November 21,when I spotted an article by John">http://news.com.com/iTunes+outsells+traditional+music+stores/2100-1027_… Borland about iTunes outselling traditional retail record outlets like Tower and Borders, I passed it on to the other two without even thinking about it.
ITunes Becomes Third Largest Music Retailer
According to market research company NPD Group, in the first quarter of 2007, Apple's iTunes Store has overtaken Amazon.com and Target to become the US's third largest music retailer with 9.8% of all music sales. Apple counts 12 track sales as equivalent to one CD sale, meaning that the company is responsible for nearly 21 million of the quarter's 212 million CD sales.
iTunes Fixes
Last week, we passed along some observations from Benchmark Media Systems' John Siau about iTunes forcing an unnecessary sample-rate">http://stereophile.com/news/120307samplerateconversion/">sample-rate conversion in its 7.5 incarnation. We received a lot of mail on the subject during the week, including some helpful suggestions from Wavelength Audio's Gordon">http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/196rankin">Gordon Rankin, who has much experience designing USB">http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/905listen">USB audio devices.
ITunes Pluses and Minuses?
On May 30, Apple officially launched iTunes Plus, billed as "DRM-free music tracks featuring high-quality 256kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings." The initial material available from the iTunes Plus section of the iTunes Media Store is, for the moment, limited to EMI artists, although other labels have announced pending deals with Apple. The "improved" songs sell for $1.29 rather than the standard 99¢.
iTunes Won't Reach Forecast
Launched with a bang last April, Apple">http://apple.com">Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store has steadily gained popularity with music fans, but it won't reach its projected goal of selling 100 million songs online within its first year.
iTunes, uTunes—We All Swoon For iTunes
On July 11, Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas downloaded the 100 millionth song purchased from Apple's iTunes">http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/">iTunes music store. Britten spent 99¢ for "Somersault (Dangermouse remix)" by Zero 7 and, in exchange, won a 17" PowerBook, a 40GB iPod, and a gift certificate entitling him to 10,000 iTunes songs (the approximate capacity of a 40Gb iPod). As Apple counted down to 100 million, it also gave "special 20GB iPods" to the consumers who downloaded each 100,000th song between 95 million and 100 million.
iTunes: Music Biz Panacea?
Apple's unexpected initial success with its iTunes subscription music service shocked and pleased many in the music industry—and appears likely to prompt a rash of imitators.