garyi
leave blank
I think itunes has been 'suffering' of late, sales well down.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/itunes-sales-declining-end-paid-music-downloads/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/itunes-sales-declining-end-paid-music-downloads/
Apple Enters the Streaming Fray
- Thread starter bownose
- Start date
JezmondTutu
pfm Member
Good - it's a rip off anyway!
Even with today's growth stats, vinyl will represent something like 0.01% of all music sales and will, in the large part, be an irrelevance.
The era of Music as a product is over, the rise of music as a service however is a wholly different - and more interesting -proposition.
mattgbell
Help the elderly and unwell!
Warner's results for the last quarter show a more complex picture. For the first time download revenue was less than streaming revenue, but the latter only increased by a fairly measly 0.7%.
The big growth was in revenue from physical media, up by 7%, the vast majority of that being CDs.
The reason seems to be that there's huge variation in buying habits in different countries. While the UK moves towards streaming, some of the bigger countries in continental Europe (e.g. France) still prefer shiny discs, despite having access to the same streaming services.
http://www.whathifi.com/news/streaming-revenue-higher-download-revenue-first-time
The big growth was in revenue from physical media, up by 7%, the vast majority of that being CDs.
The reason seems to be that there's huge variation in buying habits in different countries. While the UK moves towards streaming, some of the bigger countries in continental Europe (e.g. France) still prefer shiny discs, despite having access to the same streaming services.
http://www.whathifi.com/news/streaming-revenue-higher-download-revenue-first-time
demotivated
pfm Member
Presumably people stream more in the uk because most people from 10-35 either live in the bedroom of their mum's house; or rent some poxy short term gaff. I can't see the majority buying any major items except consumables, white goods, cars etc
piccadilly
pfm Member
Demotivated - you are on the money. Yes, Generation Rent can't afford to buy their own apartments so have to make do with computer audio etc. in their bedrooms. Hence the trend to more portable solutions e.g. IPOD's. I wonder what percentage of the world's population has access to Qobuz, Tidal, and Spotify ? Not much me thinks.
John
Rack’em Up!
I imagine the large companies will eventually push the smaller streaming companies out of business and once that happens, the prices will go up.
Renting a Bluray or DVD from a brick and mortar store is still cheaper than streaming the same movie via Comcast. I imagine the sound quality is better too.
Tony L
Administrator
I've just been watching today's Apple WWDC and the new Music service was detailed. It's touted as an 'ecosystem' comprising three key elements: the ability to stream anything available in iTunes (either directly on request or via intelligent playlist algorithms), a live global 24/7 radio station (Zane Lowe & others), and a kind of Myspace/Facebook-like Connect facility where artists can communicate directly with their customer/fan base with large control over what they offer e.g. announcements, photos, lyrics, videos, interviews etc, anything they like really. I'm unclear if this is a two-way process, e.g. can fans comment, feedback etc, but either way it's miles ahead of what Spotify etc offer.
The whole thing will be integrated into the 'Music' or iTunes app that is already on every Apple device, plus the Siri integration looks very well thought out indeed, i.e. it has full voice control from the outset. You can ask it things like "play the top five alternative tracks from 1989" or whatever, or even "play the song from x movie" etc.
I have a feeling that by joining these three things up and ensuring the artist is very much in the creative process they've just won the streaming wars. They claim it is exceptionally new-band friendly too, so any artist, big or small can fully utilise the Connect facilities etc and use it as a platform to launch their career. It's out with iOS 8.4 and a new iTunes release next month and will cost 10 bucks a month with a free three month trial period. No mention as to resolution, but I'm assuming it's AAC not high res at this stage.
The whole thing will be integrated into the 'Music' or iTunes app that is already on every Apple device, plus the Siri integration looks very well thought out indeed, i.e. it has full voice control from the outset. You can ask it things like "play the top five alternative tracks from 1989" or whatever, or even "play the song from x movie" etc.
I have a feeling that by joining these three things up and ensuring the artist is very much in the creative process they've just won the streaming wars. They claim it is exceptionally new-band friendly too, so any artist, big or small can fully utilise the Connect facilities etc and use it as a platform to launch their career. It's out with iOS 8.4 and a new iTunes release next month and will cost 10 bucks a month with a free three month trial period. No mention as to resolution, but I'm assuming it's AAC not high res at this stage.
Rack Kit
pfm Member
I'll sign up for it if it includes a limited edition coloured & signed 180gram double vinyl of every album i stream. Delivered FOC of course.
Mongeddavid
pfm Member
If the quality is poor ill stick with Tidal.
Thats all most people want, hell, its all I want from a streaming service. I want selection first, ease of use second and quality down there in third or fourth. Streaming is radio, freemium models are expensive and bandwidth for millions of people is make or break profits-wise when you go from 256Kbps to Lossless the bandwidth load on servers gets exponentially greater. Server power, Server bandwidth, your bandwidth, the ISP's bandwidth it all stacks up, the Internet is not an endless capacity funnel.
Look at it this way. You want lossless quality? Buy the download or pay for a local cache. You want Features and convenience? Stream it. Apple is protecting the download model because it still sees money can be made from it. And they would be right. But that will need addressing inside the way the whole "ecosystem" is sold to the end user.
I don't think Apple Music will be a wild success, but I think it will be hugely profitable and up the focus of all the other competing services. Apple is going the channel route while keeping the download portal. Its coherent, the trick is selling people the advantages of "everything in one icon". Jimmy Iovine is I think a rapacious businessman outside the Apple culture and thay don't know what a shark they have in their midst... sharper than most of the Apple execs and he knows how to sell stuff. Selling $500 headphones to kids like sneakers. Anyone who shafted monster cable is A-Ok in my book.
Tim Cook's "goofy uncle" facade is wearing a bit thin. That guy is cold as slate.
Look at it this way. You want lossless quality? Buy the download or pay for a local cache. You want Features and convenience? Stream it. Apple is protecting the download model because it still sees money can be made from it. And they would be right. But that will need addressing inside the way the whole "ecosystem" is sold to the end user.
I don't think Apple Music will be a wild success, but I think it will be hugely profitable and up the focus of all the other competing services. Apple is going the channel route while keeping the download portal. Its coherent, the trick is selling people the advantages of "everything in one icon". Jimmy Iovine is I think a rapacious businessman outside the Apple culture and thay don't know what a shark they have in their midst... sharper than most of the Apple execs and he knows how to sell stuff. Selling $500 headphones to kids like sneakers. Anyone who shafted monster cable is A-Ok in my book.
Tim Cook's "goofy uncle" facade is wearing a bit thin. That guy is cold as slate.
steve_1979
pfm Member
I fear that we may end up with a situation where no single streaming service has all the important artists so to be able to listen to what you want you'll need to sign up to two or the different services.
boneman
pfm Member
Good post and yes TC is lame. Should get someone else to do the presentations.
+1!!! I've been trying to tell people this on other forums but they are convinced the entire world is waiting for lossless streaming... Most people don't realise or care that iTunes downloads aren't lossless so why should their streaming service be any different.
He kinda did, only the top and tail of the show was his Spotlight the rest was handed over to Veeps.
Cooks 'we are going to dispense with the figures' bit was interesting as I read that as "No we are not ready to share the Apple Watch Sales Figures"... nicely played... sidestepped. but it was developer relevant. Some of the stuff clearly has gone over the head of the tech bloggers who don't know jack shit about internals but the core optimisations are pretty major -- more major than Beats rebranding. iPad2 which was expected to be dropped from iOS support is supported under iOS9, that is unprecedented.
Cooks 'we are going to dispense with the figures' bit was interesting as I read that as "No we are not ready to share the Apple Watch Sales Figures"... nicely played... sidestepped. but it was developer relevant. Some of the stuff clearly has gone over the head of the tech bloggers who don't know jack shit about internals but the core optimisations are pretty major -- more major than Beats rebranding. iPad2 which was expected to be dropped from iOS support is supported under iOS9, that is unprecedented.
A very good point. It will probably do very well with people who own Apple devices and force other providers to up their game, but I don't think it's going to achieve the full market penetration they would like for none Apple users.
Apple's biggest problem in my opinion when introducing a service like this is Apple; there is a significant section of the potential market who will never go for this service purely because it's an Apple product, and they've already decided that they don't like Apple.
As a company they've gone from loveable underdog to corporate monster in a pretty short time in the eyes of many. I use Apple devices exclusively and even I find their post Jobs smugness somewhat irritating.
One thing that you don't hear mentioned is "the stuff we did not have time to talk about" it is a slide thay flash up at the end of the presentation and is usually (but not always) off camera: which is where Apple often slip in stuff you really ought to know about but is not sexy for the shareholders. For me the one that got me most excited was the Audio Unit extension -- being able to push Audio Units you bought for MacOS/Logic onto an iPhone or an iPad and use it as an AudioUnit playback/process host is hugely useful and could be another leap ahead in the AU vs RTAS race Apple has with Digidesigns. Bring it on. Would be nice to see all the others supported: VST, TDM and so on.
Tony L
Administrator
The unique selling point here is unquestionably offering the musicians/artists direct input. On the whole musos utterly detest Spotify etc as they pay shit and distract people from buying product and present their product in such a bland one-size fits all corporate interface. If Apple's Connect feature enables a real news/promotion/communication platform between artist and fan then they'll clean up IMO. Especially if it also acts as a kind of 'BBC Introducing' stage for new bands - that aspect has the potential to work beautifully for both artist and Apple, i.e. provide a massive global platform to start-up bands and also hook them into the Apple ecosystem from the very beginning of their career. It could pretty much replace the messy disjointed world of MySpace, SoundCloud, Facebook and Twitter for the music industry and place all that functionality into a shopfront where punters can actually buy your wares with ease. It is a *very* good idea IMO.