Top Bananas | Tag Archives: iTunes

Breaking Up iTunes

Posted on April 6, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Music, Software Leave a comment

What it is: For years, iTunes has been used to play music, movies, audio books, and podcasts. Now Apple is rumored to be breaking iTunes into separate apps.

The iTunes app began as a music player and a way to store songs on an iPod. Then Apple started adding more features to iTunes to play all types of audio and video files including movies, podcasts, and audio books. Not surprisingly, iTunes is now a clumsy, monolithic program that tries o do everything but does none of it well.

That’s why the latest rumor is that Apple will break iTunes into several smaller, specialized apps. That way if you don’t listen to podcasts, you don’t have to worry about podcast features. If you don’t listen to audio books, you won’t have to wade through audiobook features.

Part of the reasoning behind this rumor is that Apple is creating a cross-platform tool that will allow iOS developers to create macOS apps. Apple already announced this cross-platform tool last year so everyone’s expecting them to release it this year.

iTunes is a perfect example of a dedicated program that simply grew too big with more and more features until it became a mess. Few people will mourn the loss of iTunes for doing everything so it’s likely this is a low-risk move on Apple’s part to make everything easier for everybody.

Keep your eye on Apple’s cross-platform tool. This will likely become a major focus at the upcoming Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), which will allow iOS developers to turn their apps into Macintosh apps as well. This will give iOS developers another way to profit from their work while giving Apple more apps to market and entice others to buy and use a Macintosh.

The future of Apple is iOS. To read more about Apple’s plan to break up iTunes, click here.

Is Apple News+ the New iTunes?

Posted on April 2, 2019 by admin Posted in Business Leave a comment

What it is: Within the first 48 hours of its release, Apple News+ attracted 200,000 subscribers.

Back when DVD and tape cassette sales were falling and people were stealing MP3 files of their favorite songs, Apple helped save the music industry with iTunes, a legal music download service that eliminated the hassle of finding the song you wanted. Without iTunes, the music industry was flailing to make a profit in the new world of audio file downloads.

Now the newspaper and magazine business is in equally dire straits. With advertising revenue plummeting, newspapers and magazines can’t survive on subscriber revenue alone. That means the newspaper and magazine industry is slowly dying and needs a new way to attract new subscribers.

That’s what makes Apple News+ interesting. For a monthly price of $9.99, you get an all you can read option of several hundred newspapers and magazines. For people who enjoy reading magazines and newspapers, Apple News+ will save them plenty of money. However, can Apple News+ save the newspaper and magazine industry by attracting more subscribers?

Both the Washington Post and The New York Times refused to join Apple News+ because they already offer a monthly subscription service to their content, so joining Apple News+ would mean competing against their own subscription service. The question is whether both newspapers can attract enough subscribers on their own.

For smaller magazines, Apple News+ offers a wider audience. For larger newspapers like The New York times, Apple News+ isn’t proven. As long as The New York Times and The Washington Post can continue attracting subscribers to their own online service, there’s no incentive to join Apple News+. The moment Apple News+ proves they can attract more readers and revenue than either newspaper’s individual online service can offer, that’s the time they’ll switch to Apple News+.

The Washington Post and The New York Times have nothing to lose by taking a wait and see approach. Expect more niche publications to join Apple News+ as the magazine industry continues to flounder. Apple News+ could become the next iTunes in saving an entire industry that’s slowly floundering. We all know the magazine and newspaper market won’t suddenly skyrocket any time soon. We just don’t know if Apple News+ will be the one that saves this industry from itself.

Digital Movie Rentals

Posted on August 19, 2017 by admin Posted in Business Leave a comment

What it is: Hollywood Studios are negotiating to bring new movie releases to rental services like iTunes just weeks after their theatrical release.

The movie industry used to make all their money showing movies in theaters. When VCRs appeared, Hollywood initially saw this as a threat and wanted to kill the VCR market — right up until they learned they could make a fortune renting movies through retail chains like Blockbuster Video.

Now Hollywood is grappling with the threat of video streaming services. However, instead of seeing video streaming as a threat, Hollywood is now thinking about putting new movie releases on video rental services like iTunes within weeks after releasing the movie in theaters.

For studios, this allows them to profit from their last releases as soon as the movies start disappearing from theaters. For theater owners, this represents a threat to their business because if people can rent the latest releases within weeks of a release, they may not bother going to theaters at all.

Theaters threaten to boycott movies but the studios are in control at this point. Most likely they’ll work out a compromise where movies appear in theaters for a limited time before gravitating to streaming video services before finally appearing on DVD for purchase. The only question is how long will theater owners allow studios to release the latest movies on streaming video sites?

Streaming video, much like streaming music, represents a new way to consume content so studios need to define the rules for embracing streaming video that keeps everybody happy with maximum profits for all. No matter what happens, studios will make more money and theater owners will probably make less.

The problem is that going to a movie is expensive and with many people owning large screen TVs, video rental services are far more convenient ways to watch a movie than going to a theater.

Movie theaters will always be the first place to see the latest releases, but for many movies, consumers will likely opt for video streaming services instead. People will rush to theaters to watch the latest “Star Wars” or superhero epic. They won’t rush to theaters to watch high acclaimed indie films.

So expect theaters to focus more on blockbusters and less on lesser known films. Then expect the lesser known films to flock to the broader and ultimately more lucrative markets on video streaming services.

The real losers will be the theater owners no matter what type of agreement they reach with the studios for video streaming releases. Theaters are simply too expensive for most people to visit regularly and there’s nothing theater owners can do about that unless they want to cut into their own profits.

Guess what’s cheaper? Building a theater and hiring people to sell tickets and snacks, or streaming a movie to a large screen, comfortable home that most people already have?

Video streaming is the future. It won’t wipe out movie theaters, but it will severely put a crimp in their profits and customer base for good.

The Future is Streaming Music

Posted on March 24, 2017 by admin Posted in Business, Music Leave a comment

What it is: Beats 1 host Zane Lowe says streaming music is the future.

At one time, music stores filled the retail store landscape. If you wanted to buy music, you had to buy a CD and play it in a CD player. When Napster arrived, it allowed people to illegally share MP3 files of individual songs, which helped decimate the music industry. Then Apple came along and legitimized music downloads with iTunes and the iPod.

Yet in a short time, the iPod has become obsolete along with iTunes. Digital downloads is still possible, but a far more popular way to enjoy music is streaming. Instead of clogging your iPhone or iPad with MP3 files, you can just listen to music over the Internet. Streaming music depends on reliable WiFi connections, but as WiFi becomes readily available in more places, streaming music becomes a viable alternative to digital downloads.

As streaming music has grown, digital downloads as shrunk. This sudden shift caught Apple by surprise so they spent $3 billion dollars acquiring Beats Music, which had already established a streaming music service along with establishing and maintaining ties to the music industry. When Apple rebranded Beats Music as Apple Music, they also created a live streaming radio station dubbed Beats 1. The goal of Beats 1 is to provide a streaming music subscription service with curated musical content. If people enjoy the radio station, they can pay a subscription fee. If they enjoy a particular song, they might be tempted to buy it through iTunes.

Apple Music thus acts like a way to introduce people to different music and get them to buy a digital download. Of course, Beats 1 only covers a limited range of music, which opens the door for additional Beats stations in the future. It’s no surprise that Apple’s first radio station is named Beats 1. That means Beats 2 and Beats 3 won’t be far away when you consider these other stations could highlight other music genres. Soon you’ll be able to listen to music stations in Apple Music that caters to your particular musical tastes.

Apple Music may not be the runaway success people expect but it’s going to grow in the long run. Zane Lowe is just stating the obvious when he says streaming music is the future and Beats radio stations are just one way to offer human curated content for listeners to enjoy. Rather than rely on computer algorithms to pick songs and artists, humans can more readily tap into current trends and offer explanations and descriptions of the artists and story behind individual songs.

Streaming music is the future of music and Apple Music strives to become the leader. Despite Apple being caught flat-footed over streaming music, Apple Music must claw its way to the top against competitors like Spotify or Pandora. The one advantage of Apple Music is that they can afford to pay for human curated content, but whether that’s an advantage or not remains to be seen. The only certainty is that Apple Music is the future of music and iTunes digital downloads is not.

Spoken News Podcasts

Posted on September 24, 2016 by admin Posted in Business, Music Leave a comment

What it is: Podcasts are often specially recorded audio segments, but now Apple may be working with others to convert written articles into audio files.

For many people, books on tape has allowed them to enjoy a book without reading it. Instead, you just listen to an audio file of someone reading the book to you. The problem with books on tape is that someone actually has to sit down and read the book out loud and record it.

Now Apple has opened a Spoken Edition category in iTunes, which promises to turn written news articles into audio files that people can listen to as podcasts. This will allow people to listen to their favorite news stories from different sources such as Time Magazine, The Economist, or The New York Times. In the past, hiring someone to read news articles wasn’t practical but a company called SpokenLayer seems to be working with various news publications to make this more cost-effective.

Publications pay SpokenLayer to turn their written articles into audio podcasts that they can put on iTunes. to monetize these podcasts, these publications insert audio ads. SpokenLayer works with a team of people who then recite these news articles so the cost of hiring a reader doesn’t fall on the publisher’s shoulders. As a result, SpokenLayer’s team of professional readers can turn written articles from various publications into podcasts.

For publishers, this is one more way to profit off their existing content. For consumers, this is one more way to enjoy news without reading. In the old days, news was carefully segmented among newspapers, radio, and television. With the Internet, the boundaries of information are getting blurred where written news gets turned into radio-like audio segments. It’s actually easier for someone to record television news as audio-only podcasts as well since you just need to strip out the video portion. That way podcast consumers can get news from both print and television sources as well.

The more news available, the more educated people should get. Assuming, of course, that people actually read news from different sources instead of focusing only on news sources with the same bias as they have.

Streaming Beats Downloads

Posted on March 23, 2016 by admin Posted in Music Leave a comment

What it is: For the first time in history, music streaming has surpassed music downloads.

At one time, people bought music on CDs. If you wanted the latest song or album, you had to go to a music store and buy a music CD. Then Napster arrived along with MP3 audio file formats, and suddenly people realized you could share and download individual songs or entire albums as digital audio files.

In the chaos that followed after Napster’s arrival, Apple offered iTunes as a legitimate source for downloadable music. While the music industry initially balked at the idea of selling music as digital downloads, they couldn’t ignore the pirate sites offering free MP3 files to everyone. Reluctantly, the music industry embraced iTunes and iTunes helped legitimize selling music as audio downloads.

But just as iTunes helped kill music stores, suddenly streaming music threatened iTunes. Apple got caught flat-footed by clinging to the downloadable music business model for so long with iTunes that they completely missed the streaming music business that had suddenly popped up and was slowly threatening the downloadable music business. Instead of cramming multiple MP3 files on a single device, people could just stream music instead.

CDs were just a medium to deliver music and MP3 audio files were just a digital medium to deliver music. Streaming music eliminated the need for either one, which directly threatened iTunes. That’s why Apple acquired Beats Music for $3 billion dollars mostly for Beats’ streaming music service.

Streaming music is the future and downloadable audio files are not, just as downloadable audio files were once the future and music CDs are not. The trend is always to eliminate the medium whether it’s a music CD, a printed book, or a DVD containing a movie. Eliminate the medium and that’s the future.

For the first time, streaming music has surpassed downloadable audio files and the trend will only continue in this direction. People find it easier to stream music than to store a fixed number of songs on a smartphone. The future of iTunes is as a streaming music service.

You can see this same transition happening with software. Instead of buying software stored on a DVD in a box, companies such as Microsoft are offering software as a service such as their Microsoft Office 365 annual subscription service. Now instead of storing Microsoft Office on your hard disk, you can just access Microsoft Office from your browser.

Going fine step further, you don’t even need a large hard disk any more when you can store all your documents in the cloud on a service like iCloud or DropBox. That’s why Chromebooks are so popular because not only are they cheaper, but they can do everything you need without a big hard disk to store everything.

Watch for all types of media to disappear gradually. People will still buy music CDs just as they still download audio files, but that will never be the dominant form any more. Streaming music services are simply pointing the way to the future. Keep eliminating the middleman and that’s the future of tomorrow.