Rebuild iTunes – Apple Needs
iTunes, the main channel content into the iPhone, evolved from a shareware MP3 player acquired by Apple which now handles device syncing, video playback, application purchasing, PIM syncing and other tasks. It also feeds the processing power and takes forever to load, especially in Windows.
The time is ripe for a reinvention of iTunes, which has grown into a kind of micro-Microsoft within Apple in terms of its bloated size and slow operation. And it is not even making money, according to Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, who said on Monday of the iTunes Store, “we are running those a little more than they break even, and that has not changed,” adding that the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms could help push iTunes into the black.
The Apple tablet will run the iPhone OS, according to the CEO of McGraw-Hill, and we hope for good music, video and application developers, it will further encourage the iTunes platform. In the field of music, however, a sea change is in order.
Last week the head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a press conference that 95 % of all music downloads are illegal, and said that the number has been holding steady despite streaming services like Spotify gaining some traction abroad. It will take Apple’s music streaming service to convince more users to the adoption of open, unlike the flow of legitimate download free or low cost.
All the pieces are in place for this. As I mentioned in Dec. and Michael Robertson pointed out last week, the big reason Apple purchased Lala may have been for its mechanism for uploading tracks from iTunes libraries onto its servers, providing the missing link between the download-centric version of iTunes today and the streaming iTunes of tomorrow.
Here is how that works. First, Lala scans a user’s iTunes library for songs it can identify with certainty and provides the user with copies of those songs in their online account. Then, all songs that can not be identified are loading one by one, a process that takes awhile, but only has to happen once, and ensures that 100 % of a user’s music collection gets copied into an online account. After that, the question of device syncing diminishes, because each device accesses the same online music collection without having to update its content via iTunes and a USB cable.
Earlier today Wired.com’s Brian Chen and Dylan Tweney noted that this Apple event will revolve more around content than the tablet hardware itself. Hopefully, the announcement will also involve trimming down iTunes and adding component for streaming music online. Apple’s Lala acquisition currently sells streaming songs for 10 cents each. If Apple can wrangle a similar deal out of the labels, more users would be likely to pay for music, which could only boost the iTunes store’s surprisingly low profits to date.
