Filed under: News
Lately I have been hearing a lot of anti-Apple fans talk about how Apple will need to reign in their ego because they will not be able to corner the digital music market for much longer. I even posted recently on The Register’s article about Apple’s shrinking download numbers (which turned out to be incorrect). In order to combat this mentality I present to you why Apple can’t be beat.
First of all Apple has cornered the market for digital audio players. The iPod is one of the most successful product releases ever. If you have a digital media player it stands a strong chance of being an iPod. This simple fact means that regardless of how many subscription services become available letting you listen to millions of song for a monthly charge do not entice iPod owners (the mass market). If you’re trying to come up with a business model right now for a new subscription service that does not tie into the iPod, do yourself a favor and stop. It’s not going to work.
Recently Princeton worked out a deal with Rukus to allow music downloads for their students as one of their benefits for being a Princeton student. The catch here? It won’t work with you iPod. Loosely translated…waste of money.
Microsoft has the Zune know. Nobody cares. It’s sitting on the shelf right now at my local Target begging someone to buy it while the iPod shuffles, Nanos, and videos are flying off the shelves. The simple benefit of owning an iPod is that it is easy to use with little restrictions. I’m no fan of DRM and I think Apple could do their DRM better to make it more user friendly perhaps letting users transfer songs to their friends iPods for a matter of three for four plays and then lock it (this is Zune-like I know), but there is some merit here. I hate that when I pay for my music I can’t let my friends in New York listen to it because they aren’t authorized. DRM kills the collective commons that I enjoyed with physical CD’s. Let’s all be happy that the record company didn’t tie our CD’s to our CD players making it delete if it realized I was playing my new Green Day CD in my next door neighbors player and not mine. I’m sure they would have loved that!
But I digress. The iPod isn’t going to be beaten. It is a stand alone operation unto itself by design. Apple has made a great product that is easy to use and the kicker here is that the only thing you need to use the iPod with is a computer. Rhapsody won’t work with my iPod. Who cares? Rukus only works on windows. Who cares? iTunes has the largest selection of music on the net. It has videos, movies, books, and any artist I can imagine. I can buy anything I want on it. I can own it. If I decide not to buy anything from the music store for a few months I don’t lose it. The iPod has every feature I could ever want. I have an iPod because I don’t listen to FM radio or XM radio. I listen to MY music. That’s what my iPod is there for.
It won’t be beaten. All signs point to the opposite of this. Anyone who is trying to beat the iPod has to do better than subscription services; they have to do better than Zune. Apple sees the stand alone digitial audio player is going the way of the buffalo…do I see the iPhone? Simple market analysis says yes. Why oh why would I simply introduce another mp3 player? Apple is on top because of simple foresight.