So, I'm doing my usual news surfing on Friday and I stumbled across this headline on News.Google.Com that talks about Apple and world domination. I click on it and find I have a serious problem with the very first sentence in the article. I read further and discover more stuff I can't believe I'm reading. Then I realize that I must quip to this article!
Sure, it's not something on electronic voting machines or a speech given by a politician responsible for thousands of deaths, but I figure, what the hell? It's the weekend, right?
So, check out [http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/apple-tunes-in-to-world-domination/2006/03/31/1143441337885.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1|the original April 1, 2006 article] at http://TheAge.Com.Au (a reputable Australian news source) and while this article is so absurd it could almost be an April Fool's Joke, I don't think it is a joke because, well, it's just not that funny. Still, I suppose the joke could still be on me, regardless, I enjoyed quipping to it and I think you'll enjoy it too.
Here we go!
Apple tunes in to world domination
By Alan Kohler
April 1, 2006
APPLE Inc's iTunes music store seems to be rapidly becoming one of the most powerful retailers in the history of the world.
So there are no Wal-Marts in Australia?
Come on, the Apple iTMS the most powerful retailer ever???
Never before have we seen global domination by one retailer in a product category.
Uhhh, Microsoft much?
Apple is also possibly the most secretive retailer on Earth.
Uh, they're a private corporation, within reason, they can be as secretive as they want under the laws of most countries. Personally, I don't think companies should be allowed to be as secretive as many are, but change the laws and you'll change the companies.
What is happening is fascinating and scary, and anyone in the entertainment business anywhere in the world — nowhere more than in Australia — needs to understand it. Unfortunately Apple will not talk, so the profit margins and the process of deciding who gets to sell through the iTunes store is a mystery.
Ah, yes!! Changes in the entertainment industry are soooo SPOOOOOOKY!!
"Look out, young lady! The paradigm shifts are coming from inside your house!!
Here is what we know: music and video are going entirely digital.
GASP! You're RIGHT! WE DO KNOW THAT!!!
And we have known that for years, actually. Ever since the DVD and the mp3 took off, that's been the more-than-obvious trend.
It won't be long before CDs and DVDs are obsolete as storage.
That's true, though you wouldn't know that by the next gen DVD format wars going on right now.
The new device of choice is the iPod, which is in the midst of an incredible global boom that is enriching Apple and its shareholders.
THOSE BASTARDS!! How DARE they make money off of something people are buying of their own free will!! (and liking the devices as much as they like the iPod.)
The only place you can easily buy material for your iPod, as opposed to stealing it, is the iTunes online store.
I just LOVE it when non-tech-people write articles about tech.
Sure, you can buy material for your iPod from "the iTunes online store" (or as most oft he free world calls it the iTunes Music Store--a misnomer, but that's its actual name). However, there is one other place one can legally get content for one's iPod:
ANY STORE THAT SELLS CDs OR DVDs YOU FREAKING NUMBSKULL!!
Here's how this AMAZING process works:
1) You go into a store that sells CDs and DVDs (I assume you have those in Australia).
2) You purchase these discs.
3) Bring them home.
4) Rip them to mp3 (audio) or mp4 (video) using a host of free tools for both PCs and Mac (and even, Linux, I believe).
Apparently in Australia ripping your own store-bought CDs and DVDs is theft. I'm glad I don't live down under!
The free file-swapping sites that started with Napster (which the courts shut down) and continued with Limewire and the various Bit-torrent sites, are still seeing plenty of pirate traffic, but a growing number of people are queasy about that.
Queasy? I haven't heard of people getting motion-sickness from using P2P file sharing services. Also, do you have stats to back up the claim that a growing number of people are nervous about P2P?
Also, the free files are often mangled and it is hard to find what you want.
Like I said, I love it when non-techies trying to write techie things.
Here's a hint to all journalists out there thinking about writing something--anything--technology-related or not:
DO SOME RESEARCH!
It's particularly easy when it comes to researching technology--you just buy the tech you want to write about or read about what others are writing on the web about it.
WHAT COULD BE MORE SIMPLE??
As the iPods/digital music phenomenon goes mainstream, so legitimate sales of digital entertainment via the internet are booming as well.
With iPods and iTunes, Steve Jobs and his team at Apple have created a beautifully functional closed system for selling and consuming digital music and video that looks to be heading for total dominance.
Or you can do what I do and find the iTMS to be too cumbersome and annoying to bother with and get your content through other means.
Like ripping CDs or DVDs or, yes, filesharing. By the way, P2P is the great equalizer--it puts the consumer on the same level as the content distributor. If given a choice do you think companies wouldn't break the law if it meant getting something for cheaper or for free? Hell corporations break the law all the time if it's more expensive to follow the law than to just buy their way out of it. Regular humans can't do that, but regular humans also can't afford to drop $20 on a DVD that sucks (the movie may be good but the extras are crappy or non-existent).
I've used the iTMS once to get a free mp3 I won on a website. I found the process difficult to get through (first I couldn't find a song I liked and then couldn't work out how to "buy" the damn thing). I've also heard from others that the ITMS can be confusing and can even screw up downloads if say your connection to the 'net is interrupted.
The music industry fled into Jobs' arms in desperation as it watched piracy erode its sales,
Ah, another member of the media believing big business when it blames bootleggers for their flagging sales and not their own shitty content.
so Apple signed great distribution deals with all the major labels. The people who manage the iTunes inventory are developing a stranglehold over digital music distribution that is giving iTunes enormous power. The record labels have to deal with iTunes or face oblivion as the iPod population grows.
Awwww! Does the big bad record business have it hard now that they don't have complete control of the music industry? That's so sad!! I'm so sawwy about dat!
In fact there is a good chance the whole thing will end up like the Macintosh computer: early dominance through its beautifully designed integrated package of hardware and operating system, but later obliterated by Microsoft Windows, which was licensed to any manufacturer. More on that later.
I can't wait!
iTunes is efficient and seductive. You register with Apple and provide your credit card details. Then you browse the store or search for the song or artist you want. One song is $1.69, albums $16.99 or $17.99. You click it, and — zip — you've bought it, credit card debited. Plug your iPod into your computer and the music is automatically loaded.
Wow--that's not what's happened to me and to others. But, once again, if you're going to trust big business to tell you what reality is...
I no longer use a stereo that plays CDs — I just stick my iPod in the top of a box of speakers that I bought from Apple. The sound quality is great and my entire record collection is now in the iPod, and growing every day at $1.69 a song.
I also like candy and Hello Kitty stickers and I think David Hasselhoff is dreeeeammy!
You fit your entire music collection on a single iPod? Not a big fan of music, are ya? I bet you've got all of Britney Spears albums on there, dontcha?
As well as its incredible inventory of all kinds of music, iTunes in the US is selling TV programs for $US1.99, just one hour after they go to air on the networks. You can buy a cable that connects your iPod to your TV set, or a cradle that allows the iPod to sit on top of it; the quality of both sound and vision is fine.
This guy's SHARP! These facts just broke back in November and he's already writing about it! WOW!
Americans don't need to have a computer in the lounge room to buy one-off TV shows and play them on their plasma — they just carry them in the iPod.
INCREDIBLE! This guy is QUITE the trend spotter! And here I was trying to watch my TV shows on my firewire enabled toaster oven's display screen! Silly me!
I tried to buy a TV show on the US iTunes site, but a message told me I wasn't allowed to because I live in Australia.
Silly Australians! TV Shows are for Americans!! Not you backwards, upside-down shrimp-eating, crocodile hunting, FREAKS!!
I'm kidding, relax... we'll let you have TV shows, too.
I rang Apple in Sydney and asked when Australians will be able to buy TV shows on iTunes as Americans do. No comment.
WOW! YOU ACTUALLY CALLED SOMEONE FOR THIS ARTICLE!!
I take it back--you ARE a journalist!!
I asked around the TV industry and it seems the local networks are in some disarray about this and don't know what to do. We should never underestimate Australian TV networks' ability to block something new — Kerry Packer kept pay TV out for five years — but it will come.
Research according to Alan Kohler:
"Pardon me, does anyone happen to know anything about this new-fangled himinijig from 'merica called 'downloading shows from the telee'?"
I might be wrong,
Oh, you probably are!
but it seems to me the ability to easily buy a single, new episode of a TV show (and repeats),
Uhhhhhh, WHAT?
How can you buy a repeat of a show?
Repeats/reruns can only exist ON TV. Do you have a firm grip on reality, Mr. Kohler?
as well as single songs, albums, movies and music videos in a form that is easy to watch or listen, will change everything.
YOU JUST MIGHT BE ON TO SOMETHING THERE, MATE!
The key is the device — the beautiful iPod — and the simplicity of buying stuff through iTunes, which is why Apple is becoming such a powerful retailer.
Yes, the beautiful iPod... so smooth... so... sexy... so... ohhhhh... iPod, I loooove you... OH! OH! YES, RIGHT THERE! OH YES! OH GOD! OH YES! I--
ahem...
That is, until Microsoft and/or Google come along, which will be soon.
Technology reporter Alan Kohler calls them like he sees them! A WAR IS ON THE HORIZON!
The shock troops for Microsoft's victory over Apple in personal computers in the 1980s were Intel, Compaq, IBM, Dell, Toshiba and so on — that is the chip manufacturer and the cheap PC makers that licensed the Windows operating system.
GASP!
HE'S RIGHT!
Though, I fail to see a direct parallel to iPods...
The reason Apple took it in the posterior during the PC wars was because they didn't license their tech to other companies while IBM did. In case you haven't noticed there are a huge number of iPod competitors out there--Apple doesn't have to license its tech because other companies don't need Apple's tech to make their own players. If you're referring to the closed system of the iTunes/iPod combination, I sort of see your point except that I believe content bought from the iTMS can be played on other players. I'm not sure about this since I only own an iPod--but I do believe you think this system is more closed than it really is.
With digital music and video it will be Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson — the mobile phone manufacturers.
Huh? Mobile phones will compete with PMPs? (PMP stands for Personal Media Players, Alan.)
This year they will start releasing phones with the same storage as iPods — up to 30 gigabytes.
Hey, that's funny because my iPod holds twice that.
iPods themselves will have to become phones.
Actually, there's already been talk about this, man. I hope you don't think you're breaking the iPhone conspiracy wide open or anything... (read about the rumored iPhone ([http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/03/20060330174059.shtml|here], [http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/22/benq-confirms-iphone/|here], [http://rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=25992|here], and/or [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1943929,00.asp|here] and don't forget the ROKR which was a cell phone developed with Apple--that's been out since last year.)
Microsoft's software will power the new generation of phone/music players, and the business of selling digital songs and TV shows will open up. Google will probably run the most popular online store, but there will be thousands.
Yes, but in case you haven't noticed, Apple considers themselves to be hardware manufacturers. They don't care about the Google Video store (which already exists and has yet to take over the world).
Since Apple does consider itself a hardware manufacturer, they're really going to care most about protecting their hardware. No one has been able to come close to beating the awesome design of the iPod. Sure, even I have my problems with it but compared to other players? The iPod is like a god among men--and unlike you, Mr. Kohler, I've been in on this whole "mp3 thing" since the beginning. I owned the very first mp3 player--the Rio PMP 300. So I've seen the evolution of the PMP and Microsoft (or anyone else) just doesn't have the design cajones to top the iPod.
The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.
Uh-huh and when will this grand revolution begin?
It is quite a thrilling time to be alive.
Uhhh...because of a media revolution?
Um, sure, OK, I guess. Just be glad you weren't born in certain parts of Africa these days--or Baghdad. Then you'd probably be thinking that it was a really shitty time to be alive...
We will witness the creation and destruction of a market dominance in the time it used to take to work up a business plan.
Oh, will we?
Say, Alan, where was the scary bit?
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