In our discussion on the Apple iTunes/Apple Music settlement, it was brought up that one aspect of the settlement allows Apple to sell iPods (or other media) containing music files. This opens the door for a slew of targeted iPods, from near-disposable devices with a single, group of songs, or a single album all the way up to high-end versions containing an entire band’s catalog pre-loaded.
Flash-memory drives are now so cheap, software companies are starting to use them to ship software. H&R Block, for example, is selling the latest version of its tax-preparation software on a flash drive for $40 — the same price as the CD version. How much would it cost Apple to add a few music chips and some cheap earbuds?
Apple was prevented from doing this until now by the 15-year-old contract between Apple Corps, the Beatles’ music company, and Apple Computer. This contract precluded Jobs’ Apple from acting as a music company and from selling CDs or “physical media delivering prerecorded content … (such as a compact disc of the Rolling Stones’ music).”
Apple has been selling music as downloads for years, of course, but thanks to this clause, the company couldn’t sell an iPod with music already loaded onto it.
These cheap album iPods could be sold at bus stations and airports: instant music, no computer required. Bands could sell pre-loaded iPods at concerts, maybe containing the concert they just played. There could be Broadway show iPods, movie soundtrack iPods and iPods burned at retail stores with custom play lists.
It’s going to be the biggest change to the iPod since the iTunes online store debuted in 2002.
Do you agree that this could challenge the CD and other pre-recorded music?
I believe the words you meant were “targeted iPods”, not “tergeted iPods”. Somebody needs a spell checker, I know I do.
[corrected]
No! How often do you get an ipod? Once every couple years? Is that how often you’re going to update your music?
Yeah i think it wont as long as its price is 300 bucks, there will always be people who don’t buy it, and choose cds instead.
Agreed, it might be something to load it with the entire catalog of a particular artist (Zepplin iPod, anyone?), but it won’t challenge the CD market. If I want a song, I’m going to download it (iTunes DRM, or torrent with no DRM). If I want a full CD, I’m either going to buy the physical CD or find the torrent and send a few bucks to the artist directly (since I hate the RIAA). I’m not going to buy a new iPod to replace the one that I already have just because it has a catalog preloaded unless I’m due for a new iPod anyway.
How much for one of these album iPods?
Would they have the music *I* want?
Could I copy tunes from a disposable iPod to another device or format?
Could I put my own tunes on one of these?
Can I play them on my home system (i.e. on speakers, not ear buds).
Bottom line: too early to tell.
Hasn’t there been a “U2 i-Pod” knocking about for a couple of years? An i-Pod that comes loaded with the band’s entire catalogue.
I wonder was this done through a legal loophole, or were Apple testing the waters to see if the other Apple would say anything?
6,
The buyer got a coupon good to download the U2 music. The iPod itself couldn’t come pre-loaded under the previous legal settlement.
This will become a great way to gift an iPod, as you can then show the person you know what music they like. Besides, the high-end configuration will have room for the rest of your music too. The concert-sized iPods will probably be like little more than USB flash with a headphone jack.
Unless Apple is nuts, you’ll be able to either download the music from the device or have permission to download a copy to your iTunes library.
The U2 iPod doesn’t or at didn’t when I got mine, come loaded with the U2 catalog. What it did come with was a certificate to buy Vertigo.
The only reason I bought that one was the Red and Black matched the interior of my car perfectly.
No, this will not challenge the CD.
One thing that would is no DRM and A REMOVABLE BATTERY for the ipod.
I think it would be cool to have a sd reader on your iPod. That way a band could sell sd cards with their music. You just pop it in and listen, or copy it to the internal drive to keep.
I always thought SD cards were the coolest way to transfer data, just like all those sci-fi movies. Who knew we’d really see 2 gigs on a postage stamp. I love the sd card format,except that only people with laptops can read them.
A whole iPod might be overkill, but I seem to remember there were quite a few offering of credit card-sized, dirt-cheap MP3 players — offering to preload those with an album compliation of your choice could probably work.
…and while the DRM opponents might not like it, that kind of content platform might even calm the RIAA down. You work around the whole problem of “it it can be read, it can be copied” by making sure it can’t be read. It doesn’t have to be because there is no player that needs to read it — the medium is the player.
#10 and #11 have the right idea. I just don’t see how the optical disk format survives going forward. SD memory cards are cheap enough at adequate memory sizes to hold any audio and video format. You could easy fit an entire record and video store in a stand alone kiosk. Selling an SD memory card makes more sense than selling the whole device. How many album iPods are you going to carry around?
I will still buy a Nano rip off from japan for 1/3 the price of an ipod Nano and buy my music from Russia for 15 cents a pop. Just like I always do.
CD = $10-16
iPod – $200+
Replace the CD? Um… no. Provide an easy way to make an iPod more attractive? Sure.
CD’s are cheap to produce, and provide superior audio quality to mp3’s. You’ll probably be able to buy packs of “bolt on” albums at a discount… say 69c a song or something.
13
SD memory card kiosks will never be built because the content providers will never agree to selling their content without DRM. All SD memory cards will have to be sold with a surcharge that goes into a fund to compensate the content providers for perceived loss of revenue. An example is the DAT tape fiasco. By the time the DRM and surcharges were negotiated the CD (developed by Sony and Phillips) killed the format.
Like it or not from now on any music from a major label that you can buy (online or brick and mortar) in a new format will have DRM. The mythical album ipods will have DRM so that you cannot download songs off of the device. They could also include a subscription feature so unless you keep your subscription active and authenticate with the content provider your album ipod will become a brick.
Now if only the content providers could force us to wear special headphone and goggles that only allow us to view and listen to properly purchased content they will have closed the infamous analog holes.
15,
The iPod Shuffle costs about $70, and a purpose-built iPod would be cheaper than that. People would pay $20 for an album-oriented iPod with custom artwork at a concert, I’d bet.
Nah….
This one’s nonsense….
There’s no way to sell me the ‘mix” that I would prefer to make up myself, and the idea of carrying two or three of these devices would be a little silly at best if the capacity is only an album or two each.
It makes more sense to sell me an SD card (or something of that nature) instead of a CD, that I can use to mix into something else. I would think the card could be cheaper than a CD in bulk, particularly if it’s Read Only (i.e. ROM). I could carry several of those if I didn’t want to do the mixing work.
OTOH folks who attend a concert by a particular group might want a pre-loaded iPod or similar device that re-plays the concert. It’d have to be DRM friendly so the music could be moved, or at least capable of accepting “my” add-on music. But how many of those would “I” want?
That may be the only way to do this – an ordinary iPod (or similar device) that’s heavily branded on the outside, but quite ordinary on the inside. Lots of potential there, and given that the things could be $50 instead of $500, possibly a real market. You still wouldn’t want more than a couple, but who knows what the “collector” market would do.
Regards,
Stu.
No, this is a non-starter. You’re not competing with the price of a CD, you’e competing with the price of a song online… which for many is $0.00.
Good luck.
Let me get this straight — so instead of a bunch of CDs and tapes cluttering up my house, I’m going to have piles of iPods — each needing charging or batteries?
Bah! Doomed to failure as a mass marketing item.
Good for promotion, though since you could send out your CD to the Grammy voters and not worry too much about it being pirated.
I’ll answer that last question with a resounding, “No!” Even if this question is only looked at from a music perspective it’s still a no. There’s something about owning your own copy of an album at a high quality recording that digital music won’t be able to touch. Look at vinyl, with a high quality needle and record player you can hear sounds that almost surely get lost in the translation with digital copies. Compression is killing music and eliminating the peaks and valleys that make a song what it is. If they’re going to even consider doing this, they had better have the music at a high quality and the user had better own the content beyond any shadow of a doubt.
21,
You have a point about the clutter, but all Apple needs to do is allow the music to be downloaded into your iTunes library and the problem is gone. Then you have a simple package collection situation where you keep the iPods that commemorate or otherwise represent groups or events you want to remember.
For the record, I don’t believe the iPod will kill the CD. The Internet, broadband, and big hard drives are killing the CD. Media like the CD and DVD are going to become primarily a retail sales mechanism, as all other music purchases will be a packageless download. Then it doesn’t matter if you listen on a Rio, a Sansa, or an iPod, you aren’t listening to a CD.
As for audio quality, I used to be such an audiohile I’d rewire my speakers and pack my turntable with clay (yes, I’m old, too) to damp resonances. To see people who listen to music primarily with earbuds debate audio quality is amusing. I have a dock on my stereo for my iPod, and the music from it sounds good. Better than the radio, and only detectable from CD on A/B comparison.
When I want to listen to music for the experience (when not playing it in the background while working, for example), I’ll dust off my turntable.
#24
Wow, you were an audiophile!
I do some music production and I totally agree with you that the ear buds and boom boxes just don’t cut it — yet most people don’t know the difference.
These new close-monitor self-powered speakers can sound pretty good but I haven’t heard any that beat those big ‘ole dedicated amplifiers and gigantic wood speakers like we had in the analogue era.
I know from my studio experience, that quality sound equipment isn’t enough — you also have to treat the room.
As for the vinyl sounding better than the CD — I can’t really hear it myself.
25,
I think vinyl sounds “warmer” for lack of a better word. I also think that the various genuflections to the gods of fidelity and the tea ceremony involved in prepping and playing an LP make you appreciate the sound more in a way, too.
I was such a hard-core guy I used to hang in Noel Lee’s (Monster Cable’s founder) basement and perform comparative listening on cables and amps and such. I’ve gotten better, though.
Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea.
While it would be great to immediately access your purchased music, there’s still nothing like getting a new CD or LP, admiring the packaging, pouring through liner notes, and holding the disc in your hands like it’s some sort of treasure. While most of my CDs rarely get played more than once or twice, I still treasure them all. For some odd reason, I have more of a satisfied feeling of ownership if I have the physical CD in my hands, rather than downloading a purchased album.
If we’re going towards specialized iPods, though, I’d say the first step would be in the software itself. The white background gets pretty bland after a while. Why not personalized backgrounds? Different color schemes? Album art that actually fills the entire screen? Zune did pretty well with that, but something tells me that the iPod could really pull this off.