How strong is the Apple brand?  Can the company ultimately make people buy what they don’t want?

It’s a well known fact amongst insiders that Steve Jobs did not want to copy protect the tracks sold at the iTunes Music Store.  But he did so.  To comply with the wishes of major labels.

Steve has gone on record again and again that he doesn’t believe in subscriptions, that people want to own, not rent.  What if, once again, he decides to give the labels what they want instead of following his own desires?

Napster and Rhapsody are hamstrung by their economics.  Not making money renting tracks, they can’t afford big advertising campaigns telling people to sign up.  Furthermore, the portable devices that are supposed to sync with these services are so glitch prone that their competitor Yahoo refuses to charge for portability.  And, adding insult to injury, the interfaces of all these services look like they were designed by computer geeks, not users, and as a result, consumers find them hard to navigate, hard to use.

Check the surveys.  Steve Jobs is either the most admired business executive in the country or close to it.  As for Apple Computer’s brand name, it’s one of the strongest of all companies.

Although the iTunes Music Store is not wildly profitable, the iPod is.  As a result, Apple is swimming in revenue, which it can use to advertise the device, further establishing its dominant position.

Now iPods look cool.  Something that seemingly all of Apple’s competitors have been unable to achieve.  Hell, even Apple’s ADS are cool, which for all the money Napster spent on its Super Bowl spot THEY couldn’t achieve.  But the number one reason the iPod is so dominant is software.  You’ll see a few articles about this now and again, but the freaks at Sony and most of the media covering this sector deal in a non-user vacuum.  What put a computer in everybody’s home?  The graphical user interface.  What makes the iPod the coolest gadget of the decade, which keeps increasing in sales?  It WORKS!

Maybe you don’t remember the early days of personal computing.  When things DIDN’T work.  Maybe you’re still afraid of technology, believing the dumb CD is all you need.  But, make no mistake, the iPod works so perfectly that I have NEVER EVER HEARD OF ANYBODY BEING UNABLE TO USE IT!  Children in the single digits.  Grandparents.  Tech-challenged baby boomers.  They rip some CDs, they plug the iPod into their computer, iTunes loads and VOILA, all their music is on the iPod.

And it gets even better.  The iPod/software seems SMART!  It updates changes, it transfers your playlists.  It’s positively MAGICAL!  The only flaw anybody can come up with is battery life.  A problem that existed in the beginning, but which has now been overcome.

It’s a seamless solution.  To such a degree that we’ve got the HALO EFFECT, which has now been confirmed with Apple’s just released quarterly report.  People love their iPods SO MUCH, that they’re buying Apple computers.  Yes, they’re throwing away sometimes DECADES of investment in PCs, and all their software, and starting over, just believing if their iPod works so well, a Mac will too.

And the Mac does.  And all these switchers rave about their machines to their friends.  Fueling the fire.

Despite what the major label propaganda states, P2P isn’t going to die.  It delivers what people want.  Unrestricted files.  Of not only mainstream music, but obscure music too.  Which is why I believe the major labels should license P2P.  Oh, not like the bogus deals with Mashboxx and iMesh, where you still pay a fortune per track.  No, REAL P2P, all you can eat, for a low price.  BUT, what if the labels could get what they want.  What if they truly could provide a solution that would decimate P2P, make it an unattractive proposition.  What if they COULD get people to rent.

I don’t believe in rental.  The concept of paying forever and ending up with nothing just doesn’t appeal to me.

But, I rent TV for over a hundred bucks a month and barely watch.  So, it’s not like I don’t know what rental is, and haven’t embraced it to a degree.

So MAYBE, if someone sold me a seamless rental solution, one that worked, one that eliminated the hassle of P2P, maybe I might be convinced.

That’s what Apple could do.

Imagine it.  Just like switching to Intel, Steve Jobs has one of his dog and pony shows, simulcast on the Web, reported on the front page of the business section of the newspaper and all over the Internet, and he states that even though Apple’s been selling tracks for years, all this time, in a secret corner of the Cupertino headquarters, there’s been a team focusing on rental subscriptions (oh, he won’t call it this, rental’s got a bad ring, he’ll come up with iMusic or some other catchy moniker).  Just like he saw the light and started including burners in all Macs back in 2001, just like he introduced iTunes, late to the market but with the best solution, NOW he has seen that subscription is the answer, and, as of today, RIGHT NOW (because that’s Steve’s style), you can download iTunes 5.0 and buy a portable subscription to every track on the store for ten bucks a month.  (Or $12.95, that’s about as high as you can go.)

Oh, can’t you SEE IT!  Steve sitting onstage in front of his computer.  Frothing at the mouth, demonstrating his solution, telling everybody how COOL IT IS?  To the point where "Time" puts it on the cover, just like it did with the desk lamp iMac?

God would have spoken.

Oh, Napster and Real/Rhapsody would be pissed.  This was THEIR idea.

But they fumbled the ball.

Now I don’t know if it’s possible to update the firmware on existing iPods to allow tethered subscriptions.  I’d think not.  But, in reality, iPod penetration is still miniscule.  Furthermore, Steve would rant how your old iPod was not obsolete, that you could employ some cool, new feature, but for tethered downloads (which he would, of course, call iGo or something), you needed a new iPod.  Which would somehow be cheaper than everybody expected, so there’d be no backlash, so you’d eagerly go out and buy one.

People would GOBBLE UP this service.  Devices would be sold out, there’d be waiting lists.  EVERYBODY would want to line up and pay for a subscription.  All because Steve said so.

The labels now see Apple as the enemy.  The company has too much power.  IT’S dictating to THEM!  But, their only way out, their only solution, is to give Apple MORE power.

Are you really going to wait all that time, three to ten minutes, to download the track P2P when Steve will deliver it INSTANTLY!  It’s all about CONVENIENCE, and COOL!  Two things that the labels have lost sight of, but Apple has got in spades.

The labels have been wrong for over five years.  And now the analysts are too.  Oh, for a month they went on that the iPod phenomenon was over, that sales had slipped.  But yesterday we found out that shipments set a RECORD!  In an historically weak quarter!

This is a solution.  A way out even I’ll embrace.  Because I’m a believer in Apple, in a way I believe in no act on the hit parade.  I’ll follow my leader just like I used to buy the albums of and go to see the classic acts of yore.  I want to belong.  I want that badge of identity.  And so does seemingly EVERYBODY ELSE!

Don’t be surprised if Steve’s already got it in the works.  Because he, unlike the labels, is thinking of the future.  He wants to deliver solutions that cement Apple’s dominant position in computer music.  He wants to kill the competition.  And, the public wants him to, they want to go along for the ride.

Ice to Inuits?

That’s Steve’s job.  He’ll convince you to buy what he’s selling.  And more music for a cheap price via a seamless solution is a win win win.  For Apple, the labels and the CONSUMER!