How strong is the Apple brand?\u00c2\u00a0 Can the company ultimately make people buy what they don’t want?<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 But he did so.\u00c2\u00a0 To comply with the wishes of major labels.<\/p>\n
Steve has gone on record again and again that he doesn’t believe in subscriptions, that people want to own, not rent.\u00c2\u00a0 What if, once again, he decides to give the labels what they want instead of following his own desires?<\/p>\n
Napster and Rhapsody are hamstrung by their economics.\u00c2\u00a0 Not making money renting tracks, they can’t afford big advertising campaigns telling people to sign up.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Check the surveys.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Jobs is either the most admired business executive in the country or close to it.\u00c2\u00a0 As for Apple Computer’s brand name, it’s one of the strongest of all companies.<\/p>\n
Although the iTunes Music Store is not wildly profitable, the iPod is.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, Apple is swimming in revenue, which it can use to advertise the device, further establishing its dominant position.<\/p>\n
Now iPods look cool.\u00c2\u00a0 Something that seemingly all of Apple’s competitors have been unable to achieve.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, even Apple’s ADS are cool, which for all the money Napster spent on its Super Bowl spot THEY couldn’t achieve.\u00c2\u00a0 But the number one reason the iPod is so dominant is software.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 What put a computer in everybody’s home?\u00c2\u00a0 The graphical user interface.\u00c2\u00a0 What makes the iPod the coolest gadget of the decade, which keeps increasing in sales?\u00c2\u00a0 It WORKS!<\/p>\n
Maybe you don’t remember the early days of personal computing.\u00c2\u00a0 When things DIDN’T work.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe you’re still afraid of technology, believing the dumb CD is all you need.\u00c2\u00a0 But, make no mistake, the iPod works so perfectly that I have NEVER EVER HEARD OF ANYBODY BEING UNABLE TO USE IT!\u00c2\u00a0 Children in the single digits.\u00c2\u00a0 Grandparents.\u00c2\u00a0 Tech-challenged baby boomers.\u00c2\u00a0 They rip some CDs, they plug the iPod into their computer, iTunes loads and VOILA, all their music is on the iPod.<\/p>\n
And it gets even better.\u00c2\u00a0 The iPod\/software seems SMART!\u00c2\u00a0 It updates changes, it transfers your playlists.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s positively MAGICAL!\u00c2\u00a0 The only flaw anybody can come up with is battery life.\u00c2\u00a0 A problem that existed in the beginning, but which has now been overcome.<\/p>\n
It’s a seamless solution.\u00c2\u00a0 To such a degree that we’ve got the HALO EFFECT, which has now been confirmed with Apple’s just released quarterly report.\u00c2\u00a0 People love their iPods SO MUCH, that they’re buying Apple computers.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
And the Mac does.\u00c2\u00a0 And all these switchers rave about their machines to their friends.\u00c2\u00a0 Fueling the fire.<\/p>\n
Despite what the major label propaganda states, P2P isn’t going to die.\u00c2\u00a0 It delivers what people want.\u00c2\u00a0 Unrestricted files.\u00c2\u00a0 Of not only mainstream music, but obscure music too.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why I believe the major labels should license P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, not like the bogus deals with Mashboxx and iMesh, where you still pay a fortune per track.\u00c2\u00a0 No, REAL P2P, all you can eat, for a low price.\u00c2\u00a0 BUT, what if the labels could get what they want.\u00c2\u00a0 What if they truly could provide a solution that would decimate P2P, make it an unattractive proposition.\u00c2\u00a0 What if they COULD get people to rent.<\/p>\n
I don’t believe in rental.\u00c2\u00a0 The concept of paying forever and ending up with nothing just doesn’t appeal to me.<\/p>\n
But, I rent TV for over a hundred bucks a month and barely watch.\u00c2\u00a0 So, it’s not like I don’t know what rental is, and haven’t embraced it to a degree.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That’s what Apple could do.<\/p>\n
Imagine it.\u00c2\u00a0 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).\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 (Or $12.95, that’s about as high as you can go.)<\/p>\n
Oh, can’t you SEE IT!\u00c2\u00a0 Steve sitting onstage in front of his computer.\u00c2\u00a0 Frothing at the mouth, demonstrating his solution, telling everybody how COOL IT IS?\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where "Time" puts it on the cover, just like it did with the desk lamp iMac?<\/p>\n
God would have spoken.<\/p>\n
Oh, Napster and Real\/Rhapsody would be pissed.\u00c2\u00a0 This was THEIR idea.<\/p>\n
But they fumbled the ball.<\/p>\n
Now I don’t know if it’s possible to update the firmware on existing iPods to allow tethered subscriptions.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d think not.\u00c2\u00a0 But, in reality, iPod penetration is still miniscule.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Which would somehow be cheaper than everybody expected, so there’d be no backlash, so you’d eagerly go out and buy one.<\/p>\n
People would GOBBLE UP this service.\u00c2\u00a0 Devices would be sold out, there’d be waiting lists.\u00c2\u00a0 EVERYBODY would want to line up and pay for a subscription.\u00c2\u00a0 All because Steve said so.<\/p>\n
The labels now see Apple as the enemy.\u00c2\u00a0 The company has too much power.\u00c2\u00a0 IT’S dictating to THEM!\u00c2\u00a0 But, their only way out, their only solution, is to give Apple MORE power.<\/p>\n
Are you really going to wait all that time, three to ten minutes, to download the track P2P when Steve will deliver it INSTANTLY!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about CONVENIENCE, and COOL!\u00c2\u00a0 Two things that the labels have lost sight of, but Apple has got in spades.<\/p>\n
The labels have been wrong for over five years.\u00c2\u00a0 And now the analysts are too.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, for a month they went on that the iPod phenomenon was over, that sales had slipped.\u00c2\u00a0 But yesterday we found out that shipments set a RECORD!\u00c2\u00a0 In an historically weak quarter!<\/p>\n
This is a solution.\u00c2\u00a0 A way out even I’ll embrace.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I’m a believer in Apple, in a way I believe in no act on the hit parade.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll follow my leader just like I used to buy the albums of and go to see the classic acts of yore.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to belong.\u00c2\u00a0 I want that badge of identity.\u00c2\u00a0 And so does seemingly EVERYBODY ELSE!<\/p>\n
Don’t be surprised if Steve’s already got it in the works.\u00c2\u00a0 Because he, unlike the labels, is thinking of the future.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants to deliver solutions that cement Apple’s dominant position in computer music.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants to kill the competition.\u00c2\u00a0 And, the public wants him to, they want to go along for the ride.<\/p>\n
Ice to Inuits?<\/p>\n
That’s Steve’s job.\u00c2\u00a0 He’ll convince you to buy what he’s selling.\u00c2\u00a0 And more music for a cheap price via a seamless solution is a win win win.\u00c2\u00a0 For Apple, the labels and the CONSUMER!<\/p>\n
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