Apple Mac HQ

I’m going to do my first multi-part post here at Apple Mac HQ. Leading off this first, is a review of the various alternatives to iTunes. I’ll be focusing on what I consider the “major players”. Those services are Amie Street, eMusic, and Amazon MP3. While there are other music services such as Napster and Rhapsody, their business model is subscription based which is outside the scope of this music service comparison.

Over the next week or so I’ll do an in-depth review of each service and then make some final recommendations. Stay tuned for my first review early next week!

Popularity: 36% [?]

According to a latest data from the NPD Group’s Music Watch Survey, iTunes is now the largest music retailer in the US. iTunes now sells more music than any other company in the US. While that’s certainly impressive, consider that iTunes is less than 5 years old. Let that sink in a little. In less than 5 years iTunes is now the dominant force in a business that’s been around for well more than 50 years. Incredible.

Popularity: 33% [?]

If you’re as excited about the upcoming MLB season as I am, iTunes has a free download that will get you primed for the season opening games. Coming in an nearly 700MB, the 2008 MLB Season Preview (iTunes link) takes a look at each division and gives you a synopsis of each team in the division.

The entire video runs about an hour which each team getting about 2-3 minutes of air time. Each team synopsis includes player interviews, team analysis (strengths/weaknesses/etc), beat writer quotes, and the goals of the team for 2008. With the season opening game just a little over a week away, the 2008 MLB Season Preview is a great way to get caught up to date on your favorite or hated team. Go Braves!

Popularity: 37% [?]

About a month ago iTunes introduced a movie rental special to go along with the AppleTV software update. Each week, iTunes will feature a special movie that will cost just $.99 to rent. You get the same rental privileges with this $.99 movie as you do with any other movie on iTunes. A movie rental for less than a buck is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

The only problem with renting these cheap movies is actually finding them. I spent a good 5 or 10 minutes clicking around in iTunes and for the life of me I couldn’t see any place where you could actually find the special movie rental of the week. Search no more. Wake Interactive has created a website that lists the movie special along with a brief description of the movie and a direct iTunes link to the rental. 99Rental.com also features an RSS feed so you can get the latest movie rental special straight in your RSS reader. If you have an AppleTV or watch movies on your computer, 99Rental.com is a great resource.

[Via TUAW]

Popularity: 62% [?]

The Macworld Keynote is in the books. Steve Jobs announced some pretty good stuff, some of which will cause my credit card to get some action in the coming weeks. Want to know what went down at the Keynote but don’t care to read a liveblog post or 10 different posts? I’ve created a cheat sheet of sorts for the 2008 Macworld Keynote. Here’s the lowdown:

OS X
-5 million copies of Leopard have been delivered. This is likely a combination of new Mac sales and Leopard boxed copies (no definitive word given).

Time Capsule
-Time Capsule is a companion product for Leopard’s Time Machine. Time Capsule is a combination Airport Extreme Base Station with a server grade hard drive. It’s a “backup appliance”.
-500GB and 1TB storage for $299 and $499 respectively.
-Backup multiple Macs to the same Time Capsule.
-No word on if this feature will be available for USB drives connected to the current Airport Extreme Base Stations.

iPhone
-4 million iPhone sold to date.
-It’s first quarter shipping it garnered 19% of the smart phone market share.
-1.1.3 iPhone software upgrade released: SMS to multiple people, current position locator in maps, customizable home screen, and more.

iPod Touch
-Mail, maps, stocks, notes, and weather coming to the Touch.
-The cost of those applications is $20 for current Touch owners and will be built in to new ones.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 36% [?]

It seems like nearly every day you hear someone say the words “iPod Killer” or “iTunes Killer” in reference to the newest portable digital music player or content deliver mechanism. As time goes by, those claims are swept out of the consumers minds and the next “big thing” gives it a go too. Recently however, one “iTunes Killer” has actually managed to stay at the forefront of consumers thoughts and wallets. Despite being web only, the Amazon MP3 store has received good reviews and with the combination of cheap songs has kept consumers happy.

In an effort to bring more consumers to Amazon MP3, Amazon is teaming with Pepsi to give away 1 Billion songs according to Billboard. The Motley Fool has the scoop here. If you remember a few years ago, Pepsi teamed with Apple to give away 100 million iTunes songs.

Personally, I’m really excited about this promotion for a few reasons.

1) I’m likely to get some free music since I have a moderate Mountain Dew habit.
2) Competition for iTunes and Apple IS a good thing. Just remember about a month ago when Apple dropped the price of iTunes Plus tracks to compete more directly with the DRM free tracks from Amazon.
3) The more people that buy digital music, the larger the market is for digital music players. Since the iPod controls the majority of the digital music player market, a larger market means more iPod sales.

What’s interesting in this whole promotion is that for the first time, consumers are being targeted with a large scale promotion of DRM free music. Could this be the beginning of the end for DRM? I sure hope so.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I’m not sure if this is a first for iTunes, but it is impressive none the less. Edward Burns has decided to debut his new movie exclusively on iTunes, before it’s shown anywhere else. It’s impressive because Edward Burns is fairly well known and has directed some Award Winning films. My first introduction to Edward Burns was back when I worked in a video store in high school. His directorial debut was the Brothers McMullen, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. I brought it home one night at really enjoyed the movie. His next turn in the directors chair was She’s the One, which I also enjoyed.

The real question in all of this is, will debuting the movie on iTunes first reward the content creator instead of the movie studios? If debuting to iTunes first is going to work, this type of film is the perfect test case. An indie drama doesn’t need to pull in enough cash to cover a huge special effects budget like an action movie would. It’s also something that doesn’t necessarily require a huge TV with perfect sound to be enjoyed like some of the summer blockbuster movies.

I’m really interested to see if any sales/profit figures are released once the exclusivity to iTunes is gone. I really hope the movie is a hit and sells well on iTunes, giving other directors the opportunity to keep more of their movie’s profits. We’ve seen the trend of music artists ditching their record labels, but movies have traditionally been a different animal. Could this be the movie revenue model of the future?

Popularity: 12% [?]