Apple Music Store
 

So...am I stupid, or is Apple?

I, a PC user, can't seem to figure out how I can browse/purchase songs through the Apple music store. It seems to be telling me that only Mac users can access the Apple Music Store.

Did they REALLY just say "Hey, we've been doing just fine without that 95% of the market so far...fuck em." ???

I can't believe anyone in Apple's marketing department would find that to be a good idea. Then again, the new Imac...

Anyway, am I missing something here?

MPEDrummer

You're missing something. :)

The idea is to release it to APPLE customers first, because it is Apple's core (pun, har har har) market. That, and it was a way of testing the waters without going overboard and losing a bunch of money on bandwidth, data transfer, all that stuff.

So if the people they marketed it to are accepting of it, and by the data that came back they really really are accepting it, then they will branch off into the other markets - AKA Windows.

This follows the same plan as the iPod. It was usable solely by Mac users, because it was made for them to enjoy. When it caught on as well as it did, then they decided to branch off into the rest of the market - AKA Windows.

They've already said they plan to add Window's support to the Apple Music store by the end of the year. Currently, only US Mac owners can download music.

The other missing piece of the puzzle is the record labels. I think they're looking at this as an experiment that they can easily pull the plug on if they don't like it (by restricting it initially to a small portion of the audience).

Don't forget that Apple does this only with their permission.

I didn't have anything intelligent to say so I had to be edited.

I think the exparament ended when a week in they sold more songs then the lables thought would be sold in the first month.

don't forget that developing the DRM for macs is much easier than windows. there are way more variables in a win32 environment than there is on a mac.

right now each song can only be used on three macs, which couldn't be controlled outside of the itunes environment on a PC.

I think it's a great idea......soon there will be a windows version :)

I'm looking forward to that Windows version too. I read that Apple is releasing some songs in the Apple Music Store in the new AAC format (smaller size than mp3, better quality). Anyone know if that file type will be compatable with Windows come the PC Apple Music Store?

they release it only for mac ppl and then pc people want it cause its so good then they release it again with some new stuff to everyone.

Every company does this. They want those who cannot wait to buy more products now and then those who can wait, get enough in the near future or at least get to tatse what its like. Quicktime is limited on Windows and WMP is limited on the mac platform for example.

fwiw...all the songs are in AAC encoding, which is indeed smaller, and with quite remarkable quality.

Sales are still brisk, and the record labels are pleased since a very good proportion of those sales are for complete albums. The apple website is reporting 5 million downloads so far....
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jun/23itunes.html