Apple will release an application next month that will provide users with interactive albums, which will include lyrics, behind-the-scenes images, and exclusive artwork.
According to Music Week, Apple will make the app available to users in tandem with the release of Snow Patrol’s upcoming album, A Hundred Million Suns. The app will add the extra features to more iTunes albums over time, but because it will be made available through the company’s App Store, it will only provide the extra content on the iPhone and iPod touch.
Apple’s decision to offer such an app is ironic, to say the least. The company has consistently said that it doesn’t want third-party developers tapping into iTunes music, resulting in apps like Tap Tap Revenge being prohibited from accessing your iTunes library during gameplay. Evidently, it wanted to reserve that functionality for itself. Or could this signal a willingness to allow third-party developers to access it in the future?
The new app also highlights an important point: CDs may lose one of the advantages they have clung to in their losing fight against digital downloads. Now that iTunes albums will offer the extras already found in CDs, the latter is quickly becoming even more irrelevant.
The app should be released around October 27 when Snow Patrol’s album hits store shelves. So far, pricing is unknown.
Neat toy, but it won’t replace the human desire for something tangible that they can physically handle. So while it may enhance the existing digital experience, and while that enhancement might result in slightly fewer sales of a CD, that doesn’t mean the death of physical goods for the music industry. It just means the music industry needs to get more creative. See: NIN Ghosts I-IV as an example.
I think the desire for a physical item is a generational thing… Friends of mine will debate until they are blue in the face that they will never get rid of physical copies of things some have 500+ CD’s, 1000’s of DVD’s — the moment one of these folks gets married, has a kid, or has a life changing event this physical media starts to become a burden.
Personally, I’ve been digitizing my CD/Vinyl and movies for quite some time. It saves space, gets rid of clutter, helps stay organized and with the right setup (PS3/Medialink/Time Capsule) it’s instantaneous access to all of it. It also never degrades or gets damaged, except in the case of a HD crash.
If all of my digitizing effort could be coupled with the proper front,back covers, and internal artwork plus a way to contain the movies/audio in a format that stored all the individual disks in lossless quality then I would definitely be interested in applying it to my current setup.
Physical media is dying… and it will be the decision of our children if physical existence of a physical thing/CD/Music/DVD will endure.
You Said
If all of my digitizing effort could be coupled with the proper front,back covers, and internal artwork plus a way to contain the movies/audio in a format that stored all the individual disks in lossless quality then I would definitely be interested in applying it to my current setup.
I’m saying
I’ve actually done it
Harry Hemus
Forgot to mention
harryhemus@dividiprojects.com
Its about time that apple started providing lyrics and additional content along with the music it sells in the iTunes store. Its an interesting move to limit this to an app though – why not integrate the functionality with iTunes itself?
Two words: Apple lossless. I don’t care about “extras” if I only get some of the music.
Michael, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m still buying CDs because of quality.
I agree with you. Until they offer Apple lossless I will keep buying CDs. Apple are dreaming if they think that album art and extras are the primary reason people still buy CDs. Sound quality is. Has Steve Jobs has ever listened to an AAC track through a good stereo and pair of speakers? It sounds boomy and lacks presence and detail :=)
I don’t think many people care about extras anymore. It has to be REALLY special for them to care.
finally, some real news after this all crazy sarah palin news weekend. even though, i do have to say, she is pretty hott:
http://www.holl...ah-palin-naked/
Stop porking my isp dammit!
there will always be physical products i dont see us doing everything over the cloud we still have mp3 players with memory we still have hard drives etc. Until those are gone we will still have something physical it may no be cd’s, dvd’s, or bluray but hard drives and flash drives.
People still care about extras if that wasnt the case nobody would buy stuff at discounts, on sale etc since those all are extras.
This will not make a difference because you can get most of the liner notes album covers etc from different sites legal or illegal; the people that want cd’s will continue to purchase them until there not available
Nice post title..
http://www.musi...he-music-s.html
in fact asia telecom carriers had released the app stores in 2003,such as China mobile. The carriers are good at the amount of the potential users of apps, also they are good at billing and payments.
Apple is good at gather the indivual’s interests.
Any feature that restricts iTunes access to Apple’s own developers will be subject to antitrust complaints.
Hm… I was thinking just the other day that maybe I’d start replacing my 8-track tapes with those new… what do ya call’em?… Oh yes, cassette tapes. :p