Introduction:
The iTunes Store was first launched on April 28, 2003. Apple’s idea was simple – provide a virtual store where people can buy and download digital music on-demand. Initially, the store only hosted 200,000 tracks and only Mac users were able to buy and transfer music to the iPod. PC users had to wait until October 2003 for the release of the Windows version of iTunes. Today, the iTunes Store is the second largest seller of digital music in the U.S. and has sold over 4 billion songs.
iTune's Early Days:
When Apple first launched its iTunes digital music service it had already signed deals with major record labels. Big names such as, Universal Music Group (UMG), EMI, Warner, Sony, and BMG all signed up to make their music available on the iTunes Store. Incidentally, Sony and BMG have since merged to form Sony BMG (one of the big four music labels).
Demand soon developed and it was no surprise that 18 hours after the service first went live, it had sold approximately 275,000 tracks. The media soon latched onto this success and provided Apple with a great promotional platform that made it incredibly successful.
Global Launches:
During Apple’s early days, the iTunes Store was only available to U.S customers. This changed in 2004 when a series of European launches took place. The iTunes Music Store was launched in France, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Greece, Finland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands. Consumers in Canada had to wait until December 3rd, 2004, which was after the European rollout to access the iTunes Store.
Global launches continued throughout the world over the years making the iTunes Store the most widespread digital music service in the world.
DRM Controversy:
One of the most talked about issues in iTunes’s history is of course, Digital Rights Management or DRM for short. Apple has its own DRM technology, called Fairplay, which is only compatible with the iPod, iPhone, and a handful of other digital music players. For many consumers the restrictions that DRM places on purchased music has been a bone of contention for many years. Even though Apple sells DRM-free songs using the iTunes Plus service, most of its catalog still remains protected.
Achievements:
Apple has celebrated many achievements over the years, such as:
- Selling 70 million songs in its first year.
- 1 million music videos were sold 20 days after first being introduced in 2005.
- 1 billion songs were downloaded in 2006 and in the same year, Apple had gained 88% of the legal music download market share in the U.S.
- The iTunes Store became the most popular destination in the world to download movies in 2007; 2 million movies had been sold.
- In 2008, Apple announced that it had surpassed the 4 billion songs download milestone and became the second largest retailer of digital music in the U.S.
Final Thoughts:
The iTunes Store is an iconic name that will always be remembered as the service that spawned the legal music download industry. Its greatest achievement to date is not the quantity of media that has flowed from its stores (although hugely impressive), but the clever way in which it has controlled what portable hardware is compatible with its iTunes Store. With more and more online music services now appearing, many of them offering DRM-free music, Apple needs to make sure it keeps up with present and future trends to beat off the competition, and maintain its dominance.
