If video killed the radio star, as the old song goes, then iTunes killed the record industry. Now, 18 years after Apple launched the music download store, the company announced that iTunes is shutting down.

During its Worldwide Developers Conference this week in San Jose, California, Apple announced iTunes will no longer exist as a digital jukebox but will be reformed into three separate apps for music, television and podcasts. While the change has been a long time coming —  sales of digital music downloads have dropped for six straight years, according to the Recording Industry Association of America  — it marks a significant shift in the company’s business model and in the kind of consumer behavior that Apple helped shape when it first opened the digital store in 2001. Music lovers were no longer bound to the full purchase of an album that was packaged and sold by a record label; they were free to buy single songs for 99 cents, which ushered in a new era of pick-and-choose

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/itunes-shutting-down/

You need to be a member of When Steel Talks to add comments!

Join When Steel Talks

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • PAN PEOPLE have to UNDERSTAND PROPORTION before they reach all their conclusions on this topic.

    HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE!!!

  • One major problem with Itunes is that what one paid for was the permission to listen to the music! One did not own anything else. A court case in California occured where a large body of music was willed by the deceased to his children. Apple stepped in and prevailed that there was nothing to 'inherit'! I still have my CDs as there is  a lot of music that was never digitized by Apple. Cds like records often have better songs than what was pushed on the public, via radio play. Thanks for the great recordings available on Sanch CDs!

  • Andy Narell is already doing it and seems to have carved a niche and a devoted following over the years, and many long years for that matter. Perhaps study his product and audience/market as an example of a blueprint. Attempting to market a product to the entire world is not feasible. Case in point,  a company that manufacturers and sells baby pampers is not going to market pampers to folks who don't have children. You need to know who your audience is and target/market your product accordingly.

    • What about folks who have grand children? Pampers eh?

  • PAN MUSIC needs to find its place in all the new dispensations -- we really need to have a conference on COMPOSING PAN MUSIC FOR GLOBAL CONSUMPTION.

    Khuent Rose is the only person in the entire PAN COMMUNITY who looks askance at the COVER COMPULSION that exists in the STEELBAND WORLD. I would suspect that if a PANORAMA ARRANGER could take a 3 minute song and play it for 8 to 10 minutes -- he should be able to do an ORIGINAL COMPOSITION.

    Well, QUALITY OF MUSIC is ANOTHER ISSUE!!! But there is an easy solution to that: COLLABORATION with REAL MUSIC PRODUCERS!!!

  • From a commentator in the original discussion.

    Keith Essency
    The author got this wrong. Apple clearly stated at WWDC that iTunes is still alive and is NOT going away. It is embedded in Apple Music, you can still purchase and download music from the iTunes Store. Yes, digital downloads have decrease and it may have caused the CD market to shrink, but guess what, the vinyl market is making a comeback with its better audio quality and people are ripping that vinyl music at very high bit rates to achieve maximum audio quality. Please get your facts straight.

This reply was deleted.