A cheaper iPhone without a few bells and whistles and with an added Music Store? I’m in!
me too!
Hmmm doesn’t the iPhone cost exactly the same as the new iPOD, at least when you’re talking about the 16GB version?
And even then i wonder how far you can go with this one due to all the graphics, the movies and so on. 8/16 GB sounds very narrowed to me. Makes more sense to me if they offer 64GB or at least 32 GB versions for a reasonable price.
By the way are there also any lyrics provided with the music if buy via the music store and can you save streamed content tothe iPOD, like for instance the YouTube videos?
The 8GB iPhone costs as much as the 16GB iPod Touch
Has anyone ever encoded a full movie for the video playback on the iPOD? If i got the numbers right then i comes down to 1.3-1.5GB for a movie acording to their encoding suggestions. Would be less if you encode only for the iPOD due to the lower resolution if you don’t want to invest the throughput into quality instead.
The new touch iPods are indeed beautiful, but I’ve really grown to love my music subscription services, and can’t leave them for iTunes. I’m using Yahoo Music Unlimited with the (wireless) Sansa Connect. I average about 5 CDs worth of music a week that I download and stick on my PC and/or Sansa.
It’s too bad Steve Jobs is so against the subscription service model, because it works great for me, and I won’t go back to paying for each and every song again. It would be great to combine that with the slick interface of the iPod and iTunes. :::::sigh::::
-Eddie
I have to disagree here with you, Eddie. I know that’s how you might prefer your music but the VAST VAST majority of people like to own their music, control their own items, and listen to it forever.
This is the explanation from Macdaily news that gets oft repeated that covers my own opinion on the matter …
MacDailyNews Take: As we explain fairly regularly, whenever clueless music industry types flounder about in the mainstream press: Business models that fly in the face of human nature are doomed to failure.
Human beings like to listen to favorite songs over and over. They like to own these songs, so that they can play them over and over. They do not want to pay someone an unending monthly rate in order to be allowed to hear their favorite songs.
1,000 excellent songs costs $990 (or $1290 for DRM-free, higher-quality EMI songs) for life, but to listen to them with a $19.95/month subscription plan for 10 years would cost $2394, for 20 years it’d be $4788, $7182 for 30 years, $9576 for 40 years, and so on - and that’s not even taking inflation into account!
That subscription rate is going to increase over time, but once you buy a song, you own it for life at the price at which you purchased it — your deal gets better over time, not worse.
Now, for the limited amount of people for which a music subscription service would be welcome (anyone who can’t do basic math for example), we say, by all means, Apple should offer it - if it makes business sense (i.e. development and operational costs are less than profit potential).
Regardless of what happens, the fact remains: The labels want subscriptions to succeed because they dream of a recurring revenue stream, not because even a small minority of music consumers desire such a service. Just because subscriptions are what would preserve the old guard music cartels doesn’t mean subscriptions are the answer. Dinosaurs are extinct for a reason.
We can almost hear the greedy bastards in their music cartel boardrooms, “If only we could get them on subscription plans, if only we could get them on subscription plans…” Dreams of easy, constantly-flowing rivers of cash do not a successful business model make, but it’s no wonder that the music cartels dream of this model. It’s just so powerful that they can’t let it go and wake up. The subscription model is the rope that will hang these greedy bastards once and for all.
One more time: Business models that fly in the face of human nature are doomed to failure.
Now, for TV shows and movies, a subscription service makes perfect sense because it better fits human nature, matching the way people over the age of four consume those types of content than does outright purchasing. Not to mention, where do you store all of that content that you own, but are only going to watch once or twice? Most people can count the number of movies they’ve watched three or more times on their fingers.
We want to buy our music in the same we we own a home and not rent throwing endless buckets of cash to someone else, and subscribe to a TV shows and movies plan via Apple’s iTunes Store.
DaveyJJ, I’ve heard all the standard arguments against subscription services before, and none of them hold up for me. At least, given the way I like to listen to music.
First of all, the Subscription services are more like $12 or so a month if you pay for a full year. Also, the numeric example isn’t appropriate because the whole point is you aren’t limited to just some small number of songs you would normally purchase. You can download and listen to huge numbers of entire CDs over the course of those years. So, to try to artificially limit to what it would cost to listen to just 1000 songs over the course of 10 years or more is not the point. I typically download several hundred songs a month, and will continue to do so as I listen to all sorts of music and explore. That would cost me at least a couple hundred dollars a month on a .99 per song model, so I’m fine with my choice financially.
That article’s snide reference to “anyone who can’t do basic math” is waaaay off the mark. I could just as easily point out that to listen to all the music I do over the course of a year would cost me THOUSANDS of dollars via iTunes. “do the basic math” indeed! 
What people who haven’t used this kind of service don’t get is that your listening habits can change because you have access to such a huge library of complete songs. Your favorites are much more likely to change frequently because you can easily hop between similar artists/genres, listen to a greater selection of music, and often find something that is even more enjoyable than your original favorite song or album. It’s much more fluid, and for me much more fun.
I also think their comparison to TV also misses the point. When you have access to a large library of music anytime, you DO tend to listen to any one particular group/song/CD less, as I mentioned above. So the same reasons they accept we don’t need to own every movie or TV show we watch applies here.
Sure, there will still be some true long-term favorites, but at my 12 a month, there's no reason to stop paying and therefore lose access to them. If I do get worried, I can still pay the .89 per song (or whatever for the whole CD) and get the joys of “ownership” too. (But, until iTunes lets you re-download your purchased songs at any time, I’m not convinced you can say you truly “own” it.)
I do think most people have an initial reaction against “having to rent my music”. But, on a couple occasions I’ve had some time to show friends what it’s like to use one of these services, and they’ve ended up getting them and loving them too.
In any case, I hope you enjoy your music, however you get access to it!
-Eddie
That (repeated) human nature argument is total BS. Subscription-based and “ownership”-based business models are both completely valid. I like using a combination of both.
Granted, there is no way I will ever pay for music that doesn’t even live up to the CD standard that came into the world the same time I did.
Gee Jessy, thanks for making me feel Old with a capital ‘O’. :::::sigh::::
lol At least i was born after vinyl started…black, big, beautiful! :O)
I don’t know about most people, but up until now I’ve gotten by just fine with a 4gb Nano. 
Same here. I don’t need to have my entire music collection with me at all times. Heh.
Nope, i need more space as a) i use it for a selection of what i mostly like to hear (an entire collection would need much much more), b) new radio plays, c) own recorded music and d) transfering data files. Now tell me how you do this with 4GB?! I guess mine has 20GB or 40GB can’t remember exactly but it’s okay. As soon as the files increase (movies, better encoded audiofiles) you also need more memory. Well, at least the way that i use the gadget.
All I have on my iPod Nano are about… 50 songs. That’s all I use it for. >_>
Of course when I get my iPod Touch I’ll also use it for some TV shows, probably. And the Internet.
*Moldorma imagines using iPod Internet to browse Unity Community during Study Halls in school.
I didn’t say it wasn’t right for everyone. But what happens when you stop paying your monthly $12 fee? No music. So you paid $12 and own nothing.
I personally want to buy the music I like and own it forever. Not simply sample endless reams of the same sounding stuff. Not simply rent it at the whim of the record companies whose business model is falling apart and who are trying to prop up a system that was established to maintain the record companies profits at the expense of the artists.
And there are plenty of ways you can listen to entire albums and explore new music without paying for it … friends, family, word of mouth, live venues, “buzz”, or online apps like Pandora.
In the end, I want to own my music, forever. $0.99 seems like a good deal to own and listen to a song for the erst of my life, no?
This is the most typical argument against subscription services, and I think it just misses the point. Do you feel you and your close friends need to buy walkie talkies just in case someday you decide not to pay for your phone anymore? No, of course not.
This approach to music changes your expense from primarily being something that fluctuates based on buying individual songs or CDs to something that is a steady expense that covers most, if not all, your music expenses. Why would you ever stop paying it? You wouldn’t, since it’s such a low cost, so the whole argument of ‘what if you stop paying’ just doesn’t apply.
True, but you’re missing the key difference: Unlike these other methods, I can then have the music immediately available, to play when I want, either on my PCs or on my MP3 player. I don’t have to hope Pandora plays the exact song I want, or actually still be left paying for something a friend or family member recommends.
In the end, though, as you said it’s a personal decision which model works best for you. I have no problem with someone saying they prefer owning over renting, I just get a tad annoyed at articles like the one you cited that try to portray anyone who does like the subscription model as an idiot. That’s just plain narrowminded, IMHO…
-Eddie
And it sounds fascist, to boot. Choice is good. Having a bazillion things to sample is what makes art great in the modern world. With a subscription service, you have a lot of things available on command. A subscription service is a GREAT tool to make decisions about purchasing content, as well.
I have been with several video game subscription services. I think your argument about movies vs. music actually holds some water (because most people only care to listen to whatever has come out of their radio, over and over again), but many games are used for a similar purpose as music. You can turn them on whenever you want, enjoy them for a short time when you’ve gotten your fix, and move on. However, as with music (but to a much lesser degree), there is a lot of content to sample! I don’t have money to buy every CD or game that interests me. Paying a low rate to check out a lot of stuff, and making purchasing decisions based on that, is a fantastic way of doing things. Demos have “free” appeal, but even if your demo is just time-limited, there’s probably little chance that someone has experienced all the game has to offer. This being said, demo versions can also be awesome selling tools! All manner of possibilities are out there. CHOICE!
For music and movies, the “for life” argument is a little moot. If new recording and listening technology doesn’t come out in my lifetime, it will be a sad world indeed. At this point, there are only a few downloadable music services that provide content that matches CD quality (FLAC format). Granted, most everybody’s speakers are so crappy that they can’t hear the difference, but that’s not going to be the way of things forever.
It’s conjecture, but my assumption is that the stuff you purchase now is not going to hold up down the line when you can actually hear what is lacking due to compression. Recording studios have masters (or session backups) available of everything you can buy now, but at higher quality. DVD and its successors have established standards that give them the potential to deliver you exactly what the studios have (in finished form). But consumer equipment is not available/affordable enough to allow you to know that what you’re buying is degraded crap.
An analogy can already be found in the TV world. People are buying HDTV’s, and so HD-DVD’s and Blu Ray discs are being created for movies that were previously available on DVD, VHS, and maybe Beta and Laserdisc (or video CD overseas). The difference with these redo’s isn’t nearly as dramatic as with natively HD-captured material, but it’s definitely an improvement. Now, even Blu-Ray won’t allow you to see what the movie REALLY looks like. Video compression isn’t going away any time soon. However, Blu-Ray does finally provide consumers with a format that allows them to hear EXACTLY what the audio engineers created. Too bad they’ll be listening to it with passive bookshelf speakers…
Netflix, a subscription service I use, made the high def formats available very early on, possibly as soon as the discs became available. And the charge didn’t go up. A Blu-Ray disc can cost twice as much as a DVD! Granted, this won’t last forever, because most people (including myself) are still only getting DVD’s, but I highly doubt the subscription service is going to go up by a margin proportionate to the sale price of the disc formats.
Look, I hate the way the studios are run. I hate DRM. I hate greed. There may be wonderful new ways of artwork funding and distribution that come into existence in the future, but for now, there is a lot of great stuff that is controlled by dirty so-and-so’s. And if it’s music or movies you desire, rest assured that you’re not getting the product at its best, and that it will be re-released later in a superior format, and you’ll have to pay for it again if you care to experience it in its fullest glory.
(An aside: while superior formats do come into existence, people seem to be buying up garbage instead, because of convenience and price (totally understandable!). This makes sense in the age of iPods. However, an odd case can be found in the Nintendo Wii’s virtual console. With the Wii, you can pay a few dollars to play very old games, running exactly the same way they would have at the time of their release. I have been using emulators and game ROMs for years, because it was otherwise impossible to play old games. Now, we finally have a legal solution, but the existent emulators provide a BETTER experience than Nintendo does! Emulators allow for rendering N64 games at high resolutions, and all the older systems’ games can be played with save states and speed boost buttons (for breezing past boring bits).)
Personally, I go with a mix of library borrowing, subscription services, piracy, and a few purchases when I really care for something and can’t get it otherwise (last generation or old current gen games). Digital content is inherently infinitely reproducible. That doesn’t fit with the traditional idea of ownership very well. Ownership becomes important when you can break something. But if I break my game disc, should I REALLY need to buy another one?
I’m not in a position to dictate how money will be given to people in order for them to make great digital content in the future. If the money went straight to these people, and what I got was the best they had to give, then that would be the route I would go. It’s the way I’ve gone with Unity and a few other utility apps I use. For now, I will continue to do what is most convenient. OTEE provides that. If conglomerate studios want my money, they’ll do the same.