Apple has hacked the fat margin it was charging for DRM-free music away to become competitive with Amazon.com, and Steve Jobs does a total backflip on 3rd party apps on the iPhone.
iTunes reduces pricing on higher quality iTunes Plus tracks, claims biggest selection of DRM-free music
In a response to the launch of Amazon's music download service, Apple has cut the price of higher quality, DRM-free iTunes Plus downloads to $1.69. iTunes Plus tracks are encoded at 256 Kbps AAC for 'virtually indistinguishable' quality from the original recording. No word yet on whether the Apple up-to-date plan, which allowed customers to upgrade their music to iTunes Plus will still be available, and if so, at what cost.
iTunes Plus has clearly been a success story -- and yet only one of the big four record labels is taking advantage of it via iTunes. Still, Apple today managed to beef up the numbers of iTunes Plus tracks to over two million, sourcing most of the new tracks from independent labels.
It's clear that Apple isn't afraid of consumers buying music through iTunes and using it on other devices -- its iPod franchise market share is now so overwhelming that it would be very difficult for another manufacturer to make a dent in it.
In fact, the press release makes this very clear when it mentions 'iTunes Plus songs purchased from the iTunes Store will play on all iPods, iPhone, Windows or Mac computers, widescreen TVs with Apple TV, as well as many other digital music players.'
Still, the question remains, how long will it take the rest of the music industry to realise that if people can't pay for their music in the format they want it in, they'll happily steal it?
Apple announces 3rd party apps for the iPhone
As a response to constant calls from industry analysts to allow 3rd party application development on the iPhone, Steve Jobs today responded with an open letter posted at apple.com. It reads:
Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.
It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.
Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.
We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.
Steve
P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch.
If this doesn't signal to the world that Apple is serious about building out the iPhone as a platform to rival Symbian and Windows Mobile, then nothing will.
Unless other phone manufacturers (here's looking at you Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, Blackberry) pull something out of their hat between now and then, they can all start to kiss market share good bye.