Apple opens the way to 24-bit iTunes

[mcgillroy]

(2011-11-16 23:54)popko Wrote:  I think Apple may see that the iTunes program becomes obsolete. iTunes itself has no revenue stream,

lol - where did u get that notion from?! itunes maybe free but basically is a storefront to the itunes store for music, apps and movies. apple makes $85 million per month - that is $1 billion per year - from songs alone via itunes and almost an equal amount in apps.

charts and numbers here: http://www.asymco.com/2011/10/06/challen...ne-medium/

opening alac is probably due to anticipating the end of cd's and enabling possibilities for price-discrimination. at least audiophiles pay (!) for music, and premiums is offered higher resolution...

[popko]

(2011-11-17 17:06)mcgillroy Wrote:  

(2011-11-16 23:54)popko Wrote:  I think Apple may see that the iTunes program becomes obsolete. iTunes itself has no revenue stream,

lol - where did u get that notion from?! itunes maybe free but basically is a storefront to the itunes store for music, apps and movies. apple makes $85 million per month - that is $1 billion per year - from songs alone via itunes and almost an equal amount in apps.

charts and numbers here: http://www.asymco.com/2011/10/06/challen...ne-medium/

opening alac is probably due to anticipating the end of cd's and enabling possibilities for price-discrimination. at least audiophiles pay (!) for music, and premiums is offered higher resolution...

I should add the itunes client on the pc or mac is what I meant.

[andy.mackintosh]

but at what cost ???? - AAC is not necessarily the best way forward for 24 bit enthusiasts. From what I've heard recently comparing flac and AAC there is no comparison - Flac wins hands down. I just hope that Apple's market dominance with an inferior product doesnt lose the battle but win the war.

Don't get me wrong - I love the flexibility of Apple TV2 ( Jailbreaked with Firecore ) and my ipod for the car etc, but its surely not the way forward for high quality audio

[Keltik Klown]

I'm surprised no-one has commented on Linn Records starting to make hi-res downloads available in ALAC in addition to FLAC etc. Or am I the only one that's noticed

[Keltik Klown]

(2011-11-18 11:50)andy.mackintosh Wrote:  AAC is not necessarily the best way forward for 24 bit enthusiasts. From what I've heard recently comparing flac and AAC there is no comparison - Flac wins hands down. I just hope that Apple's market dominance with an inferior product doesnt lose the battle but win the war.

Did you mean ALAC?

Just to be clear, AAC is lossy. ALAC is lossless and it's ALAC we're talking about here.

I would expect AAC to loose out to FLAC (and indeed ALAC).

[andy.mackintosh]

Yep - you're right .. apologies too many acronyms / TLA's..... ALAC ( .mp4 ) is what I was referring to

[oliverh Linn Staff]

(2011-11-18 11:56)Keltik Klown Wrote:  I'm surprised no-one has commented on Linn Records starting to make hi-res downloads available in ALAC in addition to FLAC etc. Or am I the only one that's noticed

Yes, Linn Records are now offering the new Digital Music Collections in either FLAC or ALAC:

http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-digital-...-2011.aspx

[mcgillroy]

(2011-11-18 12:40)oliverh Wrote:  Yes, Linn Records are now offering the new Digital Music Collections in either FLAC or ALAC:

http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-digital-...-2011.aspx

great move! I wonder how the download stats of flac versus alac look like! given the much greater proliferation of itunes and the fact that ipod's and iphones play alac one should suspect that alac sells much better...

[MG537]

(2011-11-25 16:39)mcgillroy Wrote:  great move! I wonder how the download stats of flac versus alac look like! given the much greater proliferation of itunes and the fact that ipod's and iphones play alac one should suspect that alac sells much better...

I don't know about you but my 32 GB iPhone has 23GB of music on it. All in AAC format. When I buy music I make sure it's in a lossless format, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, I don't care.

I keep a lossy iTunes library to sync with any iDevice I choose and another lossless one on the NAS, for my home listening. I figure that in a noisy bus or a noisy car on the highway, high quality ALAC won't matter. Besides, I'm limited by the capacity of my iDevice.

My only question about iTunes is this. If I do buy, say from Linn Records a high quality 24bit 96kHz album, will it be downgraded to 16bit 44.1kHz once imported into an iTunes library. For argument's sake let's say I buy it in ALAC format, if it exists. If no one knows the answer, I'll try it and let all of you know .

[hcl]

(2011-11-16 23:54)popko Wrote:  I think Apple may see that the iTunes program becomes obsolete. iTunes itself has no revenue stream, but its successor iCloud does. That's where the media is to be stored, both from your home collection uploads as well as online purchases. Streaming directly from iCloud to your media renderer (phone, appletv, or Linn?) is the most logical next step I would bet.

Apple will earn with every content purchase as well as payments for the iCloud storage:

5GB is free
15GB is $20/year
25GB is $40/year
55GB is $100/year

For lossless audio libraries, 5GB is nothing we all know. Opening up ALAC is creating a need for more iCloud storage space thus revenue. And 24bit would even more increase our storage needs. So yes, that's likely the case, but this is just about more ARPU.

This makes for an interesting opportunity to charge mega-bucks for virtually no storage requirement e.g. Say you buy a lossless album at 1GB+ each. The albums are stored in "the Cloud" and when you want to listen you have them streamed to you. For this service you pay for the album and a continuous fee for the storage required to store the album - which the service provider (Apple) will claim they have "in the Cloud", but rather only a reference (to the iTunes server) that you have purchased the album, in what format and where to get it, when you like to listen to it.