Millions of U.S. music fans use iTunes to play and organize the music they've downloaded, ripped and purchased. According to a new study, a significant portion of them wouldn't mind paying for an iTunes subscription that would let them hear anything in its library for a monthly fee -- essentially the same nut Rhapsody and others have been trying to crack for years.
Can Apple succeed where so many others have failed, perhaps by leveraging its Lala acquisition and its strong suite of devices and software that so many already use?
Yes, says the market research firm NPD Group, which determined that between seven and eight million U.S. music fans would pay $10 per month for a cloud-based version of iTunes that would let them listen to, and organize, any of its 11 million-plus songs across their computers, phones and media players.
By means of comparison, Rhapsody, which has been trying to do the same for nearly a decade, and whose comprehensive music subscription also costs $10, has only amassed about a tenth that many subscribers -- about 650,000 and falling, by last count.
Granted, no study is perfect. NPD's surveyed only 3,862 iPod, iPod Touch, iTunes, and iPhone users over the age of 13 to come up with its prediction that 7-8 million Americans want to pay $10 per month for an all-you-can-eat iTunes, which would essentially turn their iPods (or iPod apps) into massive iTunes collections where everything's free to listen to and collect on all connected Apple devices as well as PCs and Macs, so long as they keep paying that $10 monthly fee. Apple's next TV device too, is rumored to be an "iPhone without a screen" that delivers cloud-based media to televisions and stereos, which could add to the allure of such a service.
NPD estimates that 50 million Americans use iTunes, concluding that an even higher number would use a free service that connected them to their own iTunes music collections -- between 13 and 15 million. In that scenario, Apple may not have to pay any licensing fees to record labels, giving it added leverage in negotiating a potential cloud-based music subscription service.
Steve Jobs once said it didn't make sense to rent music, which is likely why Apple never went down this road before. Plus, a cloud-based iTunes would face competition from everything from MySpace to Spotify, including services that run on Apple's own devices. But the connected nature of Apple's electronics ecosystem and the fact that none of these other companies makes iTunes makes it possible for Apple to control such a service from the cloud and a user's desktop, rather than relying on the clumsy local DRM mechanisms that hampered the growth of past subscription services -- and still have everything run smoothly on a number of devices.
All the pieces are in place (hardware, software, and most of the required infrastructure, in Lala) for Jobs to change his tune and start renting music. If he does, and this survey is an accurate indicator, ten times more Americans would pay for it than they would for any other monthly music service.
See Also:
- Apple's Purchase of Lala Could Signal Cheaper, Streaming iTunes
- MSpot Unveils Cloud-Based Music System for Android
- Rhapsody to Apple: 'Get Off of My Cloud'
- Apple Rumor Watch Part Infinity: Cloud-Based iTunes on June 7
- Apple's New Data Center Likely to Focus on Cloud Computing
- Rumor: New $100 Apple TV Takes Aim at the Cloud
Photo: Flickr/Matthew Stewart
