los angeles, dead macbook, the end of music
In search of warmer climes (it was 29º when I left Portland) I drove south for exactly 997 miles to spend time in my friends’ Ron and Ellen Stone’s house in Los Angeles, while they drove about the same distance NE to Vail, Colorado in search of skiing and snowboarding. I believe they found it, 30 inches or more. If it wasn’t 70º here I would envy them, I’ll hit Hood when I get back though.
Meanwhile, the Macbook battery has crapped out….if any Mac genius is reading this please tell me how to get the ‘puter to recognize the battery….thanks in advance. In a weird convergence of sorts I had been mulling over the news (which Apple denies) that sales of downloads from the iTunes site are off 65% this year. Apple doesn’t divulge its sales, margins or profits from downloads but it is universally well known that the iTunes software and service helped to drive phenomenal sales of iPods and Mac hardware in general.
Apple has a problem I believe. Remaining on the cutting edge of cool is difficult and I would argue that the sparkle has finally fizzled for Apple and its iTunes service. There’s nothing new and radical coming out of Curpetino these days and merely adding more and more mediocre music every Tuesday to the iTunes service doesn’t cut it any longer.
The question has to be - what are the habits of your average music downloader after a year or two of iTunes use? My answer would be that upper demographics, or boomers, have all filled out their music collections by replacing back catalogue items that they’d either never had or just wanted digitally - they are now done, the collection is complete and they don’t buy much new music. And the younger demo is only buying the occasional new track, never a full album, and even they are drifting back to the free services. Result - the music market continues to shrink and decline as other forms of entertainment (see online gaming) continue to rise. Happy Holidays.
December 22nd, 2006 at 3:50 am
Hi Dave
Is this you getting cynical in your old age? I’ve still got to get the Juicy Lucy and Blodwyn Pig albums on CD yet never mind getting around to downloading them!
Best wishes for the New Year
December 22nd, 2006 at 9:22 am
Frazer,
Not cynical, no, just wondering where it’s all going……..but what about Uriah Heep, don’t forget those downloads….!! And merry christmas to you and yours up there, it’s probably as cold as Portland right?
December 22nd, 2006 at 9:24 am
MacBook update, thanks to Tom for pointing out that resetting the P Ram gets the computer to see the battery again….geek moment over for now.
December 23rd, 2006 at 9:42 pm
secret show was excellent…thanks!
merry xmas
December 23rd, 2006 at 10:22 pm
with regards to your comment on the ipod music sales being down, ipod essentially consolidated the distribution of online music through its proprietary and trendy ipod. Many more people purchased the ipod when it became a multi-platform piece of hardware, that peak lead to an extraordinary couple of years of sales, we are now at a point where demand is down, but its probably a higher level than what it will be. I may have stated the obvious but I am drunk, so who cares. You role the dice in this industry, I cant say this from personal experience per say but look at the numbers and it becomes very evident on how hard it is to turn a song into a buck!…VERY DIFFICULT.. fortunately before the business comes the Art and that’s why we as music listeners are very lucky. Bottom line…if you are a money generating artist(s) you perform your music first and foremost, that’s where the money is at. Selling records or cd or mp3 is just an added bonus. If you are licensable and can place your music in to a revenue generating phenomena like an epic tv show or movie and in the mean time a few video games and the such!…there you go, you did it you money generating rock star, you! YOU MADE A LIVING AS A MUSICIAN!
Whatever you do, dont get yourself to the point of which I linked my name!
January 3rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Dave-as one who lives in a non-ITMS country(Taiwan) and ironically the home country of much Aplle hardware, who gives afuck? I have so much music that is good and vital I could care less about what ITunes i selling or not. Much more interested in the indie bands that you are promoting than the new corporate crapola. Uriah Heap Stealin one of the greateset songs of all time.
Aoole like most corporations and businesses lucked into to something(IPod/ITunes and even podcasting) and spun it for as much cash as they could.
January 4th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Mark, well said….and thanks for the props re the indie music the Moose promotes…the podcasts will continue in 2007!
January 4th, 2007 at 8:59 am
I am in mixed agreement / disagreement with your concerns re: Apple. I bought my first Mac last summer (the white twin to yours), and I got my first iPod (2nd G Nano) for Christmas. The Macbook is going in for repair (the infamous discoloration on the first Intel ones released), and I LOVE the iPod… BUT: Do I -ever- hate the DRM on iTunes-purchased music. That, combined with the fallacy of ease of use and consistency applied to a lot of apple software resulted in a ton of frustration for me last night.
I decided I was going to mess around with making a podcast. After spending more than 90 minutes trying to find what seemed to be a very hidden setting to get the Macbook to use my external mic rig instead of the builtin, and then (unsuccessfully) trying to solve what seemed to be serious latency problems, I had finally recorded the intro to my ‘mellowest songs in the universe’ podcast. I went to drag one of my newly purchased songs from iTunes (Love and Space, by Akron / Family) into GarageBand, and… was helpfully informed (even in ALL CAPS) that I could not do that with protected AAC files. Grrrrrrr. So, if I want to include music I purchased from apple in a podcast using all apple software, I will have to burn a CD and rip the songs to mp3?! Or get some quasi/barely legal software to crack the AACs directly!? And then maintain 2 copies of my collection? For crying out loud!
I gave up after 2 hours, having only recorded a crappy intro for my podcast. Bah. I guess I am done complaining now.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Oh and re: the battery / p-ram reset thing: I had to do that few times, some time ago, but since the last couple of software updates, I have had no recurrences of any of the several types of battery issues I had experienced. Book also runs much cooler than when it was first purchased. I do still occasionally have an issue where the builtin camera powers up at boot and will not turn off without a full shutdown. I assume you’ve been allowing the automated updates on your ‘book?
January 4th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Bryan, yes, always into using the Software Updates although some make things worse. For instance on the iMac there’s an update that purports to fix the sleep light brightness by updating the firmware. I used it and it turned out to be a big no no…long story short it seemed to be responsible for burning out the mother board on my machine. Apple replaced it for free but didn’t seem to know about the bug so on the next update up comes the sleep light fix again, I used it and guess what, yep another burned out mother board……
Battery problem meanwhile was fixed eventually at the genius bar in LA as the P Ram fix diddn’t work out, it only helped the ‘puter recognize the battery, still wouldn’t charge it. Apple gave me a new battery….