Situation+Analysis

iTunes has become one of the many choices available to the people to buy and download music and videos online. This particular information technology is developed and owned by Apple to coincide with their digital media player, the iPod. On Jan 9, 2001, iTunes was released to work with Apple’s iPods released on October 23, 2001. Moreover, iTunes did not start as an original idea from Apple since the company needed to outsource to develop the final program. In 2000, “Apple, unable to cut a deal with Audion, had gone to Soundjam instead, and hired Jeffrey Robbins as head developer for a skunkworks project to refashion SoundJam into an Apple application (which mostly meant stripping features out and simplifying the user interface),**”** (Thomas Homby, May 2007). SoundJam, Audion and Windows Media Player has been the competitors in digital media player applications before the release of iTunes. In Particular, Soundjam is the first application that was widely used by Apple for its Mac and third party MP3 players in direct competition with Windows Media Player. After the deal made with Apple, Soundjam has been re-engineered to be more user friendly to follow Apple’s strategy or user friendliness with its products such as the Mac computers. After few years of the release of theiTunes application, Jeffrey Robbins discontinued the Soundjam program to focus on developing iTunes which was favoured more by its users. After a few versions of iTunes, the development team decided that The software would eventually evolve into the subscription Napster Service,”(Thomas Homby, May 2007). iTunes revised its strategy to synchronize with its iPod products and create an online store to be in competition with Napster to sell legalized music to the public. iTunes is an application software which allows its users to synchonize their iPod digital media players, play music and videos, and download various media content online. Apple advertises on its website that “iTunes is a free application for Mac and PC. It plays all your digital music and video. It syncs content to your iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV. And it’s an entertainment superstore that stays open 24/7,” (Apple, 2009). Apple provides a universal access to both Microsoft and Apple operating system platforms to widen their mass appeal. However, the iTunes software does not have any options to synchronize music with any other MP3 players than Apple’s own, the iPod. Operating the iTunes using the current iTunes 8th version allows users to download music, videos, audiobooks, podcasts, movies and recently games to the consumer’s iPod. Media content is purchased or rented through iTunes store. The main requirements on using the software is a computer, internet connection, and any iPod product. Also, Apple uses an e-commerce system. Apple explains that “[ t]he iTunes Store is the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store with a catalog of 8.5 million songs, over 30,000 TV episodes and over 2,500 films including 600 in stunning high definition video,” (Apple, September 9, 2008). Apple allows its users to select a variety of music, videos, and movies to be downloaded legally. The iTunes store has different price ranges depending on the media content. Single songs costs from $0.79 cents to $1.49 depending on quality and release of the song while music artists albums costs $9.99 or more depending on the versions of the album. Full length movies and television shows are also available for purchase or rent and its price varies from $4.99 to $19.99. Apple also offers its customers the ability to create music playlists, and listen to internet radio. As mentioned, Apple continued to use the system after hiring the Soundjam developer, Jefferey Robbins in 2001. Apple released new versions of iTunes to innovate the software with new features such as allowing users to rent videos to creating smart playlists called “Genius Playlist” where it allows its consumers to listen to similar type of songs in your iPod recommended by Apple. Other major features included in iTunes new added features include new visualizers, bug fixes, and the ability to watch a high defintion videos on iTunes with its compatible accessory, the Apple TV (Macworld, Dec, 2008). A logical reason for these changes and added features is to innovate. Apple added new features on each new version of its iTunes while maintaining Apple’s original strategy when they hired Jeffrey Robbins, to create a user-friendly software using simple interface as seen with Apple’s many other media software and applications. It’s users continue to use iTunes since people who purchase iPods are required to use the iTunes application to download and transfer their media library. Also, many organizations rely on iTunes and its e-commerce system to sell its music, videos and movies. Recording companies such as Def Jam Records or Sony BMG use iTunes as another source of profit for its records for sale online. It’s a positive situation for recording companies because using iTunes allows users to download their music legally and the music available are cheaper than the physical copies sold in stores due to reduction of expenses producing physical copies of the albums. This applies to movies as well for movie studios because it allows them to sell movie licenses to be played on iTunes or in iPods which is more affordable for the consumer and the movie studio. iTunes allowed these organizations to sell legal media content that is less expensive for the company and its consumers. **Referen**ces Apple Inc. Apple announces iTunes 8, September 9, 2008  Referenced on Feb 7, 2009 Apple Inc. iTunes: What is iTunes? Last Updated on 2009 Referenced on Feb 7, 2009. Homby, Thomas, The iPod Observer, Temporary Loop: History of iTunes and iPod, May 10, 2007,  Referenced on Feb 6, 2009. Mcnulty, Scott, Breen, Christopher, Frakes, Dan Macworld; Dec 2008, Vol. 25 Issue 12, p96-98, 2p, Referred from University of Toronto’s Scholars Portal  Referenced on Feb 9, 2009
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