Apple's Music Turning Point
News Analysis. What if Apple's iTunes and iPod empire had never come to be? In a couple hundred parallel universes, it probably never did. |
This post derives from the next one, about my personal experience with the first iMac. Today is the 10-year anniversary of when the iMac went on sale. I wrote much of the content for this post in the next one, then removed it for separate blogging. Apple's early DVD strategy and related late start into digital music are worth a separate post. So, here it is.
I watched my first DVD movie, "Armageddon," on a PowerBook purchased in February 1999. Back then, Apple was the only major computer company shipping DVD drives across its product lines. Heck, most people didn't even have DVD players in their living rooms, let alone on a laptop.
But Apple's DVD strategy would run aground. By mid-1999, Windows PC makers had caught on to CD-RW drives, for which the original Napster spurred interest. People wanted to trade—record labels would say "steal"—songs online and burn them to CDs. There was also huge interest in "mix tape" collections ripped from purchased CDs.
Apple's DVD misstep is one of those remarkable, unexpected turning points in modern computing history. In August 2000, right after Apple announced new iMacs, I looked over display models at the local CompUSA. I had considered buying an iMac for my mom. But something bugged about the new iMacs. There was something missing. I wandered the store for about a half hour before my intuitive sense clicked into thoughtful realization: None of the new Macs had CD-RW drives.
The next day, I wrote a news story for which I got hundreds of flaming e-mails from Mac fanatics. I asserted that Apple had missed the tune by shipping DVD drives when Windows PC manufacturers had switched to CD-RW. People wanted to burn music on their computers more than watch movies on them.
"Apple, which is often credited for making style and design a factor in PC purchasing, has not been able to effectively capitalize on one of the hottest options for PCs today: the CD-RW drive," I wrote in August 2000. Many of those Mac flamers accused me of not understanding Apple's DVD strategy and the importance of movies. This was typical of the comments from Mac fanatics:
It's funny how 'analysts' and others are trying to knock down everything Apple does out of jealousy by just flat out making up silliness like this. There's a reason the word analyst' contains 'anal.' Many of them are still pissed that the new Apple has proven them wrong many times over, has shaped the market—and then reshaped it with continued success and innovative design.
Oooh, Apple must have missed the boat because the PC industry is putting CD-RW drives in their boxes, rather than DVDs. The proper phrasing is more that the PC industry has had difficulties offering systems with DVD drives because of poor support from Windows 9x, NT, and even 2000, and from incompatibilities between DVD and the popular' video boards that people wanted.
Apple had other ideas. In late 2000, Apple acquired MP3 software SoundJam MP, which would later evolve into iTunes. Apple would announce iTunes 1.0 at Macworld in January 2001, along with new CD-RW-equipped Power Macs. Apple announced iMacs with CD-RW drives the next month at Macworld Tokyo.
DVD-loving Apple was suddenly all about music and burning CDs. The company abandoned its movie-watching strategy for music listening. But Apple was a late starter, and I can't emphasize enough by just how much. Napster was the music-sharing love child in 1999 and 2000. Forty percent of new Windows PCs shipped with CD-RW drives in holiday 2000, according to analysts. Typical trendsetter Apple started about 18 months late.
Apple ran hard to catch up. The company aggressively marketed iTunes and its music-on-a-Mac strategy under tag line, "Rip. Mix. Burn." In October 2001, Apple released the first iPod. I remember meeting some Apple executives in a Washington, D.C., hotel to discuss the new music player. It was simply revolutionary, but Mac only.
But iTunes for Windows would come and the iTunes Music Store. After Apple finally got a music strategy going, it seemed like the company could do no wrong. There has been a long string of right decisions and truly exciting products, although the iPod line is looking tired today.
Apple's later successes eclipsed its early mistakes. Perhaps only a few old farts like me remember that early on Apple chose movies over music, which was a hugely misguided emphasis. Today, most people probably associate Apple with music, because of its success with iPods, iTunes and the iTunes Music store. But it might never have been.
I often wonder how many crucial junctures high-tech companies pass, where the wrong decision is made. We don't know, because we can't see what might have been. But somewhere somebody knows the answer. In another universe.
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