O'Grady's PowerPage

Category: iTunes

  • Streaming music rises, CD sales fall and Apple may rebrand Beats into improved streaming music service

    beats-headphones_apple-logo

    This may be behind the reason that Apple acquired Beats and its associated streaming music service last year.

    As of now, revenue from music streaming is now overshadowing CD sales in the US, according to new data published by the Recording Industry Association of America on Thursday, signalling a sea-change in favor of services like Spotify, Pandora, and Beats Music.

    Music streaming revenues from 2014 totaled US$1.87 billion, up 29 percent year-over-year, while CD sales fell 12.7 percent to US$1.85 billion, the RIAA said. The streaming category includes not just standard Internet radio but also Sirius XM, and music video sources such as Vevo and YouTube.

    Downloads held the lion’s share of revenue at US$2.58 billion. That however is a decline of 8.7 percent from 2013, and indeed overall US music revenue dipped 0.5 percent to US$6.97 billion.

    (more…)

  • Rumor: In lieu of upcoming iTuns music streaming service, music labels unlikely to accept prices under $9.99 per month

    itunesredlogo

    This is the cost of a company getting to be a certain size or have a certain influence on its surrounding industries.

    Apparently, Apple is unlikely to offer a free, ad-supported tier for its upcoming streaming music service. It also seemed like Apple was going to try to undercut competitors like Spotify by offering its service for US$7.99 per month. Now, it’s looking like Apple might not be able to use price to catch up to Spotify — a report from Billboard indicates that the record companies are unsurprisingly unhappy with Apple’s attempt to make streaming music even cheaper. As such, it sounds like Apple is no longer pushing that price point and will instead price its service at the now-standard US$9.99 per month.

    (more…)

  • Apple releases iTunes 12.1 update

    itunesredlogo

    It’s not the biggest change in the world, but it’s still worth snagging.

    On Thursday, Apple released version 12.1 of its iTunes media software. The new version, a 216.6 megabyte download, which can be directly download or installed via the Software Update feature in OS X and adds the following fixes and changes:

    – This update introduces a new iTunes widget for Notification Center in OS X 10.10 Yosemite. See what’s playing, skip ahead, and even buy songs while listening to iTunes Radio — right from Notification Center.

    (more…)

  • 35 percent off iTunes gift cards – if you act fast

    Heck, I thought getting 20% off iTunes gift cards was a good deal.

    Turns out 35% off is a lot better.

    Here’s how to get the deal of the year on iTunes gift cards.

    25 percent off iTunes gift cards

    (more…)

  • How to get 20 percent off everything in the App Store (and iTunes too!)

    iTunes $100 gift card multipackGosh, I love this time of year.

    It’s time to be with your family, copious amounts of eating, football and crazy deals on stuff. While everyone’s hunting for that amazing deal on Black Friday (just say no to Thursday shopping though, please) but there’s one deal in particular that I wait for each November: 20 percent off iTunes gift cards.

    It should be obvious, but the benefits to iTunes gift cards are that they can be loaded onto your iTunes account and used for everything from apps, to music, to movies, to TV show, and the list goes on.

    I spend about $500 per year on iTunes/App Store content, and it rarely goes on sale, so I stock up on enough iTunes gift cards to get me through the year each November during the gift card sale.

    How much do you spend annually in iTunes?

    Find out how to get 20 percent off iTunes gift cards after the jump…

    (more…)