Itunes App Store UPDATED

The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020[update], iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 TV shows, and 65,000 films. When it opened, it was the only legal digital catalog of music to offer songs from all five major record labels.[1]

The iTunes Store is available on most Apple devices, including the Mac (inside the Music app), the iPhone, the iPad, the iPod touch, and the Apple TV, as well as on Windows (inside iTunes). Video purchases from the iTunes Store are viewable on the Apple TV app on Roku[2] and Amazon Fire TV[3] devices and certain smart televisions. Unlike other Apple media services such as Apple Music or Apple TV+, there is no web-based interface for the iTunes Store with the exception of limited iTunes Preview pages; the desktop application has to be installed to browse the store.

Itunes App Store

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Steve Jobs saw the opportunity to open a digital marketplace for music due to the rising popularity of easily downloadable tracks.[6][7][8][9] In 2002, Jobs made an agreement with the five major record labels to offer their content through iTunes.[10] The iTunes Music Store (later iTunes Store) was introduced by Jobs at a special Apple music event in April 2003.[11][12] Music could be purchased in the iTunes application, and purchases were playable in iTunes or on the iPod. The store was initially available to Mac computers,[13] and was later expanded to Microsoft Windows in October 2003 when iTunes for Windows was launched.[14]

In April 2008, the iTunes Store was the largest music vendor in the United States,[15] and in February 2010, it was the largest music vendor in the world.[16] The iTunes Store's revenues in the first quarter of 2011 totaled nearly US$1.4 billion.[17] By May 28, 2014, the store had sold 35 billion songs worldwide.[18]

In October 2019, with the release of macOS Catalina, iTunes was split into separate Music, TV, and Podcasts apps. Apple's storefront for movies and television shows moved inside the TV app. Any music in users' iTunes library would transfer to the Music app, which would still offer access to the iTunes Store.[23][24]

Following the introduction of the iTunes Store, individual songs were all sold for the same price, though Apple introduced multiple prices in 2007. Music in the store is in the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, which is the MPEG-4-specified successor to MP3. Originally, songs were only available with DRM and were encoded at 128 kbit/s. At the January 2009 Macworld Expo, Apple announced that all iTunes music would be made available without DRM, and encoded at the higher-quality rate of 256 kbit/s. Previously, this model, known as "iTunes Plus", had been available only for music from EMI and some independent labels. Users can sample songs by listening to previews, ninety seconds in length, or thirty seconds for short tracks.

At the Macworld 2008 keynote, Steve Jobs, who was Apple's CEO at the time, announced iTunes movie rentals.[26] Movies are available for rent in the iTunes Store on the same day they are released on DVD,[27] though the iTunes Store also offers for rental some movies that are still in theaters. Movie rentals are only viewable for 24 hours (in the US) or 48 hours (in other countries) after users begin viewing them. The iTunes Store also offers one low-priced movie rental a week: in the United States, this rental costs 99 cents. Movie rentals are still not available in all countries but they are available in many countries including the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India and New Zealand.[28]There is a weekly promotion in which one to three songs are available to download for free to logged-in users. Free downloads are available on Tuesdays, and remain free until the following Tuesday, when the store gets refreshed with new content.[29] Some artists choose to have select songs available for no charge. This is not available at all iTunes Stores. Some iTunes television programs have begun the same technique to encourage brand loyalty, although those stay longer. In fact, the iTunes Store has a "Free TV Episodes" page where free episodes are organized by length, either as "featurettes" (shorter than 15 minutes) or full-length episodes (longer than 15 minutes). Free content can vary from a preview of a show to bonus content to pilot episodes and entire seasons of TV shows (examples of free seasons include HBO's The Weight of the Nation and ABC's Pan-Am). Some networks, such as ABC and NBC, have their own pages of "Free Season Premieres".

While previously the US iTunes Store has offered as many as three free songs each week (the single of the week, Discovery Download, and Cancin de la Semana) in recent years, the store has instead replaced the three aforementioned categories with a unified "Single of the Week" banner, with the week's single being from a new up-and-coming artist.[30] In 2015, Apple discontinued the "Single of the Week" program.[31]

Originally, mobile users had to be connected to a Wi-Fi network in order to enter the store, hence its original name: iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. However, at Macworld 2009, Apple issued a software update which automatically allowed 3G and EDGE users to access the store's full functionality for files smaller than 10 megabytes (MB).[37] The iOS 3.0 update added the ability to download movies, TV shows, audiobooks, iTunes U, and ringtones on mobile devices, in addition to the previously available songs and podcasts. On February 18, 2010, Apple increased the 10 MB 3G download limit to 20 MB. In March 2012, Apple increased the 3G download limit to 50 MB,[38] and, in late 2013, Apple increased the limit to 100 MB when they released the final version of iOS 7 for their new iPhones.[39]

The store began operations after Apple signed deals with five major record companies: EMI, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Bertelsmann Music Group. Songs from more than 2,000 independent labels were added later, the first being from The Orchard on June 24, 2003.

Downloaded songs come with song information (name, artist, album) already filled out, though iTunes provides a free service by Gracenote to do this for songs not purchased from the store, although they must be imported with iTunes. Songs that have an entry in the iTunes Store also come with album artwork (Artwork is embedded in the metadata). Artwork can be obtained for songs not purchased from the store for free if the user has an iTunes Store account. Purchased songs do not come with lyrics, nor does iTunes provide a service for acquiring the missing lyrics. However, several third-party applications exist to locate and automatically add lyrics to the user's music.

Some songs are available from the store by "Album Only", meaning the song can only be acquired through the purchase of the entire album, whereas most songs can be downloaded separately from the album they belong to.

Some albums on the iTunes store are available only as a "Partial Album" meaning that one or more of the songs on an album's CD release are not available on its iTunes equivalent, often due to differing copyright holders between songs.[49]

When entering the US music store, there are multiple sections one can visit. Music is divided into genres (Alternative, Classical, Jazz, Soundtrack, etc.), and there are a number of links to other sections of the store under the Quick Links header. These include Recommended for You, Complete My Album, iTunes LP, as well as thematic sections, such as iTunes Festival sections.

In November 2006, Apple created a category for Latino and Hispanic content, "iTunes Latino". Telemundo and Mun2 made some of their popular programs available for purchase, becoming the first Hispanic television content in the store. It offers music, music videos, audiobooks, podcasts and television shows in Spanish in a single concentrated area. The brief descriptions given to the content are in Spanish as well as several subcategories.[51] Gibraltarian flamenco metal band Breed 77 released an exclusive album called Un Encuentro to coincide with the launch of "iTunes Latino". It features 11 songs, all from previous albums, but all sung in Spanish.

In the first 18 hours, the iTunes store sold about 275,000 tracks,[57][58] and more than 1 million tracks were sold in its first 5 days.[59][58] When released for Windows in October 2003, iTunes was downloaded more than 1 million times in the first 3 days, selling more than 1 million songs in that period.[citation needed] On December 15, 2003, Apple announced that it had sold 25 million songs.[60]

On April 28, 2004, iTunes Music Store marked its first anniversary with 70 million songs sold, clear dominance in the paid online music market and a slight profit.[62] The store also offers hundreds of movie trailers and music videos, in an attempt to boost soundtrack sales. In the conference, Steve Jobs reiterated that a subscription service is still not in the interest of customers and reported that only 5 million of the 100 million songs offered in the Pepsi giveaway campaign were redeemed, which he blamed on technical problems in Pepsi distribution. According to an Apple press release dated August 10, 2004, iTunes Music Store was the first store to have a catalog of more than one million songs.[63] Also, iTunes Music Store at that point maintained a 70 percent market share of legal music downloads.

The emerging monopoly of the store was criticized in 2011 by Mike Lang of Miramax for "effectively strangling the industry". He says that because the music industry has allowed too few content providers, it is now suffering. Lang views the issue as being more of a threat than music piracy.[64]

To buy files through the store, a user must install the proprietary digital media player iTunes to access the store. This software is available only for certain versions of the Macintosh or Windows operating systems. ff782bc1db