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One Dollar a Song: How the iTunes Store Saved the Music Industry
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The iPod changed how we carry music — but the iTunes Store changed how the world buys it. This episode traces how Steve Jobs built the device, cut the deals, and turned Apple into a cultural force beyond computing.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Before the iPod, the music industry thought it had already solved the problem. You could burn CDs.
To understand what the iPod walked into, you have to understand just how chaotic the digital music landscape was at the start of two thousand and one. Napster had already torn through the music industry like a storm.
Apple moved fast. The iPod went from concept to product in less than a year, which, for a hardware device, is aggressive by any standard.
Jobs unveiled the iPod on October twenty-third, two thousand and one. The world was in an unusual state.
The hardware alone wouldn't have been enough. The iPod needed legal music.
The iPod for Windows, launched in two thousand and two, wasn't a grudging concession. It was a strategic decision with a long view behind it.
The financial transformation was straightforward and dramatic. Before the iPod, Apple was a surviving company.
Apple didn't rest on the original iPod. The product line evolved quickly and deliberately.
By two thousand and six, the iPod faced a new kind of pressure. Mobile phones were getting smarter.
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