That wasn't stupid. It was cunning. Record labels only signed on because the market looked to be safely relegated to Macs. Little did they know that iTunes would be ported to Windows and FireWire would be supplemented with USB.
"record labels only signed on because the market looked to be safely relegated to Macs. Little did they know that iTunes would be ported to Windows and FireWire would be supplemented with USB".
and he just told you that Record labels signed LATER when the market was no longer relegated to Mac, and USB iPods and iTunes for Windows already existed, i.e the opposite of your original point.
It can be my point because I understood ZeroGravitas to be saying that the record labels did not sign on until after the original iPod was released, which of course is correct.
Your interpretation of his post seems to be that he was claiming that the record labels didn't sign on until after a USB iPod was released, and after iTunes became available for windows. But I have too much respect for ZeroGravitas to think that he was saying something that was not historically accurate.
Wikipedia says that the iTunes store was introduced April 29, 2003, and that the 3rd-generation iPods (the first with USB) were first available on April 28, 2003. Furthermore, iTunes for Windows was announced on October 16, 2003.
So when, in this timeline, do you think labels would have signed contracts allowing Apple to distribute their music? It would be incredible to think that they put pen to paper after the store was introduced, wouldn't it?
Jobs cleverly made his pact with the record labels when iTunes worked only on Macs, which in 2002 had a personal-computing market share in the low single digits. Apple's humble position - before iTunes became compatible with Windows, expanding its potential market share to nearly all PCs - was a virtue. This made iTunes an experiment rather than a destructive paradigm shift. "I don't understand how Apple could ruin the record business in one year on Mac," said Doug Morris, the head of Universal Music, according to Appetite for Self-Destruction, a new book about the record industry's ills by Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper. "Why shouldn't we try this?"
This doesn't substantiate the claim that it was "cunning", i.e. a planned ruse by Apple. I can still remember the disbelief when iTunes was ported to Windows so I'll need some convincing that Steve Jobs was so ahead of the game that he started out by playing possum in order to lull the labels into a false sense of security. Was the lack of Firewire adoption also part of this masterplan+
My bad. I thought TruthElixirX was asking for a source for the bit about the record labels.
You could be right, but honestly I didn't want to take your position for fear of putting Steve on too high of a pedestal - for it would strain credulity for someone to have had his impact on six industries without the application of strategic thinking.
It would be truly god-like to have stumbled into it all via mediocrity.
