Kokopelli Times » apple

How do you like them Apples?

Erik Rostad — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:57:16 +0000

In case you’ve been living in a cave as of late, Apple computers, ipods, iphones, etc have been killing it. Sales have dramatically increased even through this recession.

The latest numbers are now out and Apple is now one of the top 5 companies in the world in terms of market capitalization. Their market cap is now at $202 billion. They are inching up to WalMart whose market cap is $205 billion and are still a bit away from Microsoft who is at $253 billion. (Market Cap = Stock Price x Outstanding Stock Shares)

I am curious to see how Apple’s market cap will compare to WalMart & Microsoft at the end of 2010 after the iPad has been introduced, after Microsoft continues its slide, and after WalMart’s sales remain relatively flat.

Apple Purchases Lala

Erik Rostad — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:51:00 +0000

Apple just purchased lala, which places it in better contention for cloud computing.

See here for the full story – http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/120609lala

Stay tuned,
Erik
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Apple Income: 8 Billion & Counting

Erik Rostad — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Kudos to Apple and its iTunes store that just hit 8 billion song downloads. That’s 8 billion in 6 years. They are now averaging more than 2 billion song sales per year. Apple takes roughly 30% of each song sale. That’s $2.4 billion in sales. Not bad when the rest of the record industry is in shambles and most people are downloading for free.

And that’s not even counting the tv shows, movies, and podcasts that are sold. And the iPhone upgrade allows for the possibility of downloading songs, movies, and tv shows directly to the mobile device. We will continue to see this 8 billion number jump until a viable alternative is created.

Stay tuned,
Erik
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Apple’s App Store

Erik Rostad — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:57:00 +0000

Over 1.5 billion applications (apps) have now been downloaded for the Apple iPhone & iTouch. All that in about a year. And it was just about a month ago when that number was 1 billion apps. The rapid sales of the new 3GS phone have played a large part in this amazing increase. Over 40 million iPhones & iTouches have been sold.

For bands, this means that more and more media content will be viewed on devices such as the iPhone. If your main web presence is your MySpace page, then no one can listen to your music on the iPhone because MySpace’s music player is Flash-based, and the iPhone/iTouch does not support Flash as of now. It does support YouTube. Are you on YouTube? Are you on the sites that stream music through their own apps on the iPhone (Pandora, iMeem, etc)?

Media consumption continues to change rapidly, and bands must be acutely aware of these changes to be sure they make it easy to be discovered.

Stay tuned,
Erik
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Apple App Store

Erik Rostad — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:36:00 +0000

Apple now has more than 50,000 apps available in the app store. All this in well under 2 years. It has come to the point where if I think about something the iPhone should be able to do, I go to the app store and find an app designed for my need. Additionally, most companies I use for finance, news, bills, etc. have their own app where I can keep an up to date eye on my account.

But what does this mean for your band or company? You are unlikely to have an application blow up and sell millions of units. You need a reason for people to use your app. Something to set you apart from the fray.

A great idea that I saw recently was an app designed around a book. An app was released around the book, “The Man’s Book” by Thomas Fink and included a game called “The Urinal Test.” In the game, you come upon a set of urinals and must choose the one where there is the least chance that someone else will be using the urinal next to you. The game was a hit in the app store showing up on the Top 25. The app also has information about the book. But what a great way to promote a book – have a fun and funny game to go with the book information.

Instead of just an app that contains information about your band or company, offer a game or another interesting catch that relates to your brand.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com
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The iPhone App

Erik Rostad — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:24:00 +0000

Apple is about to pass an important mark of having over 1 billion downloads for the iPhone. Apple opened up its Application store last year for developers to write programs that could work on the iPhone. Since that time, Apple has had over 950 million of these applications downloaded. Many of the applications are free, but for the paid ones, Apple takes 30% of all sales.

Here are some interesting points related to iPhone applications:

Pandora is the 3rd-most downloaded free application (streaming radio based upon musical tastes)
Shazam is the fifth (allows you to identify a song by holding the phone near a speaker playing the song)
Overall, weather-related apps are the most popular (39% of users say they access weather-related apps the most)
Facebook said to have been accessed by 25% of users
Only 20% of iPhone users actually use the application regularly after downloading it
93% of iPhone users have downloaded at least one application. the other 7% should not own an iPhone. just kidding.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

iTunes DRM-Free

Erik Rostad — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:45:00 +0000

The number one digital music retailer, Apple’s iTunes, just announced that all songs by the major labels will now come DRM-free. DRM is Digital Rights Management. In the past, this meant that if you purchased a song on iTunes, you could only use it on an Apple device, such as the ipod or iphone. Without DRM, you will be able to use iTunes-purchased music on any device.

Apple is also changing the pay structure for songs on the site. Songs that are from the older catalog will be $0.69 per song, current songs will stay at $0.99, and top hits will be $1.29 per song.

An additional upgrade will be that now the entire iTunes library will be available for digital download on the iPhone via the 3G network. In the past, songs could only be downloaded via Wi-Fi. This will open up better access to purchasing songs, and not just in wi-fi zones.

Whether people go to the iTunes store or download songs for free, Apple knows that they will continue purchasing ipods to do so. Apple is still in a great spot to take advantage of people purchasing from the iTunes store or elsewhere.

In other news, iTunes just crossed the 6 billion songs sold line.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Apple & Microsoft Sales

Erik Rostad — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:44:00 +0000

Both Apple & Microsoft released some sales numbers recently that show some shifts occurring in the music & technology industries. First is Apple’s robust sales of 6.9 million iPhone units in the first quarter of the product’s availability. That is more units sold than the first generation iPhone, and that is just in the first quarter.

The second interesting sales numbers come from Microsoft and relate to the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games for the xbox. Both of these games offer the opportunity to download songs directly into the game. Microsoft announced that they are selling 3.8 million songs a month and have sold a total of 45 million since the inception of these games.

Microsoft continued by saying that the xbox covers 80% of this download market of 4.75 million songs sold per month. So the 45 million total songs downloaded is a far cry from iTunes 5 billion + song downloads, but it is becoming an increasingly important player in the industry.

And the strong sales of the iPhone show how people will continually begin consuming their media, internet content, and entertainment on small-screen mobile devices. It will be important to consider this while designing websites to make sure that all content is compatible and clean on these new devices.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com