i tunes case study (done)

ITunes case studyITunes is a computer program designed by apple. It allows for the downloading of songs, films, games and applications (apps). It was

introduced in 2001 for Macs and 2003 for windows operating systems. The biggest feature of iTunes is its ability to download music, allowing

consumers to acquire songs that they want, without ever having to leave there computer. It made the consumption of music a great deal

easier and more convenient.

How iTunes changed the music industry

• One of the biggest things that apple managed to do with iTunes is to prevent the need to by music in bundle (eg albums). They managed this by allowing the purchase of individual tracks. So if a consumer only wanted to own one song that was on an album, they could get it off of iTunes for 99p, as opposed to having to by the whole 10 pounds album. This gave consumers a far greater degree of choice, letting them pick and choose tracks they liked off of multiple albums, without having to by tracks that they didn’t.


• The most obvious advantage of buying music off of iTunes was the convenience that it had. ITunes is a very user friendly service, which offers clear menu’s and easy to follow instructions. Once the consumer has found a song/album they want, all they need to do is click on it to purchase and download it; all of which would be complete in a matter of seconds. To further augment the convenience of it all, the entire process could be done from the consumer’s computer, without the need to leave the house.


• Related to the point above, iTunes also made storing and carrying music more convenient. Before the introduction of digital storage, 300 CD’s would take up a fair amount of space to store. But with iTunes, all could be contained on a hard drive or laptop. Before iTunes, if somebody wanted to take all their music with them (for a car journey etc) it would be a time, and space consuming effort. But now, taking their music would be as easy as putting it on their iPod and plugging it into their car radio.


• ITunes also had another feature that could aid in sales of songs that people haven’t heard before. Next to each song there is a button which plays a 30 second extract from the song. This allows potential consumers to ‘try before they buy’. While this does limit the amount of impulse buys that people commit, it does allow possible consumers to find what type of music they like, preventing them from getting music they don’t like or want

ITunes currently

• 8 years after the iTunes introduction, it had become the largest seller of music of in the world, both retail and digital. Its effect was so massive it caused many major music stores to go out of business. One of these was tower records, who had to close all of their retail branches. ITunes represents the shift from physical to digital copies of music, and was the biggest change to the industry for many years.

i tunes case study (done)

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