One Month Later: No iTunes LP Open Specs, No Indies

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Since its introduction in September, Apple’s multimedia iTunes LP format has been the subject of constant speculation and teeth-gnashing. I took quite a lot of criticism a month ago, much of it well-deserved, for repeating a Gizmodo-reported rumor that Apple was restricting the format to a handful of titles from major labels only and charging high production fees that further marginalized Indies.

Apple denied all of this strenuously, and exactly four weeks ago pledged to release Open Specs for iTunes LP “soon,” as well as many more iTunes LP titles arriving in the store imminently, including Indies.

All I can say is, it ain’t true yet. Apple has not released the promised Open Specs, and only four additional iTunes LP titles have shown up in the iTunes Store, plus two that you can pre-order. They’re all from major labels, needless to say. For those keeping count, Apple has 19 iTunes LP titles, of which 17 are on sale today.

I’m not saying Apple won’t fulfill its promises here — I can’t wait until they do, in fact — but rather that they haven’t. The sooner Apple allows all of its record label partners to create iTunes LPs and offer a huge diversity of titles, the sooner it will have a chance of catching on. Until then, it’s just a cool tech demo for fans of Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson.

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Do you think Apple will crack 20 titles in the iTunes by the end of the month?

6 comments »

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Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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Tom
Bare in mind that a tablet release might be in order before it gets any steam up. Hopefully it won’t be like the music lessons available from Apple which was a great concept but not pushed.
http://www.szilveszter.ca WS
You can always tell when Apple does something they really didn’t want to do. I suspect LPs were solely to appease the squabbling record labels who sell children’s tears to Nazi sympathizers for a profit.
They just don’t seem to have any interest in this really, really lame tactic to get you to buy albums. And who would blame them? I mean, really. Are we still at that stage in the game? Can you not fill our iPods with just the songs we want in peace?
d.lete
quite whining Pete
Aaron
Oh No! A whole month and nothing!! Stop whining! If they rush this then you’ll bitch there are all these problems so pick your position! Apple takes their time and gets it right the first time. They will release the specs and the indies. In due time. I do think however there will be close 100 by the end of this year. Just give it time.
Lucas
OMG. 4 weeks and you are whining. suck it up. if you wanna be a whiney baby why don’t you talk about why the iphone still can’t tether. at least that has been on the table for more than a month.
Apple didn’t give a deadline. and for all you know, they have given out the specs but no one has anything ready. unless you want us to believe you have friends at every label in the country and they told you personally that they don’t have them. perhaps you could list names for us so we can verify that your friends are in a position to know what they are talking about. didn’t think so.
delusion
Oh my God, this queer again…