Update: Apple is denying a report that it plans to stop selling downloads within the next few years. “Not true,” Apple rep Tom Neumayr told Re/code Wednesday afternoon without elaborating.
Apple is planning to give iTunes music downloads the boot in as little as two years, according to sources currently working with the company.
With sales already falling, Apple will instead focus its efforts on persuading fans to stream tracks and albums through Apple Music.
When it first opened its doors 13 years ago, the iTunes Store revolutionized digital music downloads. It finally made it easy to instantly obtain tracks and albums legally, then sync them to your iPod, the world’s most popular music player at the time.
But after hitting a peak in 2012, iTunes song sales have been falling. Last year, they dropped 16 percent, according to industry analyst Mark Mulligan — and with the way things are going, they’ll fall another 25 to 30 percent in 2016.
Meanwhile, Apple is trying its hardest to make Apple Music a big success, and so it is already planning to push iTunes music downloads off the ship in favor of streaming.
Sources with “close and active business relationships with Apple” have told Digital Music News that Apple is currently toying with two plans: One will see iTunes aggressively killed off within two years, while the other will see it dwindle down slowly over three to four.
Mulligan says that by the end of this year, Apple Music should have 20 million subscribers. By 2020, it should have enough to generate just as much revenue as the iTunes Store was when it hit its peak four years ago.
But that’s not the only reason why Apple could kill music downloads. The sources say Apple is also concerned that it currently has too many music services, which are creating confusion for customers and leading to all kinds of problems — like supposedly deleting libraries.
It’s thought that when Apple does chop the iTunes Store, it could be staggered. For instance, the U.S. and the U.K., where music streaming is already thriving, could see it go first — while other markets, where streaming isn’t so popular, will have access to it for a little longer.
It seems highly unlikely now that this move is even being discussed within the walls of Cupertino. While iTunes sales may be falling, they’re still generating a significant sum of money every quarter that adds to Apple’s bank balance.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
21 responses to “Apple might pull the plug on iTunes music downloads”
I hope not. I still don’t have faith in the streaming business model. Is anyone really making more money out of it when compared to selling downloads? Spotify has been in the game for years and hasn’t turned a profit, you repeatedly hear from artists who say they get paid very little from streaming. I just don’t see it as a viable option. Wasn’t there some big song last year that got played millions of times and the artist only made several thousand dollars from it? Can’t remember what it was, but I don’t see the upside to it.
I also hate paying for things monthly and refuse to sign up to all these services nowadays that encourage subscriptions. I buy all my music on iTunes because I can then have access to it on all my devices, I don’t want to pay a subscription on a monthly basis to effectively rent my music.
I think they are all hoping that EVENTUALLY they will have enough users to spit out an actual profit. Since Apple doesn’t rely on streaming or selling content as their main source of revenue, it’s more of a convenience to their users rather than being a profit driven business. Spotify and Tidal have to rely solely on their revenues/profits and if they can’t get it together, then they are going to have to sell to someone else or simply shut their doors. I read that Samsung might be buying Tidal, but that hasn’t been officially announced, so I don’t know if it’s actually going to happen, but I’m sure Samsung is looking at possibly purchasing Tidal or Spotify if they could since they will just have something already in place rather than doing it themselves.
I do think that more and more people are going to sign up for streaming services since paying $10 a month is certainly a lot cheaper in the long run than collecting CD’s or digital downloads and then the cost of storage that goes along with it. If you collect music like some people do, streaming is a LOT cheaper. The biggest problem is content that’s available and being Lossless, for those that want Lossless, Tidal is the only one right now. Is there a big enough difference in QoS? For the average person, not that much, but for someone that has really nice stereo gear and an much critical ear can tell the difference in many cases, but it really depends on the recording.
If you paid the subscription for a streaming service, you still have access to the music on all of your devices, the difference is you don’t have to store it on your devices and pay a lot of money for storage that you don’t really need. That’s the benefit for streaming services. You just build play lists and stream, the only problem is you have to have access to the internet and some people don’t always have that when they want to listen to music. I’ve been at various businesses where cell phone or wi fi was unavailable, where I couldn’t listen to a streaming service. The other problem is lack of content, some of us simply can’t get everything through a Streaming service, so we have to have some content stored locally.
I already moved away from Mac because of the hardware price and closed over controlled environment, I abandoned the Iphone for the same reason and the ridiculous programmed obsolescence and now I will close up shop with Itunes if they do that. I WILL NOT pay continuously for music and Apple need to realize that not everyone can afford 200$ per month for unlimited cell data.
– Every single market place study has sad that hardware price all specced out with the same parts is roughly equivalent to Macs.
– Controlled Environment on the iPhone? Sure but jailbreak is easy, and yet apps last longer on iPhones than they do on Android.
– There is no programmed obsolescent, they are building software that takes advantage of the power of new hardware, which also makes it run worse on older systems. Don’t want to run into the problem? Don’t upgrade. The alternative is a horribly fragmented Android ecosystem that is hell for people to develop for.
– And yes if they did this I would be pissed off. I would just start buying CD’s again.
You really need to look at the macbook and compare it to an Asus Zenbook UX303UA … same price … you are going to tell me the specs are the same??? Fanboy needs to do a little research of his own and stop reading the Apple army paid propaganda.
The Macbook is a different type of laptop to the UX303UA. It’s not really a comparable product to begin with. It’s two different classes of laptops. Nice try though.
To address your unlimited cell data? What are you referring to? I don’t understand why you brought it up?
Some of us can stream music from these music services for free, we just have to pay the money for the streaming service, but not the cell carrier. Maybe you look at different carriers to see what they really charge. Heck, you can get unlimited data over a phone for about $80 a month, so what’s this $200 a month all about?
Controlled Environment? It’s not that controlled as you THINK it is. I don’t use my iPhone as my main repository for music, I use a desktop computer for that, some are using a NAS for that, and the smartphone is more of a mobile device to stream to. You can use Spotify, Tidal, or other music apps, you aren’t FORCED to use Apple’s iTunes app, it’s just the one that’s pre loaded, just like Google has their Play Music app.
Programmed obsolescence? That stems from processors first. All computer platforms have a certain degree of obsolescence. Look at what Microsoft is doing with Windows 10, they are FORCING you to use Windows 10 with the next gen Intel processors since they won’t support earlier versions of Windows. that’s far worse than what Apple has ever done. I’ve owned Apple computers that were useful for 7 years, they may not have been able to utilize every feature in the OS, but that’s typical in the computer industry. FYI, Computers were first used in business rather than for home use and it was typical for businesses to replace their computers every 3 years as that’s how long they would really be useful and still run the latest OS and apps. And if you can’t budget your computer purchases around a 3 year lifespan, maybe you need to practice better budgeting. Now, in terms of resale value, Apple holds a much higher resale value when you do decide to replace it, and that negates the price differential when you bought the computer in the first place. Now, right now, Apple hasn’t released their SkyLake Laptops (other than the MacBook), so at this time, they are getting heavily discounted, but that’s through the reseller, so comparing MSRP is a little misleading since you can certainly buy their aging MacBook Airs and Pros at reduced pricing until their replacement models get released.
You will still be able to download the tracks to your device. They aren’t forcing you to use any of your data.
Thanks! I thought so too, but wasn’t sure.
The trick is DRM. The Apple Music stream download’s are DRM encrypted, you can ONLY play it on your apple device. I dont know about you, but I listen to music on my iphone, on my PLEX clients, on my windows PC at work (doesnt have iTunes) all over the place. I cherish my DRM free music, and only bought from Apple once they offered it. If they are going to lock it up again, they will loose my business.
Yeah, very true. I’m so sucked into the Mac ecosystem that’s not an issue for me but definitely a point worth considering.
Sure, Apple hardware is more expensive, but so what. We have 5 Macs and all but one of them are over 6 years old — yet they operate like brand new computers. They have no viruses or malware, they’re snappy and fast, and I never have to worry about them because they just work. I could save a few hundred bucks by buying PCs, but then I’d have to put up with the abortion that is the Windows operating system, viruses, malware, antivirus programs, computers that slow down over time and the overall nasty user environment, which changes drastically with each version release. I’ll pay more for the YEARS of trouble-free use I get out of each Mac.
Nope, I like to buy my music, not stream it. I’m now 64 but I still feel like I’m in my 20s. During all this time I’ve bought my songs on vinyl albums, then on cassettes, then on CDs and finally as downloads from the iTunes Store (those I didn’t already have purchased on CD, which I copied into iTunes). I bought my music because I like the artists, and I have a sufficient quantity to put it on shuffle and listen to it every day when I’m working (works out to 25.6 days of continuous play). Streaming may be fine for millennials and hipsters who have an all-you-can-eat attitude towards music. As an older guy my taste runs to rock and roll and prog from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, and selected artists in the 2000s. Most of the new pop and rock is awful canned formula-based recycled garbage with clap tracks that drive me nuts. Streaming isn’t for me.
Amen!
Why are you saying that they are going to close it down, when they’ve made no announcements? Isn’t that misleading the reader? Are you guys bored and don’t have anything else to write about?
The title says “might” – not that it’s definitely happening. Plus I’m citing another report, which I mention over and over. We’re not claiming anything.
Two reasons I won’t use streaming exclusively:
1. Music can go exclusive. See Prince
2. You can’t listen to everything since the contracts might not be there
I refuse to stream what I can buy. The whole point of getting an iPhone for me was to hear a song I liked in a store, hold up Shazam, link to the song on iTunes and walk away with it downloading in my pocket. With data prices ludicrously high or laughably slow and limited, it’s insulting to think that people will be able to stream all the music they want.
What utter bollocks.
Firstly, none of this is about streaming vs download. It’s about subscription vs purchase. You can download from the Music subscription service and stream from the iTunes store.
Certainly subscription is growing and purchase is in decline, but that is to be expected as the subscription model is new. Apple currently has perhaps 20x as many customers who buy music from iTunes as who subscribe to Apple Music. Where the equilibrium point will be is hard to predict. But it’s far too early to say that subscription is the future.
My personal spend on iTunes averages about about the same as a Music subscription. If I can’t buy the stuff from Apple, I’ll buy it from Amazon. And I’ll still stream it from Apple (iTunes Match).
Its simply not possible to know from outside what the comparative costs and profitabilities of the two services are.
But it’s hard to imagine that Apple has any credible reason to shutter iTunes Store.
I guess I’ll be buying CDs again if they do kill iTunes downloads because I want my music locally, not streamed.
As with all things subscription, I prefer to own the rights to keep my tunes and not to merely rent them. As advantageous the subscription model is to vendors, there will always be a very significant number of users who do not want this. (If Adobe would support both the subscription and permanent license model, I would once again be an Adobe fan. If Apple killed the permanent license model for music, I would immediately look elsewhere to buy my tunes.)
Totally agree. “The Cloud” has become an excuse for pillaging. Apps that I bought a year ago for $40 or whatever, have now become “subscription” services costing $10, 20, 30 a month, with nothing new to show for it.
I bought “Billings” almost ten years ago for $50; now they want $10/month for the basic version that’s “on the cloud”. No thanks.