Samsung appears to have its eyes on yet another segment of Apple revenue: iTunes. There is no ‘iTunes killer’ out, but the South Korean company today hired a new executive to create “a new presence in media.” Taking on iTunes has become a cottage industry that usually ends with disappointment — but will Samsung be different?
David Eun, the former President of AOL Media and Studio, as well as a former Google executive likely has some scars from previous run-ins with iTunes. Noting Samsung might be late to the party, Eun laid out his plans to go beyond delivering just music to “connect the entire home and lives of consumers.”
Samsung hired Eun as their new Executive Vice President to “lead a new push to create more media offerings,” according to a statement. As a hardware maker, Samsung would like nothing more than to emulate the stickiness of iTunes, which spawned its own ecosphere for Apple. The ability to offer an iTunes like experience for Samsung Galaxy owners could go a long way toward locking in smartphone users, as iTunes owners stay connected to Macs, iPhones and iPads.
Can Samsung grab a measurable amount of iTunes users? Not likely. However, delivering music and video is only a small part of why iTunes is so valuable and a rich target for emulation. For phone makers, such as Samsung and phone software promoters, such as Google, iTunes is the gold standard for ensuring a long line of hardware sales. If Samsung focuses on that goal, rather than the losing proposition of media sales, Eun could have a successful tenure. Unless Samsung dooms it all by using the phrase “iTunes killer.”
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
12 responses to “How Will Samsung Rip Off Apple Next? They Want To Launch Their Own iTunes”
Dude, come on. This is too much even for an apple blog. Every company is trying to differentiate its self with its own set of services. You cannot call this copying itunes.
Copying the iphone design, now that is called ripping off.
I say LET EM DO IT! Also I am all for Google trying to make their own Siri. This will then show Apple the competition is fierce and will push them to improve the iTunes experience and Siri experience greatly.
Even for cult of mac, this is a stretch.
I think Samsung can make their own Music Store like Google, but people are not gonna buy music from Samsung. Android users spend much less on music and apps than iPhone users.
Great journalism equal to that of the NY Times.
Obviously feeling the threat as a fan eh?
Well at least on Apps… Not sure about Music…
Sure, let them. Let’s see how that works out, getting deals comparable to iTunes won’t be easy so competing on the international market will at least take time.
Besides, they wouldn’t really compete with iTunes, iTunes is used by people with iDevices…
And even on Android, why would I use Samsungs store? If I use Googles new music store I get the songs added to their Google Music online storage, same goes for Amazon so don’t know why anyone would bother in the US…
Absolutely preposterous title.
By stealing what other people do. Of course, the legions of fanbois will either claim Apple invented it, that Apple’s is somehow different/better, or just put their fingers in their ears and go “LALALA!” when you point it out.
Check out iOS 5’s “new” notification center as an example.
Samsung will do what they want and the courts will be more than happy to ignore Apples complaints.
It’s not like iTunes was the first online MP3 store. Funny how Apple can grab whatever idea they want from wherever they can get it, but when others do the same they are “ripping off” Apple. Good grief, get a grip.
First of all, Apple ripped off dozens of other companies: the AppStore came from Danger, PIM functionality and desktop syncing from Palm, music syncing from AudioHighway, and iCloud and PC-Free from Google and others. I can’t think of a single significant feature on iPod and iPhone that Apple didn’t rip off from others.
Second, copying iTunes is pointless. The desktop version of iTunes sucks and is totally obsolete. And for music-in-the-cloud, there are tons of options already, including Google and Amazon.