HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

You may want to read this introductory post of ours before proceeding.

*iTunes 5*

• refined display
• playlists can be organized into folders—finally!
• new search capabilities; search bar
• Windows users: automatically synchronize contact and calendar information for Outlook or Outlook Express
• “Smart Shuffle” because “we’ve got a lot of people saying our shuffle is not random” (laughing); use a slider, let iTunes now if you want to hear multiple songs from the same artist or album cause
• reviews added to iTunes
• parental controls for iTMS, restricting purchases of music with explicit lyrics (well…)
• download it from here – 33.4MB

*iTMS stats*

• over half a billion songs sold; 8 million songs a day; 2 million songs now in iTMS libary
• just crossed 10 million accounts on iTMS; average account has purchased 60 songs
• “iTunes may be the second largest internet store behind only Amazon”
• 80% market share here in the US; 85% of global music market
• 7 million subscriptions to podcasts; 15,000 podcasts in directory

*iPod stats*

• 22 million sold as of June
• from Apple’s press release (“Over 1,000 Accessories Now Available for iPod”): more than 1,000 accessories made specifically for iPod; more than 700 products bearing the “Made for iPod” logo on the market or in development, assuring customers that an electronic accessory has been designed specifically to connect to iPod and has been certified by the developer to meet Apple performance standards.
• car-talk: they’ve teamed up with Acura, Audi, Honda and Volkswagen to deliver iPod integration with their car stereos for 2006 model lines; there are now 15 car companies around the world offering iPod integration, and more than 5 million cars will ship with iPod support in the US in 2006; that’s over 30% of the cars sold in the States
• from Apple’s related press release (“Apple Teams Up With Acura, Audi, Honda & Volkswagen to Deliver Seamless iPod Experience”): “The Honda and Acura Music Link iPod integrations will be the first to include text-to-speech capabilities or VoiceID, which is used to search for playlists, artist and album names or genre information. Acura and Honda will feature iPod integration in the majority of their lineup beginning later this year. Beginning in November, Audi will feature iPod integration in the A3, A4 and TT models and Volkswagen will offer iPod integration for the majority of their 2006 US lineup.”