Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The moment of truth came to all of us at 10:00 AM EST on the Apple website about the big and unforgettable event happening for iTunes. We were all ready for live streaming, 1080p video downloads, and anything else that Apple could surprise us with. The big moment came with everybody refreshing their pages like there was not going to be a tomorrow and that’s when we all saw it in big bold letters across the screen. “The Beatles. Now On iTunes.”
Now what is strange is that many of us have wanted this for years now and now that it is here, well, we just don’t really see the excitement. We saw this coming to be quite frank. And honestly, we were just expecting something a whole lot more exciting then just The Beatles. Yes, just The Beatles. No Live Streaming services, no 1080p, not even the release of iOS 4.2 for iPad which we were expecting in October. Now, to be fair, The Beatles albums all have bonus content provided by iTunes Extras, you can buy the complete iTunes Box Set (as if you don’t have it already), and you can now get every album they made in one place to complete your collection. But the main problem with this is that the people who would want a full and completed Beatles collection most likely already have a full and completed Beatles collection. It’s not like The Beatles have been lost for several years, missed the age of CD’s and now are suddenly only available on iTunes for the world to be amazed by. The Beatles came to CD’s, we all bought the CD’s, and we ripped them to our computers and listened to them on our iPods for 9 years while we waited for Apple to do something about it.
Don’t get us all wrong Apple. We love the fact that you were able to get The Beatles onto iTunes for downloads by future generations. We really do. It’s just that we wanted something “unforgettable” to happen to iTunes. Kind of the way when you brought the iTunes Store to iTunes in 2003. That was unforgettable and we still are benefitting from that now. Or the App Store in 2008. It was the opening of a whole new market for developers and a whole new market for iPhone users to buy personalized applications specifically for their iPhone. We wanted something unforgettable like that but instead you end up making us all look at your addition of The Beatles music almost the same way we would look at another artists new set of albums. It just isn’t good enough to be called unforgettable. Hopefully you guys can just appreciate what whole new market The Beatles have opened for Apple and hopefully you guys at Apple can appreciate how this is not what we expected to be the unforgettable news. Next time you have something along the lines of this planned, just call it “Hey, You Might Like What We Have To Show You Tomorrow.”
