A decade of iTunes – but has Apple changed music?

Steve Jobs announced the launch of iTunes on April 28 2003, offering a digital catalogue of 200,000 songs.

This year, the site celebrated its 25 billionth download.

The catalogue has grown to include over 35 million songs and an estimated 435 million people have an iTunes account. Users now download more than 15,000 songs every minute and estimates suggest it would take 140,000 years to listen to every single song available.

Is the pope a catholic?? RT @channel4news: iTunes is a decade old tomorrow – do you think it changed music? #c4news

— Ryan (@Major_Boothroyd) April 27, 2013

Gennaro Castaldo of beleaguered high street music giant HMV said the music store and the iPod had played a major part in changing the way people consume music.

He said that Apple had created a “commercially viable model for digital technology in much the same way the gramophone did for recordings some 100 years ago.”

He added: “Demand for physical product also remains surprisingly resilient and there’s even been a mini-resurgence for formats like vinyl as some fans look for a more authentic music experience.”

We thought if consumers had a great, legal way to download music they would embrace it – did they ever. Apple’s Eddy Cue

Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, Eddy Cue, said the company took great pride in bringing new and emerging artists to music fans.

“We thought if consumers had a great, legal way to download music they would embrace it – did they ever. Apple was floored, as were the labels, when customers bought over one million songs during the first week,” he said.

When the service was launched, CDs were still the primary focus for the music industry with illegal download services like Kazaa and Napster posing a huge challenge for record labels.

@channel4news They made ‘buying’ music easy, Piratebay would probably be the worlds biggest music distributor if it wasn’t for Apple.

— Azhar Mirza (@azharuddinmirza) April 28, 2013

Competing with pirates

Speaking during the launch in 2003, Jobs explained that in order to launch the service he had to negotiate with the five big music companies.

He boldly declared: “We don’t know any other company that has these assets under one roof. We know that only Apple could have created this Apple music store.”

Gallery: The evolution of Apple gadgets

Geoff Taylor, CEO of the UK’s music industry body BPI, said iTunes had managed the impossible in persuading fans to pay for music online.

“Its simplicity and its integration with the iPod, and the ease with which you can manage your music library was critical in giving consumers confidence in digital music.

“I think we can credit iTunes with the resurgence of the singles market, which was in the doldrums in the early 2000s but has now hit a record high. Apple deserves a lot of credit for bringing vitality into the digital music market.”

Apple is now planning to expand with an iRadio streaming service expected to take on popular music streaming service, and iTunes rival, Spotify.