iTunes voor PC/Windows groot succes

In vier dagen tijd heeft iTunes voor Windows reeds meer dan een miljoen songs online weten te verkopen, voor $0.99 per stuk. Steve Jobs toonde met de Mac versie van iTunes al aan dat online muziekverkoop werkt, en bevestigt dit hiermee. Zullen de grote platenmaatschappijen eindelijk de stap wagen?

Music fans have bought more than a million songs since the service for Windows users was launched on Thursday. The service lets people legally download songs from the internet for 99 cents (60p), but had previously only been available to Apple computer users.

“We’re off to a great start, and our competition isn’t even out of the starting gates yet,” said Apple boss Steve Jobs.

Competition

Apple has another cause to celebrate. More than a million copies of the Windows version of its iTunes music software have been downloaded in the past three days.

The program offers PC users the same services, prices and catalogue of songs, which Apple hopes to increase to 400,000 by the end of October.

Since the online music store opened its doors for business in April, a total of 14 million songs have been purchased.

Apple’s service is bidding to be the number one legal music download service in the world, as the music industry tries to clamp down on the millions of songs shared without permission online.

Its success contrasts with other industry-backed, subscription-based music services which have been criticised by users as complicated and expensive.

Mr Jobs hopes iTunes will have sold 100 million songs by its first anniversary at the end of April 2004.

The PC version of the service is available to users with Windows XP and 2000 operating systems.

At the moment, both the Macs and Windows versions are only available in the US. International versions of the online store are expected to be launched next year.

(Bron: BBC.co.uk)