“Free” GarageBand jingles and iTunes FUD

This is a blog, right? And because it is, today I treat it like one by tossing a couple of random thoughts into a can, shaking ‘em up, and spilling them out on the page. Here goes:

More bargain(ish) stuff

If you have a .Mac account, Apple would like to reward you with the .Mac Podcast Pack, a free, “only if you consider giving Apple $99 a year for .Mac free” collection of jingles and voice overs for GarageBand. Each packet—alternative rock, blues, cinematic, country, electronic, jazz, roack and pop, urban, world jingles and a collection of voice overs by Joe Cipriano —can be downloaded separately. [Breaking out the calculator widget.] In total the .Mac Podcast Pack weighs in at 868.7MB. I’ve auditioned them and they’re of the same quality as the jingles found in the regular ol’ GarageBand—meaning that they’re quite good. The voice-overs are professionally done but woe is the podcaster who uses them a month from now—if these things become popular listeners will quickly tire of hearing Mr. Cipriano intone “Now, welcome back to the show.”

Yeah, it’s my fault

The mainstream press grabbed hold of a few scant details from a recent Forrester research report and molded them into a story about how iTunes music sales had plummeted. Granted, statements along these lines didn’t help:

Since iPods went on sale, people are consistently buying about 20 iTunes per iPod. There’s been a small uptick to 23 lately, but that’s it. What’s the explanation? It’s either:

1. People are buying at a low but steady rate, but replace their iPod every few years — which would imply that iPod user market is growing more slowly than it appears, or

2. People buy about 20 songs and then get tired and don’t buy any more.

Or, both are true. Either way, this accounts for a little tarnish on the incredible iTunes success story, with only 20 purchased songs among those thousands of songs in your pocket.

The author, Josh Bernoff, could have made it easier on himself by also posing:

3. Or maybe Chris Breen and others like him have pretty much proven that our “iTunes Tracks Sold divided by iPods Sold = typical purchased iTunes tracks on typical iPod” formula is a little flaky.

I just checked my iTunes library and I’ve purchased 804 music tracks, 81 videos (both music videos and TV shows), three movies, two audio books, and a jillion podcasts. I also own 16 iPods. “Put that into your Excel spreadsheet and smoke it,” say I.

Bernoff did the right thing and, in his blog, tried to calm the waters by restating what the report said versus what some wanted it to say.

He concludes with this:

Finally, a word for Apple…. So maybe it’s time for Apple to share a bit more. When the real bad news hits — and it’s inevitable, no company gets everything right — that openness would pay off.

Let me just glance out the window…. Nope, not a pig on the wing. Guess we’ll have to take hell’s temperature next.