Top Five Ways Apple Is Killing Off The CD
Slowly but surely Apple is killing off the CD. The hands of its greatest enemy and ally, depending on who you ask, are murdering the lifeblood of the record industry. It may not happen today, tomorrow, or a year from now. However, if Apple has anything to say about it, this will happen. The CD will die. Apple's assault on the plastic disc started subtly, they invented the iPod. As of late, their actions speak louder than words.
More On How Apple Is Killing The CD Below:
- iPod:
Ah yes, the awesome iPod, how much do you hate my CD collection? So much so that I have not seen it since I started storing it in the backseat of my car. It used to long for the drives when I would gleefully flip through its four disc pages and gently insert one of its shiny Frisbees into my player. - iTunes:
You bastards do not sell CDs, do you? Had iTunes only sold physical discs, the record industry could go back to pretending that the uncoupling of albums would never happen. Do you know how many years it took us to write the licensing deals and price out singles? We sell albums you prick. - MacBook Air:
Look at me, I am too cool for a CD player. It adds weight. If those hipsters want to gain some muscle they should carry around a laptop with a CD player in it. That is what men do. Now instead of using CDs like men, all those girls are going to reinstall OS X on their computers with USB-sticks. - iTunes Icon:
Your blue Smurf looking thing of a logo is screwing with the coolness of my applications tray. The old logo had a CD in it and may have needed an update. At least it did not look like a five year old designed it in Paint. Come on, bring the CD back or I am switching to Sharepod or Winamp. - Mac App Store:
Apple plans to sell programs through an online app store. Maybe I liked driving to the store, overpaying, and going home to install my software using a CD. It had a process. Kids will take software for granted. Once they can get it instantly, they will no longer appreciate the time us older folks took to install programs with our CDs. I will manually install software.
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Photo via TechCrunch
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Isn’t this the same lament from every technological generation?
I, for one, do not remotely miss:
Cassettes
Vinyl (well, maybe the covers)
Recording on reel to reel
Film for cameras
Flash bulbs for cameras
Sony Walkman
9 lb. laptops
Rolling Stone’s opinion on any music
Just a few off the top of my head.
I’m also not offended by the new iTunes logo. ITS A LOGO!
I really don’t give a damn what media music or software comes on, shouldn’t WHATS ON the media be what’s important? If I can get it instantly and start using instantly, I don’t see how that can be negative.
The CD is dying because it’s an outdated technology that offers nothing unique. It’s simply one specific way of holding a 16 bit digital recording. Something that can be achieved using a hard drive, a flash drive, an iPod or even a smartphone. Point being that no one, including Apple is killing the CD. It’s simply run it’s course and we’ve moved on to the next form. The more important question here is whether or not Apple, or more aptly new digital music technology, is killing the album format?
Apple doesn’t care about music.
I won’t buy a computer unless it has an optical drive, PERIOD. This is not like the floppy disk or even the cassette. The CD and mp3 are interchangeable formats. I like both, and have no plans to abandon it. There are also a lot of people who use DVDs and Blu Rays. For convenience and portability sake, some computers/netbooks, etc. do not have optical drives. But everyone has a computer that does have one, because sometimes you need it. I just don’t see the CD dying anytime soon, although for the music industry, its death would be a godsend. Everyone knows the #1 copying mechanism is not internet file sharing. It’s the CD changing hands and computers. The music industry’s magic disks were what caused copying in the first place.
I am so sick of the “this killing that” comparisons. There’s room for it all. Vinyl is still alive, and sold at a premium for those audiophiles that want it.
There are some genres of music that sell better on CD – because the audience typically doesn’t have those fancy iPods. CD’s aren’t going away anytime soon, just like the vinyl hasn’t completely disappeared.
I personally like the convenience of digital music, but please people, lets focus on something important like artist rights, or what needs to happen to make the industry profitable.
“I personally like the convenience of digital music, but please people, lets focus on something important like artist rights, or what needs to happen to make the industry profitable”
Yeap I agree 100%, however the CD is dying, and wil die, when was the last time you bought a tape, or a minidisc. Or a betamax for that matter, old technology must go in other to make way for new better technology, thats just the way it is. Sorry to bust your bubble. And Vinyl sales are not anyware near or even remotely close to mp3 or even CD’s for that matter.
Ya know, you could still buy a perfectly nice, and quite small, external optical drive and plug it into one of the MB Air’s 2 USB ports.
Just sayin’
And we do have a small stack of vinyl floatin’ around this place.
No they aren’t because they are a premium product, and not every release is done on vinyl – it’s something special.
My point about vinyl, and I think it’s also true for CD’s, is that while they may not be the biggest seller, and CD’s may not be part of every release, I do think they will around for at least another decade, probably longer as “specials”.
shhh, the mac fanboys might hear you!
the CD is dying because consumers abandoned the format in favor of the illegally free alternative of P2P mp3… seriously…
Apple tries, but they won’t make it. How about selling their albums in full CD quality (e.g. ripped music) as *.iso files with printable booklets as artwork? That would be able to put a dent into amazon’s on-demand CD-R program.