Why iTunes won: it was obvious six years ago

Yet another digital music service has ceased to exist today, even as the iTunes Store continues to rake in a progressively larger chunk of overall music sales. Why is it that Apple has been the only substantially successful company in the history of digital music, while most other companies (large and small) who’ve tried have failed miserably? It might be part of the overall trend of Apple designing its products for the least-geeky 99% of the population while all the other consumer tech companies are designing theirs with the geekiest 1% in mind, but that’s another story for another day.

Digging through Beatweek’s earliest archives from early 2004, I came across this fairly arrogant missive I wrote more than six years ago about why iTunes had already won the digital music downloads war, and more specifically, why Microsoft had no real chance:

Microsoft is incapable of writing quality software, so the product will undoubtedly be terrible. Microsoft only succeeds when it can attain a monopoly in given market, and iTunes already has a lock on that. Hewlett-Packard has already inked up an exclusive deal with iTunes. Microsoft will be the only download service that can’t realistically abandon the Windows Media Audio format. The next version of Windows, which would presumably have Microsoft’s service bundled with it, won’t be out for another three years, by which time the game will largely be over.

I say “arrogant” in hindsight because it was more than a little presumptive to claim to know that a company with limitless resources was guaranteed to flop in its efforts. But then again, it was kind of obvious when you look back at it, wasn’t it?

Daniel Merriweather performs on Carson Daly

Those of you who aren’t still standing in line trying to get your iPad 3G tonight may be interested to know that soul singer Daniel Merriweather will be performing well past midnight on Last Call with Carson Daly. Merriweather, the twenty-eight year old Australian resident of New York City who at his best manages to channel Otis Redding and is currently best known for his hit single “Red” is a favorite here at Beatweek (we interviewed him earlier this year) and is well worth checking out on television tonight – or employing the Tivo, as the case may be.

Haven’t heard the song “Red” yet? Actually, you probably have: “You took something perfect and painted it red.” Last we checked, the video is on VH1 every few minutes, at least during those hours of the day that the channel actually still plays music videos. In any case, that interview is right here.

Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes tries to crash airplane with his iPod

Just weeks after being traded from the Pittsburgh Steelers to the New York Jets, wide receiver Santonio Holmes was busted (although not arrested) during a recent flight for refusing to turn off his iPod as the plane was getting set to land. After the flight landed safely despite Holmes’ best efforts to crash the plane using the power of his iPod from his seat, police greeted the former Super Bowl MVP at the gates to remind him of the multitudes of airplanes that have crashed because someone forgot to turn off an iPod FAA rules which require behavior while in the air that would make no sense in any other societal situation.

Holmes wasn’t charged for the violation, but he is already facing a suspension for part of the upcoming NFL season for reasons we can’t remember. No word on whether the league will tack on extra games to his suspension due to this latest revelation that he’s a terrorist big fan of music.

iPhone 4GS? Save it for next year

As best I can tell, none of us on staff have made that particular typo anywhere on Beatweek.com, so I have no idea why the search engines have seen fit to begin sending people our way who were looking for something called an iPhone 4GS. Still, I can understand how some confused users who aren’t familiar with the how or the why behind iPhone naming conventions could mistakenly think that it might be the name of the next model: there was an iPhone 3G, then an iPhone 3GS, so why not an iPhone 4GS next? Well, that requires some explaining.

The iPhone 3G was actually the second generation iPhone model; its name derived from its adoption of the “3G” cellular data network. With the third generation iPhone, Apple was stuck in something of a bind as far as names and ended up with “iPhone 3GS” as a way of signifying that it was still a 3G device, still the same physical design, and yet featured various hardware upgrades (as Apple put it, the “S” stood for “speed”). Now with the next iPhone set to presumably roll out in June 2010, the nomenclature actually is in question, as “iPhone 4G” would signify the fact that it will be the fourth generation iPhone, but would also incorrectly imply that the device will use the 4G network, which doesn’t exist yet (despite Sprint’s claims to the contrary). But while we don’t yet know whether the next iPhone will be called “iPhone 4G” as Apple hasn’t yet officially even admitted that a new iPhone is coming, it’s reasonably safe to assume that the next model won’t be called iPhone 4GS. However, it is possible that the company could find suit to use such a name in 2011 when it rolls out the next iPhone after that.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I primarily created this page because if web searchers are going to land on this site after searching for “iPhone 4GS” then I’d rather they land on this page, where they can get an explanation as to what the iPhone’s various model names really mean, as opposed to some other random page on the site. As for the rest of you, perhaps you found it enlightening as well. At the very least you might get a kick out of the fact that so many people are out there hunting around for information on the new iPhone 4GS.

Microsoft backs up Apple on Flash

A day after Steve Jobs finally iterated the self-evident reasons for Flash not being allowed on the iPhone and iPad platforms, the Apple CEO received support from a seemingly unlikely source. Microsoft, who generally agrees with Apple about nothing on the software front beyond the fact that MS Office for Mac is a benefit for both companies, has backed up Jobs almost verbatim in declaring that Microsoft too sees HTML5 as the future and that Flash is an outdated, insecure, unreliable battery hogging relic of a bygone era. In fact, the two companies are talking about Flash in such a similar manner that one has to wonder if perhaps the two technology giants are in fact coordinating their message.

So while Apple continues to tout its iPad, iPhone, Mac, iTunes, and Safari products, while Microsoft keeps pushing its Windows, Internet Explorer, Zune, and Courier tablet (eh, nevermind on that last one), the two companies can seemingly at least agree that if Farmville wants to remain on any computing devices of the future, it’ll have to give up the ghost of Flash before too much longer.

Bret Michaels says he’ll be performing next month

Good news to report on the Bret Michaels front, as the Poison lead singer has apparently told one of his hospital guests that he intends to return to the stage by next month. While the claim could be overzealous on Bret’s part, just the fact that he’s turned his attention back to his singing career, is an encouraging sign. Before being struck with a brain hemorrhage, which has had him in the hospital since last week, he had been gearing up for the release a new album with the Bret Michaels Band.

Siobhan Magnus early exit shows it’s really South and Midwest Idol

She wasn’t going to win anyway. But the early exit of Siobhan Magnus, which came three episodes before it probably should have, only serves to drive home a point that we finally learned last season after being teased about it for most of the past decade when it comes to American Idol: “America” isn’t voting. Just ask yourself why every single winner the show has ever produced has come from the nation’s south or midwest or southwest; not a single winner has ever emerged from a place like California or New York or New England.

It’s not the show’s fault, as they hold tryouts all over the nation prior to each season. And it’s not the fault of potential contestants from those regions, as the rise of SoCal-based contestants like Adam Lambert and Katharine McPhee in past seasons has demonstrated that talented individuals from places like Los Angeles have been willing to give it a go on the show. But whether it’s a matter of hometown pride in regions of the country where most people living in a given State were also born there, or whether it be the comparative lack of television watching that takes place in bustling big cities, the lack of votes being cast in places like LA and New York not only holds back contestants who are from those cities, it inhibits the rise of contestants who play well in those cities. You want to know why Adam Lambert lost last year? Because small towners considered him to be so weird that he scared the crap out of them. And while Siobhan Magnus may be no Adam Lambert (although surely her fans will disagree), the fact that the Boston native was by far the most oddly eccentric of the top contestants almost surely caused American Idol’s voters, most of whom are in conservative small towns, to send her packing sooner than her potential as a pop star might have suggested.

Looking at the top five we can see that this season’s winner of American Idol will come from Illinois, Ohio, small town Pennsylvania, Florida or Texas. Sound familiar? It’s not the fault of the people in America’s south and midwest, who do most of the voting; they’re just voting their honest preferences. But in hindsight, is it really any surprise that Siobhan Magnus, whose musical stylings were the least likely to play well in America’s small towns of any of the top contestants, was sent packing when she was?

Philadelphia Eagles pay Kevin Kolb like he’s Donovan McNabb

If the Eagles are going to bet the next few years of their franchise on young quarterback Kevin Kolb then they might as well pay him like he’s going to succeed, or so the thinking apparently goes in Philadelphia. After trading away veteran quarterback Donovan McNabb to the division rival Washington Redskins, the Eagles have put all their chips down on Kolb, at least in the short term, and now they’ve extended his contract by an extra year as well – with a big payday. The move seems primarily aimed at boosting Kolb’s confidence (o perhaps demonstrating their faith in Kolb to the rest of the team), as under league rules the team can simply dump the player without having to pay him if he turns out to be a flop between now and then.

Kevin Kolb may well turn out to be a top tier quarterback in the NFL, but the problem for the Eagles is that the odds are against their strategy; for the move to work out in their favor, Kolb has to succeed in his role as starter (statistically speaking, about 50-50 proposition for a second round pick who has thus far had a few good games), and Donovan McNabb has to crash and burn in Washington. While McNabb has increasingly succumbed to injury problems in the past few years, it seems likely that he’ll be able to rally his new troops to beat the Eagles in at least one of the two games they’re scheduled to play against each other.

Kolb is in a similar situation to Chad Henne in Miami; the Dolphins are set to turn the reins over to their own second round quarterback this season as he officially displaces veteran quarterback Chad Pennington. While Kolb and Henne probably face about the same odds of succeeding this year, the key difference here is that despite his leadership skills, Pennington is no McNabb – nor will the Dolphins have to face their former quarterback twice a year (actually, the Dolphins have kept Pennington as a veteran backup).

One has to wonder if, instead of drafting Kevin Kolb in 2007, what the Eagles could have accomplished if they’d instead used that second round pick to take a player who could have contributed during the latter years of the McNabb era, a stretch in which the Eagles were perennial contenders and always seemed to be “one player away” from being in a position to win it all.

Eminem name-checks Ben Roethlisberger, hasn’t gone soft

Leave it to Eminem to have an opinion on the current situation with Ben Roethlisberger, in with the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback was accused of raping a woman in a bathroom stall but no charges were filed. The rapper, who has a history of showing no fear of tackling any subject in his lyrics, seemingly the more controversial the better, is rather specific about the situation in his new song entitled Despicable: “I’d rather turn this club into a bar room brawl. Get as rowdy as Roethlisberger in a bathroom stall.”

Apparently the song is just a teaser for Eminem’s upcoming album Recovery, which is due out later this year. While “Despicable” is not slated to be included on the album, it’s currently findable via the internet and, at the very least, demonstrates that the rapper has no intention of going soft. Fair warning: the song isn’t within a million miles of being family friendly, many of you will consider its lyrics to be in bad taste, etc.

Siobhan Magnus on Ellen: “We’d all rather laugh than cry”

Thirty-six hours after her elimination from American Idol, Siobhan Magnus was reunited with Idol judge Ellen Degeneres today on The Ellen Show. In an interview segment, Magnus described how the remaining contestants had dinner with her and her family after the elimination; she decided to take the opportunity to turn the occasion into a roast of her fellow contestants, because “We’d all rather laugh than cry.” Magnus then performed House Of The Rising Sun.

For her part, Ellen reiterated to Siobhan the fact that she had been a fan of hers from the beginning and that she’d been certain (as were many Idol viewers) that Siobhan would make it into the final three. Ellen also commented that her father was shocked at the elimination. The episode is set to air on television today at various syndicated times.

New laptop gloves arrive from STM

RadTech announces four new colors for their form-fitting laptop cover the STM Glove. These covers fit any Apple and most PC laptops to provide individuality to a reliable and durable product. The STM Glove fits most laptops like, well, a glove. It protects your computer from dust, spills, and more. Whether youíre on the go or just stepping away from your notebook for a while, the STM Glove steps up to protect your investment. Choose from orange, blue, red, pink, or original black to match your personality. For $24.95, it comes with a lifetime warranty for true peace of mind.

Katy Perry, Timbaland pair up for unlikely hit song

Katy Perry has proven her ability to craft hit songs with her debut album One Of The Boys, and Timbaland has ably demonstrated his eye for collaborations with various artists on his previous album Shock Value, but still, the teaming up of the two on the latter’s latest release Shock Value II seemed an unlikely match, at least on paper. But as it turns out, the pairing of the two artists has resulted in one of the catchiest pop songs so far in 2009. If We Ever Meet Again, with its climbing vocals and thumping-then-disappearing backbeat, is a genre bender which allows both artists to do what they each do best, resulting in a song ripe for airplay on multiple radio formats (along with endless video airplay on MTV during the few hours a day the channel still plays videos).

Timbaland’s Shock Value II also features collaborations with artists ranging from Justin Timberlake to OneRepublic, while Katy Perry is gearing up for the release of her sophomore album which should come later this year (read Beatweek’s Katy Perry interview right here.

Gwen Stefani signs on with RED to promote AIDS documentary

Gwen Stefani has joined forces with (RED) to lend her voice to the cause of spreading the word about an upcoming HBO film entitled The Lazarus Effect, which documents an inexpensive AIDS treatment which can bring those dying of the disease back to a healthy state within forty days of treatment. Also signed on to help spread the word about the film are Penelope Cruz, Orlando Bloom, Iman, Hugh Jackman, and Don Cheadle. The Lazarus Effect, which will debut on May 24th on HBO, is directed by Lance Bangs and executive produced by Spike Jonze. A trailer for the movie can be viewed here

(RED) is a charitable effort spearheaded by U2′s Bono and others aimed at encouraging corporations to offer special red versions of their existing products with a portion of the sales going to charitable causes.

Gwen Stefani rose to fame as lead singer for No Doubt and has also since launched a successful solo career. She’s married to Gavin Rossdale from Bush, which we mention because we interviewed him at the start of his solo career. Gwen Stefani is expected to release a new album with No Doubt in 2010.

Apple buys Lala, kills it off, teaches geek tech pundits a lesson

When Apple acquired a small streaming music firm called Lala late last year, some tech pundits who’ve believed all along that music rental services are the future (despite mountains of evidence to the contrary) proclaimed that it signaled that Apple was finally ready to junk its massively successful music sales strategy in iTunes, in favor of a rental model that has never worked in history of recorded music. Even Apple publicly stated that it had purchased Lala strictly because it liked the company’s engineering talent and wanted to acquire said engineers, the geek pundits kept at it about how it as all some kind of secret plan to shift iTunes to a music rental model However, to the surprise of no one but those pundits, Apple announced today that it is in fact shutting down the Lala service. The twelve people who were actually using it will each receive an equivalent about of iTunes credit to fulfill the services they had already purchased from the company.

When Apple first acquired Lala last year, this is exactly the scenario we predicted; we won’t say “we told you so” but then again nor are we expecting the geek tech pundits to back down on their continued insistence that music rental is the future despite the fact that the general public has already clearly indicated that music sales are the only business model in the music industry with any potential for mainstream success.

Alice in Chains to tour with Deftones

The newly reunited Alice in Chains is set to tour this fall after releasing their latest latest album Black Gives Way To Blue last fall, and the Seattle alternative rock pioneers will be taking Deftones with them, the latter gearing up for the release of their new album Diamond Eyes next Tuesday. The tour will kick of September 16th in Chicago and wrap up a month later in Las Vegas, with a stop at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in between. The high profile venue represents a triumphant comeback for Alice in Chains, the Seattle foursome who lost original lead singer Layne Staley to heroin addiction several years ago, which scuttled the group at the time. However, the addition of new singer William Duvall (along with increased vocal duties from founding guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell) has put the band back on the map, including a Grammy nomination earlier this year. Also joining Alice in Chains and Deftones on the “BlackDiamondSkye” tour will be Mastodon.

The good news, however, for Alice in Chains fans who don’t want to have wait for the BlackDiamondSkye tour is that they don’t have to; the band is currently in the midst of its own tour which sees it performing in Alabama tonight as part of a string of current tour dates which run through July 18th. Full list of Alice in Chains tour dates is available on the band’s official website.

Bret Michaels is one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People

Bret Michaels is having a terrible week which we can only hope improves for him, but one bit of superficial good news has come his way as he’s been named one of People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” in the publication’s current issue. Michaels, who is still recovering in the hospital ICU from a brain hemorrhage, was chosen for the designation before his current medical issues began, as evidenced by the fact that he was photographed for the honorific issue three days before hemorrhage, according to the singer’s official website. While the title may come as some solace to those who’ve been waiting for more official details to emerge about Michaels’ condition, the next opportunity for good news of substance will come on Tuesday when his doctors are scheduled to hold a press conference about his condition.

In the People issue, Bret Michaels is listed as a “Reality Rocker” and is pictured on the same page as funnyman Russell Brand, olympic star Shaun White, and perhaps not coincidentally, Slash from the band Guns N’ Roses; Michaels’ band Poison had its heyday during the same period of time.

Bret Michaels could return to Celebrity Apprentice

Bret Michaels is still in the hospital ICU following a brain hemorrhage, but at least one neurologist (not connected to Michaels’ treatment) seems to think that the Celebrity Apprentice contestant is far enough out of the woods that it might not be a surprise to see him return to the television reality show in time for its season finale. However, third party reports and prognostications on Michaels’ condition have been all over the map of late, and the folks running his official site have urged fans not to take any reports as gospel; his doctors are scheduled to hold a press conference on Tuesday. Here’s hoping for the best.

Conan O’Brien returns to television this Sunday night

Conan O’Brien won’t get to return to television on a nightly basis until his new late night talk show on TBS launches in November, but the former Tonight Show host – who hasn’t appeared on television in any capacity since being forced out of the show earlier this year less than a year after taking over the reins – will finally surface this Sunday night in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes. The appearance, which seemingly disproves theories that had NBC barring Conan from showing his face on television at all until September, will include the obligatory discussion about his NBC departure as well as the topic of Jay Leno, who effectively forced Conan out by accepting the opportunity to return to the 11:35pm time slot after bombing at 10pm. In the interview, Conan says that if the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t have done what Leno did, “but that’s me, you know.”

TV station lampoons Apple over iPhone 4G controversy

First it was Jon Stewart, and now even a local television news broadcast is getting in on the action when it comes to taking shots at Apple over the fact that an iPhone prototype one of its employees lost in a bar ended with a journalist’s house being raided by police. In the same week in which Stewart called the company “AppHoles” for taking its secrecy measures too far, a local CBS affiliate in Florida indicated that the real iPhone 4G might be introduced on June 4th, while depicting firefighters outside a burning structure in the background. It’s not entirely clear whether the scene was intentional or misplaced, but the imagery was clear nonetheless, as it evoked the notion that Apple’s next step might involve burning down the guy’s house.

Apple continues to receive bad press after apparently reporting the iPhone prototype to police as being “stolen” even after the device’s possessor had publicly identified himself and agreed to return it, which resulted in his house being raided by police and his computers being confiscated as the whole situation improbably escalates to possible felony status. The most bizarre aspect of the fiasco is that if Apple’s history of not fully revealing upcoming products even to those employees working on various aspects of the products is any indication, the “iPhone 4G” in question is unlikely to bear significant resemblance to the real thing. Despite the television station’s suggestion that Apple will announce the iPhone 4G on June 4th, and various publications’ assertions that the introduction will occur between June 7th and June 11th, Apple itself has not yet even acknowledged the iPhone 4G’s existence, let alone announced an introduction date.

Microsoft cancels iPad competitor that never existed

Microsoft has been pushing the idea of tablet computing for far longer than Apple, with the only difference being that Apple is pushing an actual tablet product in the iPad, while Microsoft has largely been pushing tablet products that only ever existed on paper. In a surprising fit of apparent honestly, however, Microsoft has admitted that at least one of its imaginary tablets won’t ever exist. The move comes as a surprise, as it’s not clear why the early success of Apple’s iPad would cause Microsoft to conclude that it would be be served by no longer pretending to be interested in pursuing the market itself.

This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has spent years promoting a new computing concept in theory, only to see Apple later take up the concept with an actual product in hand. In fact the gesture-based touchscreen technology in which the iPad’s interface is based on bears some resemblance to Microsoft’s “surface” technology, which was announced several years ago but to this day doesn’t exist in practice outside of a certain Las Vegas casino. Similarly, Microsoft’s “natal” technology appears to have advanced the idea of full body virtual gaming farther than Nintendo’s wii, and yet natal doesn’t exist outside the occasional demonstration on the Jimmy Fallon show.

While these products were obviously further along than Microsoft’s imaginary tablet computer, one has to wonder if today’s news represents a new leaf for the company, one which might see the company cancel all of its various vaporware products.

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