1. ITunes case study
ITunes is a computer program designed by apple. It allows for
the downloading of songs, films, games and applications (apps).
It was introduced in 2001 for Macs and 2003 for windows
operating systems. The biggest feature of iTunes is its ability to
download music, allowing consumers to acquire songs that they
want, without ever having to leave there computer. It made the
consumption of music a great deal easier and more convenient.

2. How iTunes changed the music
industry
• One of the biggest things that apple managed to do with iTunes is to
prevent the need to by music in bundle (eg albums). They managed
this by allowing the purchase of individual tracks. So if a consumer
only wanted to own one song that was on an album, they could get it
off of iTunes for 99p, as opposed to having to by the whole 10 pounds
album. This gave consumers a far greater degree of choice, letting
them pick and choose tracks they liked off of multiple albums,
without having to by tracks that they didn’t.

3. How iTunes changed the music
industry
• The most obvious advantage of buying music off of iTunes was the
convenience that it had. ITunes is a very user friendly service,
which offers clear menu’s and easy to follow instructions. Once the
consumer has found a song/album they want, all they need to do
is click on it to purchase and download it; all of which would be
complete in a matter of seconds. To further augment the
convenience of it all, the entire process could be done from the
consumer’s computer, without the need to leave the house.

4. How iTunes changed the music
industry
Related to the point above, iTunes also made storing and carrying
music more convenient. Before the introduction of digital storage,
300 CD’s would take up a fair amount of space to store. But with
iTunes, all could be contained on a hard drive or laptop. Before
iTunes, if somebody wanted to take all their music with them (for a
car journey etc) it would be a time, and space consuming effort. But
now, taking their music would be as easy as putting it on their iPod
and plugging it into their car radio.

5. How iTunes changed the music
industry
ITunes also had another feature that could aid in sales of songs
that people haven’t heard before. Next to each song there is a
button which plays a 30 second extract from the song. This
allows potential consumers to ‘try before they buy’. While this
does limit the amount of impulse buys that people commit, it
does allow possible consumers to find what type of music they
like, preventing them from getting music they don’t like or want

6. ITunes currently
• 8 years after the iTunes introduction, it had become the largest
seller of music of in the world, both retail and digital. Its effect
was so massive it caused many major music stores to go out of
business. One of these was tower records, who had to close all
of their retail branches. ITunes represents the shift from physical
to digital copies of music, and was the biggest change to the
industry for many years.