Okay Geek Farm
Why today's iTunes Beatles announcement is important
Brandon Davenport
Today’s announcement of the Beatles coming to iTunes took over the Apple homepage, and the iTunes store. It’s all over the headlines, and Apple is treating it like a flagship product release — even though it’s just some new music. It may seem dumb that the Beatles are coming to iTunes, even though you already have every song on CD, ripped to your iPod and this seems like a money grab — but it’s not. It’s just a little something for Apple on a more personal level, and they’re not planning to make a bunch of money.
Steve Jobs has always been a huge fan of the Beatles, and was even quoted saying “My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other.” and the Beatles were also the majority of inspiration for Apple’s musical indevours — namely iTunes.
You could probably say that if there we’re no Beatles, there would be no iTunes and if there was no iTunes, there would be a lot of things missing from Apple, and they may have even gone bankrupt — being that iPods have been their biggest revenue stream. Steve Jobs sees the Beatles as his hero’s, and for once in 34 years, Apple decided to do something for themselves, personally.
It’s like your parents — they buy you clothes, they drive you everywhere and pay your texting bills — but when they decide to head off to “re-live the glory days” and see a Beatles concert (and drag you along), you throw a fit because you we’re hoping you’d see Lady Gaga instead.
It’s the same in this case. Apple is excited — since 2003 they have wanted to have the Beatles on iTunes and now they finally got their prize, 7 years later — and I see no reason not to have a bit of fun with it. We all want iOS 4.2 for the iPad, and that’s coming (people seem to think developers and engineers make music deals instead of making software) so for now, lets enjoy the pretty artwork on Apples homepage, and chill out to some free live concerts with mom and dad.
