Apple has just put out a feature in the iTunes Store, called Rewind, that shows off the best and best-selling music, movies, TV shows, and apps from 2009. This year's edition is crammed full of information and I encourage you to browse through (iTunes link). The results are pretty interesting, although there are no real shockers. iTunes didn't provide download figures; it simply ranked the top-sellers. Here is a quick rundown of what stands out.
Not surprisingly, in the music category, iTunes staff picked Michael Jackson as artist of the year, with Kings of Leon taking home album of the year for their 2009 release, "Only By the Night." The top-selling single of the year was the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow." They also checked in at No. 4 with "I Gotta Feeling," giving them two songs in the top 5.
iTunes' best-selling games of 2009.
The apps category is particularly interesting. The top 5 best-selling games of 2009 are dominated by Electronic Arts. Four out of the five top games are made by EA, including The Sims 3 in the No. 1 spot, followed by Need for Speed Undercover, Madden 10, and Tiger Woods in the Nos. 3, 4, and 5 spots. Gameloft's The Oregon Trail breaks up the EA love fest by sneaking in at No. 2.
As far as other apps go, Navigon's Mobile Navigator grabs the top spot in best-sellers, followed by MLB.com At Bat, Textfree Unlimited, TomTom, Golfshot: Golf GPS, and SlingPlayer Mobile. Unfortunately iTunes doesn't give a combined list, so we don't know what app is really at the top of the pile.
Although the iTunes list is probably not representative of the most popular movies of 2009, due to its limited catalog available for viewing, we'll take a look at it nonetheless. It should be no surprise that punching in at No. 1 for most sales and rentals is "Twilight." Rounding out the top three, we have the stoner comedy/action movie "Pineapple Express" and Bond flick "Quantum of Solace."
iTunes also lists "Up," "Star Trek," "The Hangover," and "Adventureland" as some of the best movies of 2009.
Finally, we have the TV shows category. Yes, iTunes did make some TV episode sales in 2009, despite the existence of alternatives like DVRs, Hulu, and Netflix. The top-selling seasons were "Mad Men" (season 3), "Lost" (season 5), and "24" (season 7). "Family Guy" claims the best-selling episode with "Stew-Roids," followed by "Gossip Girl" with "In the Realm of the Basses," and "Lost" with "Because You Left."
2009 was a good year for content on iTunes. What were some of your favorites in music, movies, TV, and iPhone apps from last year (on iTunes or otherwise)? Let us know in the comments.
This is what Facebook's iPhone app should have looked like when it first launched.
Facebook on Tuesday released version 2.0 of its popular iPhone app (iTunes Store link). This release contains a lot of the functionality that is in the full version of Facebook, making the iPhone version much more attractive. Some key features added include friend requests, notifications, people search, photo tagging/captioning, full News/Mini Feeds, message attachments, and inbox search.
The application, overall, seems to be more snappy and definitely has a better look to it. The inclusion of friend requests and notifications is big here, adding a whole new level of usefulness to the app. People search is also an extremely useful addition to the app, allowing you to find people who aren't already your friends. Additionally, photo tagging is integrated very well and along with captioning, makes the photo uploading part of the app fully functional.
A point of pain and confusion among my friends since Facebook launched their iPhone app has been the lack of message attachments. Messages would not display their attachments, creating miscommunication between those using the iPhone app and those using the browser based version. Thankfully, that issue has been resolved in this update.
This is the version that a lot of people were expecting at launch for Facebook's iPhone app. Many were disappointed by the lack of wall posting (which was quickly added) and other features on day one and this update should do well to satisfy them.
According to the Financial Times, Apple and Fox have reached an agreement to serve up Fox's movies for rental on iTunes. If true, this would mark the first rental deal that Apple has been able to reach with a movie studio. In the past, they have distributed Disney movies online, but only for purchase at a higher price. Rumor has it that Apple has settled on the $2.99 price point for rentals, as opposed to the $9.99 or $14.99 price to own.
The Financial Times further speculates that Apple will make this announcement at Macworld on January 14th. They also report that Apple is also in talks with Sony, Paramount, and Warner Brothers to make their movies available for rental as well.
Apple entering the online movie rental business is big news. I can almost feel Netflix, Amazon Unbox, and Blockbuster shaking from here. Even though their model would be per-movie as opposed to subscription based, you can bet it will still be a success. Apple has effectively crushed the competition in the online music market (which includes several competitors with subscription based models) and they are no doubt looking towards a similar takeover of online movies.
Of course, Apple's giant install base of iPods and iPhones will help their cause here. We may even see a boost in Apple TV sales if their selection of online movie rentals grows. We have yet to see a set top box from Netflix or Blockbuster, but Amazon Unbox struck a deal with TiVo a little while ago to offer up their movie downloads on TiVo DVR's.
Only time will tell how this one is going to turn out, but there are a lot of big players at work here, all with big ideas, so this will be interesting. Is the online video distribution holy grail finally upon us, or does Apple not have what it takes to revolutionize yet another industry?
We have been hearing some grumblings recently from the record labels about iTunes' strong hold on the online music industry. Apparently some of them are complaining about the uniform pricing across all songs and some are unhappy with the use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) on their songs. Well, today we are seeing some of those grumblings take center stage. The New York Times has the scoop that Universal Music Group has decided to not renew their annual contract with Apple to serve up their music on iTunes. Although the article does say that Universal may still offer music on iTunes on a per-artist basis, they won't offer their whole catalog and they can pull out whenever they want since they are no longer under contract.
iTunes is the largest online music retailer.
This is going to be a huge blow to Apple, Universal, and most of all, the consumers. Apple will lose a lot of the business that Universal Music brings in (Universal Music accounts for about a quarter of all music sales). Universal will lose the business that selling their music on iTunes brings. Universal's current estimates are that 15 percent of all of their sales come from online music. Lastly, the consumers will no longer be able to buy Universal's music on iTunes and put it on their iPods. Since the iPod is not compatible with any other online music service, they have nowhere else to turn.
Pulling Universal's entire catalog from iTunes (which I doubt will end up happening) would leave a pretty large void in iTunes' offerings. Universal Music represents artists ranging from Eric Clapton to Nirvana, Hendrix, and Jay-Z. You can check out some of their more notable artists here. This would be really unfortunate for everyone involved. A lot of money would be lost and a lot of music would not be available to those loyal iPod users. Oh and one more thing...one of the bands that launched the iPod and iTunes to new heights with their Vertigo commercial, U2, is also under Universal's label.
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