Apple's Music Store - The Future of Music

Well, there are still LPs, and look how long vinyl's been dead.

I think, at least as far as pop music is concerned, we're headed back to the 50s, when singles (aka 45s) dominated. Jazz and classical will hold on to the prerecorded disk much longer, both because of the nature of the art and because their audience is older and less computer-centered. At some point, everything will be available for download, and everyone will see that as the normal way to acquire music. At that point, hi-rez disks (and that may include CDs) will become an audiophile fetish, offered at audiophile prices. But that day is still a long way off.

The question touches on a lot of important issues (OS platforms, formats/standards, the role of p2p clients,...) some of which were discussed in a similar thread. If something like Moore's Law applied to bandwidth and storage to a degree comparable to computing power, then we might expect future formats with less compression than ones ubiquitous today, assuming there is/will be widespread consumer demand for greater quality. Even given that (dubious) assumption, the economics of hardware dictate that (relatively) cheap storage/playback devices geared to compressed formats will always be pretty pervasive. All things considered, it does not look like the pressure on the high-end/audiophile market will abate in the forseeable future, especially since formats are in flux and predominantly determined by mass-market players. We have BoD (books-on-demand), FoD ([legal]files-on-demand), Fz-o-D (filez-on-demand[via p2p]). It's a pity we don't have VoD (vinyl-on-demand) - and I don't mean ebay.

(BTW, I thought the G&M was THE cdn nat'l paper.)

I don't that it is quite the "Future of Music", but for many people it is a convenient, guilt-free way of obtaining music online. The ability to purchase a couple of tracks from a disc is a great achievement of this service. That it is being done by Apple is icing on the cake for many.
Myself, I'm not interested. I work in the IT industry and spend plenty of time in front of (and behind) computers. I have no desire to spend any time listening to music on any of my computers.
I have but don't often use the mp3 capability of my handheld computer. Also, I rarely find myself in a place where I want to listen to my mp3 player.
I find that going through the effort of ripping cd's and then burning them to an mp3 player or another cd is just not worth it.
Of course, I also realize that my views do not reflect that of the majority of the target audience of the major record labels.

Dmcewan, I meant to put a question mark after "The Future of Music", to indicate my wondering what the future of music storage/reproduction holds for those of us who look for quality. I have very little interest in burning, ripping, MP3's and so on. I spend most of the working day in front of a PC and try to avoid computers at all cost the rest of the time.

Agonanon, I will have to take the time to read the thread you kindly linked in your post. Thanks. I agree that it's a dubious assumption that there will be widespread demand for high quality digital/on-line music formats. Although Bomarc makes a good point about the long-rumoured demise of LP's.

(G&M was THE national paper in Cda until the National Post was launched a few years ago, although I've personally more or less ignored the existence of the latter)

Maybe it's just me, but I genuinely doubt that Apple's service is the "future" of anything other that a boost to a slowly sinking company.
I was reading a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that discussed Apple's new music service just before it was launched. While Steve Jobs and company have done a good job getting a number of the major music labels to make their recordings available, it might be pointed out that you need a Macintosh computer to access the service.
And Macintosh is a fading computer brand. In the past decade they've slid from something like 9 or 10% of the PC market to somewhere around 3-4%. Unless they make the service available to the Wintel crowd - the service is doomed. I won't even mention Apple's sliding sales in the past two years. Just recently they cut pricing across almost all of their line, because sales were few and far between.
I also fail to see the commercial media industry fading away. How many people on this board actually listen to MP3s on a regular basis? Probably almost noone. And how many people do you know over the age of 40 who actually "rip" their music from the internet?? Again - most likely very few if any. The down load music industry is mostly driven by young people in their teens and early 20s - who will put up with second rate sound quality. Many are too damn cheap to actually buy anything - hardly an audience to try and sell a "legitimate" music service to. Anyone other than Apple's marketing dept. that thinks this service will be the "future" of music should see me about a bridge I would like to sell.