Closing the loop: iTunes music store the reason people will buy iPod shuffle?
It's been suggested by JohnQ (-/206.72.88.132) that the reason people will flock to the iPod shuffle is that it's the only solid state memory player that will support the DRM found in files bought from Apple iTunes Music Store. I would suggest at the moment that it's the iPod driving demand for the store, e.g. consumer lusts after some iPod bling bling, buys iPod and thereafter discovers the joys of iTunes. After all if they want to buy downloaded music (i.e. the type usually encoded with rights management 'protection') they pretty much have no choice but to use iTunes. Now I suppose that the many iPod users who have bought songs from iTunes and want to listen to those songs while they work out at the gym or jog in the park will no choice but to buy the iPod shuffle. But this sounds an awfully familiar and closed-loop system. At every point in the purchasing equation you've got no choice but to go back to the same source.
So how much does closed-loop music ecology will Apple demand? Will they buy Apple Corps out (the original Apple music label, the record company of the Beatles in case you're not familiar) and become a record label? Does this smell like Sony or what? Content, format and players. What lengths will Apple go to in order to prevent its customers from playing back their content on anything but Apple software and portable players?