Internet and iPhones
What is next? How will the internet and devices like iPhones and Google Phones shape the music industry? The music industry has been reeling from technological changes that have resulted in a recent double-digit decrease in sales. The question now is how the industry will fare with devices like iPhones and Google phones. Will the industry be able to recover lost ground? Industry insiders offer varying opinions. What everyone does agree upon is that adaptation will be absolutely critical. Some say that the key will be how much flexibility the major players in the music industry are willing to demonstrate as they adjust to new devices and methods. One example of this will be in the area of what iPhones, Google phones and whatever succeeds them can offer in the way of portable music and how the music industry reacts to that. Trends over the past decade indicate that consumers place a greater value on music that is portable via phone rather that music that is streamed to the desktop computer at home. Interconnected with the portability issue is the whole situation with music streaming. If capabilities or regulations regarding streaming change, portability issues may also change.
In addition to the portability issue there is the question of how popular (and profitable) the music applications sector may be. At this point, music apps are gaining in popularity. ITunes alone offers over 100,000 apps, some of which are music programs. Some programs actually help people compose their own music, even if they are not specially trained or even particularly musical. The benefit of this to composers or music teachers trying to demonstrate the music-writing process are immense. Other apps make the iPhone sound like a guitar, keyboard, flute or any of several other musical instruments. A few music apps generate tones, bells or whistles. In case you have forgotten, the theremin is that instrument you play by waving your hands at it, rather than actually touching it. The really interesting part of this is that to get the theremin sound, you wave your hands at your iPhone. The significance of this for the music industry will be how many customers will be willing to pay for music apps and whether the industry will be able to adjust quickly to other opportunities that emerge with successive generations of iPhones, Google phones and streaming capabilities. Another unknown in the equation is what role pricing will play, and whether consumers will be extremely cost-conscious.
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