Apple’s application iTunes juggernaut is ten years old

21st January, 2011 by adina
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The iTunes application of Apple is already ten years old, as it was first launched on the 9th of January 2001, nine months ahead of launching the first iPod in October the same year. The application has reached some major milestones while evolving over the past decade. It was first available as a Mac OS 9-dedicated application meant to help organizing digital music collections, but its functionality has expanded later significantly. As a result, it can now support TV shows, movies, podcasts, internet radio, iTunes U, as well as App and book downloads. The iTunes continuous development has significantly contributed to Apple’s success with both the iPod line and the franchises of the iPhone and iPad.

Apple launched the iTunes Music Store in 2003 with 200,000 songs priced at 99 cents each. Similar to the recent launch of Apple’s Mac App Store, one million downloads were registered in the first week. But there were over 25 million song downloads by December 2003 and 500 million downloads by 2005. In October 2005, iTunes expanded by including both TV shows and music videos. After another year, in February, iTunes had already reached one billion songs sold. September 2006 brought the first full-length movie catalog of iTunes.

One year later, Apple brought the iPhone. The tremendous success of the iPhone massively contributed to iTunes’ two billion song downloads, 1.3 million movie downloads and about 50 million TV shows it sold. By that time, the iTunes system was being fueled by more than 140 million iPods. July 2008 saw the addition of Apple’s App store to the iTunes juggernaut. It was about a year and a half after the release of the iPhone. In July 2009, the first anniversary of the App store was celebrated with more than 1.5 million applications sold. 2010 marked the ten billionth song download for iTunes’ ninth anniversary.

When looking back at all those milestones reached during the past decade of existence of iTunes, it becomes obvious that Apple’s astonishing comeback was significantly helped by the genial guidance of its CEO Steve Jobs.

This year 2011, Apple has a market cap in excess of $300 billion and therefore becomes the second most valuable company on the whole planet, behind Exxon Mobil only.

The role of iTunes in all these achievements cannot in any way be minimized. Apple’s application is easy to use and its seamless content transfer, as well as its expansion of entertainment choices, have transformed it into a redoubtable challenge for competitors around the world.


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