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No, I don't think you're overthinking it. If anything, you're giving them too much credit. App albums are totally lame IMO. Just like having apps for a small t

No, I don't think you're overthinking it. If anything, you're giving them too much credit. App albums are totally lame IMO. Just like having apps for a small to medium retail/service business are generally lame. It's not worth the effort for most people to find and download this app. Look at Bjork's iPhone app reviews. There are 763 ratings. From what I've read, you can multiply ratings x 30 to get a rough estimate of sales [1]. That would put sales at 22,890 units. At $12.99 that's a net (after Apple's cut) of roughly $208K. Maybe that covers Bjork's cost of developing the app, producing all the additional content, and her additional time needed. Maybe. But I'm skeptical. Even if it was profitable for Bjork or Jay-Z, the problem is smaller artists are going to try and emulate this and it's going to fail miserably for them. [1] http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/27/estimate-sales-downloads-of-ios-itunes-app-store-apps/ http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/27/estimate-sales-downloads-of-i...

Kapura 13y ago
It's also important to note that a lot of artists don't make money buy simply moving units. Honestly, selling 20,000 copies of a non-pop non-rap album is a pretty big deal. I disagree that this wouldn't be a good move for smaller artists, though. A mildly technical assistant could get some simple iOS functionality up for a band; maybe not on the scale of bjork's app, but there should never be a reason to stay out of the mobile market. It's too integrated in modern culture to safely ignore. You want a great million-dollar start-up idea? Be the first company that app-ifies albums.
jarek 13y ago
App albums remind me of the trend in the late 90s to build a lame Win32 .exe wrapper around a website and ship it out on CD-ROMs. It made some sense as a response to slow internet connections, but in retrospect it was an obviously time-limited, user-limiting idea. App albums are similarly just a response to limited standard "interactive experience" capabilities. They'll go away in time. The most use a Mac user could get out of one of these today is opening the HTML files directly in a browser, if the files can be accessed. Same deal with accessing any actual music/images/video/text in an app album on an "unsupported" phone (which, keep in mind, could be a new iPhone or Android a couple years from now).
- drzaiusapelord 13y ago
  My thoughts as well. This is just like the enhanced CD of old. It was a proprietary pain in the ass. Meanwhile, I have mp3s from the 90s that play and sound just fine. Not sure if the Apple or Google stores will even exist in 20 years, but my mp3s will always play. Also, it took them two years to make the android port. That tells me how little invested they are in future proofing this thing. What happens when the next couple of versions of iOS or android break it? I doubt they're going to be there to support it. So this is music as temporary gimmick. I can't say this is a good thing. This app is more like a game Bjork wrote the soundtrack to as opposed to an album with games.
Dewie 13y ago
Yeah, app albums are a devolution. Just another format that will be too much effort to use in 10 years, making you buy the next hot format if you want to listen to the songs that you already bought.

Kapura 13y ago

It's also important to note that a lot of artists don't make money buy simply moving units. Honestly, selling 20,000 copies of a non-pop non-rap album is a pretty big deal. I disagree that this wouldn't be a good move for smaller artists, though. A mildly technical assistant could get some simple iOS functionality up for a band; maybe not on the scale of bjork's app, but there should never be a reason to stay out of the mobile market. It's too integrated in modern culture to safely ignore. You want a great million-dollar start-up idea? Be the first company that app-ifies albums.

jarek 13y ago

App albums remind me of the trend in the late 90s to build a lame Win32 .exe wrapper around a website and ship it out on CD-ROMs. It made some sense as a response to slow internet connections, but in retrospect it was an obviously time-limited, user-limiting idea. App albums are similarly just a response to limited standard "interactive experience" capabilities. They'll go away in time. The most use a Mac user could get out of one of these today is opening the HTML files directly in a browser, if the files can be accessed. Same deal with accessing any actual music/images/video/text in an app album on an "unsupported" phone (which, keep in mind, could be a new iPhone or Android a couple years from now).

drzaiusapelord 13y ago
My thoughts as well. This is just like the enhanced CD of old. It was a proprietary pain in the ass. Meanwhile, I have mp3s from the 90s that play and sound just fine. Not sure if the Apple or Google stores will even exist in 20 years, but my mp3s will always play. Also, it took them two years to make the android port. That tells me how little invested they are in future proofing this thing. What happens when the next couple of versions of iOS or android break it? I doubt they're going to be there to support it. So this is music as temporary gimmick. I can't say this is a good thing. This app is more like a game Bjork wrote the soundtrack to as opposed to an album with games.

Dewie 13y ago

Yeah, app albums are a devolution. Just another format that will be too much effort to use in 10 years, making you buy the next hot format if you want to listen to the songs that you already bought.