Following the introduction of the new 'Decade of iTunes' milestone feature that debuted yesterday to celebrate iTunes' 10th anniversary, Apple has sent out a hard copy of the timeline to journalists, reports CNET.
The paper version of the timeline comes with a gift card that features 100 free handpicked iTunes songs, along with a personal thank you note from senior VP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue.
When Apple introduced the iTunes Store on April 28, 2003, we thought if consumers had a great, legal way to download music they would embrace it – did they ever. Apple was floored, as were the labels, when customers bought over 1 million songs during the first week. And now, 10 years later, we continue to be amazed by how much customers love the iTunes Store, with more than 25 billion songs sold.
Apple loves music and strives to provide customers with the most innovative features and services on iTunes. We are all very proud of having such an incredible selection of legendary musicians on the iTunes Store and take great pride in exposing music fans to new and emerging artists.
We've put together a compilation of 100 songs that represents milestones throughout the history of iTunes and shows just how far we've come. I'd like to thank our customers, label partners, and artists for being part of such an incredible decade.
–Eddy Cue
Apple's digital 10th anniversary iTunes celebration features a timeline of events that covers the ten-year history of the iTunes Store, beginning in 2003, plus a list of the top-selling songs for each year of the decade.
Top Rated Comments
Please don't say that Apple isn't good to us. Like I said, they give us free singles every week. They also had the free song of the day in 2004 when the new version of iTunes launched. They partner with so many magazines and companies to give out free playlists and songs too. And the best thing about it is that it isn't even some horrible indie stuff like most places give out. They're actually from pretty mainstream acts.
The whole point of giving these away to the press was to promote the success of digital music and iTunes. Sure, it was a pretty expensive freebie that was probably worth $200 a piece, but again, if you have been a iTunes user for as long as its existed, you've probably bought most of what was included. Heck, some of the stuff was given out for free in that 2004 promotion too.
If you're telling people to support indies, shouldn't you be telling people to buy from iTunes instead of boycotting them? After all, Spotify pay out almost nothing to indie artists.