Startled by the rumors that Apple intends to launch its own streaming television today the rest of the industry is already reacting: Sony intends on launching its own music and video subscription service tonight. According to a report by the Financial Times, Sony’s new service will launch on its PlayStation 3 video game console at [...]

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News from 'The Apple Blog'

Apple’s iTunes now accounts for 28 percent of all music sales within the U.S., according to recently released NPD group data.

This four percent gain since Q1 2009 detail that Apple’s digital store still holds the top spot as the number one music retailer within the U.S. Apple has been in this pole-position for some time now, first passing retail giant Walmart in 2008.

For more information on using iTunes, see our iTunes 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).

The NPD findings added that digital music sales now account for a 40 percent share of all U.S. industry sales, a trend which has benefited online retailer Amazon. Amazon, who benefits from sales of both digital and physical music, has risen to second place in the NPD rankings. The firm now ties with Walmart with each holding 12 percent of sales.

Amazon’s MP3 business has attributed largely to its rise to second place, in addition to scaling down of physical CD sales at stores like Walmart. Analyst Russ Crupnick commented on the sales shift:

Online shopping offers consumers who still want CDs more variety than they would get in a brick-and-mortar store; plus, recommendations, and other interactive features that raise the overall value proposition for music buyers.

The battle for digital music sales is no-doubt bound to heat up over the next few years, as sales tactics get more fierce and the popularity of portable devices, including the likes of the iPad, Kindle, Dell’s upcoming Streak and many more, rise.

Related TechUniversity Screencast: Smart Playlists in iTunes (sub req’d)

News from 'The Apple Blog'

The iPad will be coming out in just a few days. There’s a good chance that shortly thereafter, as soon as 3G versions are available in stores, I will have my hands on Apple’s newest product. One of the principal reasons that I will be purchasing the iPad is to be my e-book reader. I have been an avid reader my entire life, and as something of a technologist as well, I have been waiting for e-books for as long as I can remember.

Amazon, obviously, got the ball really rolling with the Kindle after years of stagnation in the market. Apple is going toe to toe with them with the launch of the iBookstore. So when I have an iPad in hand I’m going to be faced with a choice, use Apple’s iBooks solution, or stick with Amazon’s Kindle platform.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since the iPad was announced, going back and forth on the issue. On the one hand I have already made an investment in Amazon’s e-book ecosystem, having purchased about 30 books to read on the Kindle app on my iPhone. That’s about $300 invested, but even if I switch to Apple’s iBooks app I can always have the Kindle app sitting next to it on my iPad if I want to read one of those titles. The iBookstore, however, offers several benefits over the Kindle app:

• The ability to purchase books from within the app
• The ability to add any open ePub format book to iTunes and sync it over
• The rumored 30,0000 public domain books that will be available

Given these benefits it might seem like a slam dunk to move over to iBooks, but I’ve decided against it, for one simple reason: cross-platform compatibility.

For me, books are a long-term investment. If I like a book I’m going to read it two, five or even 10 times, and some of my favorite books from my teenage years I’ve read so many times I can’t even remember how many times I’ve picked them up. Books, including e-books, I buy today aren’t something that I’ll one and done like a television episode or even a movie — these are things that I’ll want to be able to access in 10 or 20 years. Given that, it’s important for me to pick an e-book platform that I know will be able to follow me as my tastes and needs for hardware change. What happens if I decide in five years that I don’t want to use Apple products anymore? If I invest heavily into the iBoookstore those books will be lost to me, but with the Kindle there’s a good chance that I’ll be able to read those books on a future Android device, or a Windows tablet or something we don’t even know of today but that I might be using.

It’s hard for me, as an Apple fanboy, to consider the possibility that Apple may not be able to meet my computing needs in the future. But I care more about books than I do about Apple and so I need to be honest with myself about this. When push comes to shove, it’s more important for me to have my books than it is for me to have Apple’s products, and that’s never going to change. So when the iPad comes out and I have one in my hands I’ll be reading my books in the Kindle app.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Evolution of the e-Book Market