Amid all the iPod news that Apple unveiled this week (the Motorola iTunes-enabled phone and the new slimmer iPod Nano) was something that many people missed. iTunes is going to be the exclusive outlet for Harry Potter audiobooks downloads.
According to Publisher's Weekly, Apple has licensed the rights for the first six Potter books. In fact, at the iTunes Store, a limited edition Harry Potter iPod is available.
That's right — for $548.00 you can purchase a 20GB iPod with the Hogwarts Crest etched on the back. But that's not all you get — you get a download code that lets you download the entire 6 volume box set The Complete Harry Potter. Audiobooks aren't new to iTunes, but this offering is certainly the highest-profile book in the catalog.
Jobs is obviously trying to position Apple at the front of the digital audio category, in both hardware and content delivery. First with the addition of podcasts and podcast support in iTunes, then the announcement of the newest iPod products, and finally the acquisition of the exclusive digital license of the Harry Potter catalog, Jobs is making iTunes and iPods almost an industry standard.
75% of the MP3 market is iPods. iTunes is quickly becoming the go-to source for commercial digital music downloads. What they have not been able to do in personal computing, Apple seems to be doing in digital audio. They are becoming the industry leader.
Article comments
1 - DrPat
Super, Warren! If anything more were needed to boost the iPod, harry Potter is it...
2 - Warren
I've never bought into the Apple mythos, and I had planned on buying a nonApple MP3 player (until Creative Labs shipped the model I wanted with a virus), but with the introduction of the Nanos, I'm leaning toward iPod now.
And I know a LOT of high school kids who are going to be bugging their parents for the Harry Potter etched iPods.
{Wow -- I think this post probably has the fastest trackback I've ever seen!}
3 - Ben Miraski
Doesn't this goes against the point of Harry Potter? Now, I have never read one of the HP books, and I don't plan on reading them, unless tied to a chair like in the Clockwork Orange.
The one thing I do know is that the good thing about these books, literary quality aside, is that it has gotten tons of kids away from the television and the internet and actually reading. And that is not to slight the number of adults that are sucked into Harry Potter. Now, they are going to be tempted to take the easy way out and listen to it on iPod. This will not get them readng and actually harms the little good that Harry Potter does in this world.
Just my two cents.
4 - Lacey Stepro
where can i buy a harry potter ipod?
5 - Warren
Well, Lacy, your best bet right now is on eBay. They came out about two and a half years ago (see that date up top?).