Amaya Toman Today, we take iTunes as a natural part of our Apple devices. At the time of its introduction, however, it was a very significant breakthrough in the field of services provided by Apple. At a time when it is common for so many people to acquire multimedia content in a rather pirate style, it was not even certain that users would use iTunes to the desired extent. In the end, it turned out that even this risky step paid off for Apple, and iTunes could celebrate an incredible ten billion downloads in the second half of February 2010.
Lucky Louie
iTunes passed this significant milestone on February 23rd – and history even named the anniversary item. It was the song Guess Things Happen That Way by the legendary American singer Johnny Cash. The song was downloaded by a user named Louie Sulcer from Woodstock, Georgia. Apple knew that the ten billion download mark was approaching, so it decided to encourage users to download by announcing a contest for a ten thousand dollar iTunes Store gift card. In addition, Sulcer also received a bonus in the form of a personal phone call from Steve Jobs.
Louie Sulcer, a father-of-three and grandfather of nine, later told Rolling Stone magazine that he didn't really know about the contest — he just downloaded the song so he could make his own song compilation for his son. Understandably, then, when Steve Jobs himself contacted him on the phone unannounced, Sulcer was reluctant to believe it: "He called me and said, 'This is Steve Jobs from Apple,' and I said, 'Yeah, sure,'" Sulcer recalls in interview for Rolling Stone, and adds that his son was fond of pranks, in which he called him and pretended to be someone else. Sulcer continued to pester Jobs with verification questions for a while before noticing that the name "Apple" was flashing on the display.
Significant milestones
Ten billion downloads was a milestone for Apple in February 2010, officially making the iTunes Store the world's largest online music retailer. However, the company could be convinced of the importance and success of the iTunes Store very soon - on December 15, 2003, just eight months after the official launch of the iTunes Store, Apple recorded 25 million downloads. This time it was “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!”, a popular Christmas classic by Frank Sinatra. In the first half of July 2004, Apple could even celebrate 100 million downloads within the iTunes Store. The jubilee piece this time was "Somersault (Dangerouse remix)" by Zero 7. The lucky winner in this case was Kevin Britten from Hays, Kansas, who, in addition to a gift card to the iTunes Store worth $10 and a personal phone call from Steve Jobs, also won seventeen-inch PowerBook.
Today, Apple no longer communicates or publicly celebrates statistics of this kind. It wasn't long ago that the company stopped releasing data on the number of iPhones sold, and when it passed the milestone of one billion devices sold in this area, it only mentioned it very marginally. The public also no longer has a chance to learn details about Apple Watch sales, in Apple Music and on other fronts. Apple, in its own words, sees this information as a competitive boost and wants to focus on other things instead of numbers.
Source: MacRumors
