What to do When your Product Starts to Disappear as iTunes

There may be some sense better than a product manager who is in charge of a top-flight product? When your star product begins to disappear, which is a product manager to do?

The iTunes history

You've heard of iTunes is it not? iTunes is Apple's online store that sells, among other things, downloading music. When iTunes appeared, it changed the world. Now, instead of having to pay $ 15 for an album of about 12 songs from the same artist, customers could pay $ 0.99 to buy one song. This digital song can be easily downloaded and played on Apple customer product. Managing a product that is of this success is something we would all like to be able to develop our program of product manager.


iTunes has been a huge success. The music industry has seen its business model, which was built in the sale of music CDs change overnight. The total size of the market has been relatively stable and the product was sold changed. It was a very good time to be a product manager at Apple iTunes. It is the new streaming music services like Spotify and Pandora that offer both free (with ads) and paid services (non-commercial) were the ancient conquest of iTunes customers. The new single subscription services were charging $ 10 / month and customers clearly felt that this was a matter of giving your money to iTunes.

What is the next step in Apple's iTunes product manager?

So what would you do if you are a product manager at Apple iTunes? Its strategy should consist of two parts: protect your heart of business and develop new product lines. To accomplish these two tasks, Apple recently new album from U2 popular musical group "Song of Innocence" available to anyone with an iTunes account. In order to expand its product offering, product managers Apple iTunes have taken a different approach. Apple recently paid $ 3 billion to buy the beats of the company that makes headphones and features a streaming music service. This streaming service means that Apple can now play both sides of the coin: the operation of the iTunes store and offer a streaming music service. Whether one becomes more popular in the future, Apple product managers should be well positioned to take advantage.

What all this means for you

Each secret dream product manager is to be in charge of a product of great success. Apple's iTunes product managers found themselves in this position for a number of years. The transition from buying physical CDs to buy online digital music has been boosted by iTunes and they made the most of it. The arrival of streaming music services began to eat the market of iTunes music sales, which has been in service. To address this change, Apple is working to ensure that people remember iTunes, providing music for free. They also purchased beats and took his own music streaming service. The managers iTunes on Apple products are now well positioned for the future.

As product managers, be careful not to become too presumptuous - that should be a part of almost every description of product leader. The managers iTunes on Apple products are struggling with now and they must take steps to succeed in a new market.