as well as their QuickTime movie trailers, which had taught them how to handle massive downloads on their servers.

Moreover, they were able to negotiate with the music companies because they were still a niche player. The majors were trying hard to fight Napster, but they were reluctant to launch online stores, afraid that it would destroy their current business model. But iTunes could only run on Macs, which were still a fraction of the PC market — so they viewed Apple’s proposal as an opportunity to try a new model with limited risks.

So, on April 28 2003, Steve unveiled the iTunes Music Store at a special Music event. The results quickly exceeded the company’s best hopes. Five million songs were sold in just eight weeks, and another eight million in the following fifteen weeks, bringing iTunes’ share of legal music downloads to 70% — yet it was still only Mac-compatible!