Categories Desktop Apps For You

iTMS Estimator

Name: iTMS Estimator
Rating: 0 (5 reviews)

1.1.2

07 February 2006

Application counts iTunes tracks sold.

Overview

This is a little application that shows the current estimated total tracks sold on the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) as well as an estimate of the time of the next milestone sale (every 100,000th track). This is important because Apple is giving away iPods and iTMS gift cards to the purchasers of the milestone tracks until total sales reach 1,000,000,000.

The application will automatically update its estimate every 5 minutes and, when there are 10 seconds or less until the next estimated milestone sale, the application will beep each second. This application was inspired by the counter on the iTunes Web page and uses the same source data as the Apple counter. If Apple changes the source data format or location, this application may break...

By popular demand, the package now includes a Dashboard Widget as well as the original aplication (for those of you who haven't upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4). My JavaScript skills are fairly rusty so please be kind.

Some people have noted that there are discrepencies between the counter on the Apple page and the application or Widget. This is because Apple has adjusted their estimate rate to 80% of the raw data calculation. In the preferences for the application and Widget, you may now adjust the rate to get a counter that is closer to the one Apple has posted online (which may or may not accurately reflect actual sales on the iTMS).

iTMS Estimator Screenshots

1 iTMS Estimator Reviews

You do know that "source data" isn't based on anything real, right? It's based on the actual clock for your system. Seriously. Set the date of your computer past July 15th, and then reload the page -- it'll show you "500,000+" and will have stopped counting.

Like

Version 1.1.1

You do know that "source data" isn't based on anything real, right? It's based on the actual clock for your system. Seriously. Set the date of your computer past July 15th, and then reload the page -- it'll show you "500,000+" and will have stopped counting.

Like

Version 1.1.1

4 answer(s)

Anonymous

08 July 2005

How does that make it "not real"? If you look at the code, the counter retrieves some ML data with two numbers (sales) and the dates at which those two numbers were observed. This gives you an estimated rate of sales (sale number 2 - sale number 1)/(time 2 - time 1). Once you have that rate, you take the current time, subtract the last date observed and you have the time since that sale and you multiply it by the rate. This gives you an estimate of the current sale. If you set the time to the future, then the counter is just going to assume that more time has passed so that time will be multiplied by the rate and if you set the date far enough to the future, you'll hit the 500,000,000 target. What's not real about that?

Like

Version 1.1.1

Anonymous

09 July 2005

because apple is assuming, by setting it to your clock, that the 500,000,000 song will be purchased on the 15th of July. How do you not see that??

Like

Version 1.1.1

Anonymous

09 July 2005

I still don't understand what you're missing. The XML file that is used as source is updated every five minutes or so with the sales data (the sales data is usually taken over five minutes as well). This means the estimate is adjust based on actual sales as necessary to determine the rate. If you run the counter and watch it, you'll see that it slows down overnight as the actual rate sloughs off. It increases again during the day. If you artificially change your clock ahead a few hours (to, say, 4 AM), the rate won't change because it is still using the rate as determined from the XML file of about five minutes before the actual time -- not the adjusted time. Watch again when it is actually 4 AM and it will be reduced.

Like

Version 1.1.1