Apple is missing the Titanic of Cash as it sails on by them, seeking out that iceberg in the North Atlantic. It’s been weeks since I’ve looked at my iTunes Wish List and I just went back to add more tracks that I caught with Shazam, an app on the iPhone that you can use to listen to music and then tag it on your phone so you can remember the details later on.

So much is being missed! This whole thing hurts my head. I’ve got $300 in music that is languishing in my iTunes Wish List and there is no way for me to share it with anyone else. The list is a dead duck. What good is it that I can edit the list and buy things from it if I can’t hand a link out to family and friends? It seems so stupid that I can’t even wrap my mind around it. Apple has all the pieces arranged on the chess board to make a holiday killing but they are playing dead on the whole subject! iTunes, which handles music and it’s store quite deftly (I think), iCloud which enables every connected iOS device to get music all at the same time. It’s like a perfect moneymaking storm! Here’s how I imagine it could go:

1. Someone (like me) uses iTunes or Shazam and starts to flesh out their iTunes Wish List. This information is stored at Apple, so there isn’t any reason why it can’t be used in other ways to help sell music. Just think of the shameless cross-functional promotion that Shazam could roll out in their iOS app! If you hear music you really love, set Shazam to listen to it, then add it to your iTunes wish list!
2. On November 1st of the year (date pulled from thin air) Apple emails the primary account holders email address (which is what the Apple ID is formed on) a very friendly email that says something like “For the holidays, we thought you might like a link to your iTunes Wish List. Here’s the link: http://itunes.apple.com/wishlist/634323421232100” Happy Holidays from Apple! Unbidden you get a handy link you can then embed in a tweet, a Google Plus status, a Facebook status, a WordPress Blog Page, or even cross-promote using the Amazon Universal Wish List site. There are so many ways to share links it’s disgusting.
3. People go to the site and put checkmarks next to the albums or the tracks that they’d like to buy for that person as a gift. Lets say you want to get someone $30 worth of music, but you don’t know what music they’d really love, why not just go to their iTunes wish list? It boggles my mind! As people make checkmarks the total builds and they can cash out using a credit card, paypal, or whatever. The next screen gives the purchaser a great option “Deliver Now” vs. “Deliver on a Date”. If they use the first option then Apple can send a gift receipt immediately, otherwise Apple defers the purchase until the date and time specified.
4. Apple can then leverage iCloud and so the receiver of the gift watches on the date and time that the gift giver indicated when all their purchased music either becomes available for download or starts automatically downloading over iCloud! At least the person can get a gift receipt letting them know that they have music that they can download on iTunes after they login to their Apple ID.
5. As people buy tracks and albums from this website Apple can arrange their site like Amazon does to give the recipient a choice to “spoil the surprise” by listing what has been purchased or “decline to spoil the surprise” by either locking the wish list down or hiding tracks that are “in play” for giving.
6. This would be a great way to avoid collisions when it comes to gift giving. When someone buys an album through iTunes as a gift for someone else that line item is dropped from the wish list website link so that nobody else can buy the music and effectively buy-a-gift-twice.

This entire idea is great for everyone! Music labels love it, it’s selling music. Music artists love it, it’s selling music. Apple loves it, it’s selling music! Gift givers really love it because they can go to a one-stop-shop, plunk down exactly how much they want to get for their loved ones and it’s all taken care of! Gift recipients love it because they get a clear demonstration on how cool iCloud can be when they see a flurry of gift receipts coming from Apple over email and then iCloud chats up the iOS devices connected and all that music starts to load into the device!

Marketing? Jesus Christ on a pogostick! This stuff writes itself! You could put a little animated iCloud character in a Santa outfit! Apple could try to market itself as one of Santa’s favorite elf! If the iCloud symbol is too abstract you could put a animated musical symbol in a box with a bow and show it off that way! The television spots encouraging people to flesh out their iTunes Wish List would be an utter gold mine for Apple, for the Labels, the Artists, to say nothing of making life easier for the rest of us!

And just to state the obvious if Apple ever reads any of this, I want you to have all of this blog post to use as your own. This entire post is copylefted, I don’t give a damn what anyone does with anything I write. Want to make money? Please bring this to life!

All that music is just languishing on my dead-end iTunes Wish List. Duh Apple, DUH!