Apple’s iTunes Store turned five on Monday, and has gone from offering a slim 200,000 songs to over 10 million during its first half decade in action. The online music service has grown to include podcasts, audio books, TV shows and movies, growing beyond its music-based roots.

iTunes Turns 5

The iTunes Store, originally known as the iTunes Music Store, was the first -- and in some eyes the only -- legit online music service to show any level of success and staying power. Instead of offering music for rent priced on a sliding scale, Apple took the novel approach of selling all of its songs for a flat US$0.99 each.

At the initial iTunes Music Store launch Apple CEO Steve Jobs commented "The iTunes Music Store offers the revolutionary rights to burn an unlimited number of CDs for personal use and to put music on an unlimited number of iPods for on-the-go listening. Consumers don’t want to be treated like criminals and artists don’t want their valuable work stolen. The iTunes Music Store offers a groundbreaking solution for both."

TMO’s take on the iTunes Music Store went like this:

Apple may very well have itself a winner with their new music service. There are several major points of interest here. First of all, the five major record labels are backing the service. This is huge for any online music service to be successful. Secondly, Apple made the move to the higher quality AAC format -- a step that could signal a move away from MP3s on down the road. Finally, the $0.99 per song is very reasonable, with $10 per album being quite a steal. As with any service of this nature, it remains to be seen how consumers will respond. In this case, however, we believe Apple might have hit a homerun.

Apple has since added 256kbps AAC-encoded iTunes Plus tracks to its original 128kbps offerings, and has dropped copy protection from many of the tracks offered by EMI. It also moved into the education world with iTunes U, began offering games for the iPod, added the ability to download songs wirelessly with an iPod touch or iPhone

Apple is celebrating five years of the iTunes Store with a retrospecive of each year’s best selling albums, best selling songs, and staff favorites.