Spotify
The EU may not be done just yet.
Tl;dr: It’s no Spotify -- yet.
Just a bit of understandable curiosity.
Even if you want to pay for Apple Music right now, you can’t. The first real test is in two months.
As difficult as it is to find anything uplifting about the recorded music industry these days, I have recently turned bullish.
Apple uses humans to make playlists; Spotify uses software. Will users care?
Taylor Swift’s decision to pull her “1989” album from streaming service Spotify did not prevent it from reaching the top of the album charts.
Why did you have to go and make things so complicated?
Apple has built a robust app and service that goes well beyond just offering a huge catalog of music. But it’s also uncharacteristically complicated by Apple standards.
Everyone wants to sell you a music subscription service. But everyone wants to let you listen to free music, too.
Her beef: Apple’s free three-month trial. “These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child.”
Apple has never really been a content provider before -- it has always simply acted as a channel for third--party content -- so this is a significant shift.
Apple’s rates will be competitive for artists.
Ad tech is struggling, but money is still pretty easy to come by.
The move doesn’t help Apple stand out from rivals, but means that it won’t be missing a key ingredient of other services.
People like free music. Music that costs $120 a year is a different story.
The recent debate on streaming has been focused on short-term concerns -- issues of access, mobile convenience and remuneration.
Videos -- but not music videos -- podcasts and more. This may please Spotify users, and rankle the music labels.
Coming soon from Jimmy Iovine: The anti-Spotify service.
As part of a court settlement: An apology, and a plug for legal services like Spotify.
AppViews offer a way for mobile developers to link to a specific action within another app.
Expect more subscription services for music and less free stuff.
Spotify and YouTube say they’re wrong.
Media companies and creators seem to be entering a new period of confusion, as the financial, technological and consumer behaviors they counted on are changing rapidly.
Free, ad-funded music services won’t sustain artists or labels, says Lucian Grainge.
Better really, really late ...
Daniel Ek files his financials - from 2013. They show a booming company, but not a profitable one.
Plus, Samsung’s plans to shrink its smartphone lineup, the wait for Apple’s trillion-dollar market cap and a grooming tip for Larry Ellison.
Taylor Swift might be right after all, just not how she imagined it.
Plus, why Apple’s UnionPay deal is a big one, Spotify for dogs, treadmills for shrimp and Religious Vader.
CVS and Rite Aid reject Apple Pay, Google’s top circle changes a bit and more.
If paid subscription services are going to get bigger, they may have to get cheaper.
Apple’s Beats Music service, like all the other subscription music services, rents music for $10 a month. Apple wants a price cut.
The music download era is over, replaced by streaming.