The talks are ongoing and may not result in a deal, these people said. Apple is exploring the idea of bringing on Tidal to bolster its Apple Music service because of Tidal’s strong ties to popular artists such as Kanye West and Madonna.
Apple doesn’t need more celebrities, it needs to fix what it already has.
I agree that they need to continue to work on the underlying service, but ultimately what they need is people to use it and pay for it, and celebrities matter a lot more to normal people than the technology being better than “good enough” on the tech side.
LOVE Apple Music! And I’ve tried all of the others. Hope this purchase gives us the ability to stream ultraHQ music.
Why can’t they do both at the same time – work on what is already there while also trying to buy a flailing platform?
One word: Prince catalog
After Apple Music made my music collection disappear, I spent the better part of a month figuring out how to get it back.
I now use Soundcloud.
I agree with this comment. At the end of the day Apple Music is going to compete on exclusive content from popular artists. It seems like JAY-Z wants to dump Tidal so there is an opportunity to be had.
However I do feel that the Apple Music redesign unveiled at WWDC was not enough. They really need to begin unbundling iTunes and I can not understand why they are not doing it.
It’s not about celebrities. It’s about having as complete a playlist as possible. Or rather, it’s about having a much larger library than Spotify. Don’t forget, this may not be Apple trying to buy Tidal. This may be about Tidal trying to sell to Apple because they are having financial problems.
Indeed. But it creates better clickbait to throw in controversial one-liner. Jim needs readers. They all do.
You are wrong. And you can’t count.
Do it for no other reason than to give us Prince’s catalogue back to stream.
Says the guy who can’t be bothered to turn out a consistent podcast. No yups or notes in over a year, quit publishing a magazine…. When you say that you spend so much time “writing”, are these snarky comments what you are referring to?
How about to eliminate the ‘exclusive’ advantage that Tidal has enjoyed? Yes, they don’t last long but we know that Tidal has signed people up based on them in the past.
Oh, and if you don’t like Apple Music I have great news! There are dozens of alternatives!!!
Like most of the comments on here Apple needs to fix, and faster than once a year, the Apple Music system. Everything Apple is doing today feels like a bunch of engineers created something based on metric data, NOT how people use or want to use a service. Apple used to be king of this!
My take is this, Apple needs to completely integrate and combine Apple Music with iTunes in the sense that if I subscribe to Apple Music and I go to iTunes it does not give me the option to BUY anything not in the service. It just changes the tag to LISTEN. If the artists is not part of Apple Music then I can buy
Second, the iTunes desktop app needs to be 100% redone from the ground up. 100% new, with priority on the songs, playlists, and collection. It needs to be light weight and work on Windows and Mac equally. A dark theme would be good as well. The old Zune app (windows) and Spotify are good examples.
IMO when Apple says that music is in its DNA that is a load of crap. Just because you did the iPod years ago does not mean you are king today and should not act like it.
Now in terms of Tidal, buy them if it will make your service better. Don’t buy them if you just want Jay-Z
More ultra celebrity dead pool cronies capitalism. You go, Apple.
Streaming rips off all artists who never see a penny for their work unless they’re a pop princess or a no talent rapper.
I think that Apple Music on the Mac/PC isn’t as much of a focus since the vast majority of people use music on their phone, not their computers. At least in the general consumer market.
I think that in the long term there will be a major overhaul of iTunes, but it’s a pretty big undertaking and I think that they have bigger fish to fry when it comes to the majority of users.
I think that Jim just cares a lot more about that issue than most people do. I don’t think it’s click-bait. He’s consistent in his writing, his comments on podcasts, etc. He just really doesn’t like the design of Apple Music.
You make a great point, but some would say it’s been neglected too long now.
A lot of people work from their Macs and I am at the point where when I am working I almost prefer to play music and podcasts off of my iPad or iPhone in order to avoid using iTunes.
I would have even been happy with a baby step like pulling podcasts and releasing a simple Podcast app that syncs properly with the iCloud backend since iTunes is never in sync with my iPhone.