For background, start with this post from last Thursday, which digs in to a Wall Street Journal report that Apple has big plans for original TV and movie content.
Jimmy Iovine added more, speaking to reporters. From the Hollywood Reporter:
“If South Park walks into my office, I am not going to say you’re not musicians, you know?” Iovine continued when pressed about the report. “We’re going to do whatever hits popular culture smack on the nose. We’re going to try.”
And:
Iovine said the hope for Apple is that it will be better able to compete with streaming music competitors like Spotify and Pandora, which are largely free for users: “We’re fighting ‘free.’ So a simple utility where, ‘here’s all the songs, here’s all the music, give me $10 and we’re cool,’ is not going to scale.”
Interesting point. Apple is fighting free, needs to raise the value of their offering to make Apple Music a compelling value.
Ultimately I think Apple and the music industry would be best served by making Apple Music a platform for others to build curation and sharing “apps” off of. Apple just needs to nail the licensing, content delivery and basic functionality (which it has yet to do) and help others build curation systems on top of it.
As a LT s/h, Iovine makes me really uncomfortable.
Yeah, I’m really not a fan of Apple getting into content. I don’t see any benefit to customers at all.
Ugh
I resent having to pay attention to people like Iovine a bit, but if Apple is making him this important to its efforts, I sort of have to.