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Apple in Talks to Acquire Jay Z's Streaming Music Service Tidal
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It will die on its own. You don't need to pay for the privledge.
Geez, I was hoping for some watch band news.
The way this thread is going, I'm convinced that most MacRumors readers know next to nothing about HiFi.
Steve Jobs was an audiophile, and we know he has discussed with Neil Young about introducing HiFi music to iTunes before he died. Since Tidal offers lossless music, it makes perfect sense for Apple to acquire the company.
Steve Jobs was an audiophile, and we know he has discussed with Neil Young about introducing HiFi music to iTunes before he died. Since Tidal offers lossless music, it makes perfect sense for Apple to acquire the company.
Who's Jay-Z? Never heard of him. Must be some of that new "CD" stuff. "Tidal"? Sounds like a wave. Something that comes and mostly goes. Why does Apple need another wave? Mavericks was quite enough, thank you. When will they get back to doing the only thing that I care about, whatever that is, rather than trying "new stuff" that's unfamiliar to me but "kids" "pay for"?
Prince is the only reason I'd be excited about this. A number of his albums aren't available on iTunes. Tidal has them.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but would they still get exclusives? I mean, would it be in an artist's contract that any future albums must be exclusive to Tidal? What's stopping Jay-Z (or any other rapper for that matter) from trying to start up a new streaming service in the hopes that Apple acquires them? They could all rotate as CEO and constantly release exclusives on said new service.
I joined Tidal for a month after Prince died to get access to a lot of his albums. If Apple offered lossless for $20 a month, I would pay it. The reason I don't use Tidal is the lack of Siri, it doesn't interface as well with my Nav in the car, and I don't see much "curation" in the app. This would not be good news for the awesome RoonAudio service, either.
I don't know that Apple would lock in the artists. Many of them might flee to Spotify.
This was probably Jay-Z's intent the entire time, he is a businessman and a hustler at heart so he knew that if he was able to acquire a large enough portion of the premium music streaming game he could sell his company to either spotify or apple for a huge profit.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Exactly. Why can't Apple just embrace "lossless" (or higher quality) music within itself? It certainly seems it would cost less to roll out something above 265K AAC (Apple already has it's own lossless format) than pay for Tidal to bring lossless to us.
I agree with others that this is probably about eliminating a competitor, buying subscribers and buying some licensing deals.
I further speculate that this MIGHT be a sign that Apple is going to roll out a higher quality format with the iPhone launch to try to smooth over the decision to jettison 3.5mm (even though a higher quality format would have played at a higher quality through 3.5mm too. Doubters? Plug your 3.5mm headphones into anything connected to a CD source and play your CDs at well above the same at typical compression quality in iTunes).
So buy the major player of higher quality streams and roll out Apple higher quality streams with the iPhone 7 launch? Else, as some have asked, why do we need to try to force a higher quality of connection and headphones for a 256K AAC source file? Put that rumor that is practically fact together with this rumor and it might be a newer piece of the puzzle.
Also, bigger music files streamed means more data burn. More data burn means (cloud is) "the future" people burn to their tier limits more quickly. Rolling into higher tiers is more profitable for key iPhone-selling partners. Happier partners co-promote Apple's most important product more enthusiastically. That makes $en$e- business sense- too.
Bigger files means music synch (vs using iCloud) people will need to buy iPhones with bigger on-board storage capacity. More profit for Apple. Even more business $en$e.
Summary: Tidal owners cash out. AT&T, Verizon, etc make more money from iDevice usage. Headphone makers get to cash in on accessory sales (adapter or wires with different terminators) or even full headphone replacement sales. Apple makes more profit from higher-capacity iDevice purchases, woos more co-promotions with key partners, profits on sales of 3.5mm-to-Lightning adapters and USB-to-Lightning adapters, both at retail and via licensing deals. All the corporate players get a win(s).
Hmmmm, I wonder if this will be rolled out as "Apple Music Pro" at a higher price subscription tier to (perhaps) also throw the music corporations a "mo' money" bone too? Or will the (probable) DRM play closing the "analog hole" (the barely mentioned extra chip to pair with that external DAC + AMP) be a big enough "win" for those corporations? Or both?
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I'd like to say Apple can't be so dumb as to buy a third rate streaming company, but they did buy Beats.
Are they sniffing glue at Apple? I don't even
Are they sniffing glue at Apple? I don't even
I listen to nothing but rock, jazz and classical on Tidal. Just sayin
Backed up does not mean driven by. RAPPERS rule the music world these days. I'm not against it or in favor of it. I'm just stating the facts.
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Do they offer any "exclusive" rock, jazz or classical content there?I listen to nothing but rock, jazz and classical on Tidal. Just sayin
Even you can tell how ridiculously poorly you read my original post right?
Oh so Jay-Z is Kanye now. Another day that I learned something in the macrumors comment section