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Apple Playing 'Catch Up' With Beats Acquisition as Music Labels Push for Subscription Services
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Subscription services aren't bad for the consumer if they provide the right amount of value in contrast with the alternatives.
With Beats or Spotify, you pay $9.99 per month, roughly the cost of one album purchase, for access to tens of millions of songs. There are no restrictions on play counts, skipping, etc. If you enjoy music and were planning on purchasing 10-12 albums per year, this is an amazing deal.
This is either completely made up, tim cook loosing his mind, purchase amount incorrect, or beats has something magical we dont know about yet.
I can see all the positives that Apple may gain from purchasing Beats, and they make sense. But how many times over could apple develop an audio brand and streaming music service in house for THREE BILLION DOLLARS?
I can see all the positives that Apple may gain from purchasing Beats, and they make sense. But how many times over could apple develop an audio brand and streaming music service in house for THREE BILLION DOLLARS?
Am I the only one who thinks Apple is planning doing a big thing? I mean look at the their purchases, Beats Marketing and Beats Music Services will help Apple a lot. Also they hired Nokia Engineers that made PureView cameras. But that camera would add thickness, but Apple bought another company to make their displays thinner, hmm...
Are you really sure they could? Apple's record with services is spotty at best in recent years. Also, remember you take a (lower priced) competitor out of the marketplace too here denying another company like Samsung the opportunity to bolt this on quickly. Hardware business is profitable too at Beats and complements what Apple is doing.
A lot of these high end headphones companies did it for the initial exposure, and then kind of backed off with the branding after they got market penetration. Soul by Ludacris comes to mind and I want to say there were a few more as well.
If the labels are urging Apple to get into the subscription business then why do they need to purchase Beats? That would indicate they have an open door to negotiate deals. Seems to fly in the face of those who are saying Apple can't negotiate with record labels because they are getting squeezed. Seems like the labels want it more than Apple.
Sure they could buy Beats music and keep it separate from iTunes but wouldn't Apple want to leverage it's brand power/consumer base to promote the service, tie it in with their products?
Sure they could buy Beats music and keep it separate from iTunes but wouldn't Apple want to leverage it's brand power/consumer base to promote the service, tie it in with their products?
Why would anyone prefer a subscription service over a free radio streaming service and purchased music?
Apple is going to ruin this service.
Judging by iCloud and iTunes Match, Apple really doesn't get the cloud or cloud services.
People STILL have to download iTunes to their desktops just to listen to and buy music for pete sakes. Now wonder Google is killing them in cloud services. All of their software is accessible on any browser, any device.
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If you actually used Beats, you would know. iTunes Radio (along with Pandora) just repeats the same songs over and over and over. Beats is operating on another level.
Judging by iCloud and iTunes Match, Apple really doesn't get the cloud or cloud services.
People STILL have to download iTunes to their desktops just to listen to and buy music for pete sakes. Now wonder Google is killing them in cloud services. All of their software is accessible on any browser, any device.
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If you actually used Beats, you would know. iTunes Radio (along with Pandora) just repeats the same songs over and over and over. Beats is operating on another level.
Because paying Deezer $7 a month at 50% off costs less than 40 back catalog CDs a month from Amazon that you would listen only once.
Measuring Not Getting the Cloud
Apple always fails at everything, except in comparison to anyone else.
Clearly they tried with iTunes Radio and after assessing the time & $ to get it on the right growth projection path quickly thought it would be more efficient to buy what was needed rather than build it organically. It wouldn't be the first time Apple has bought a company to enhance its music sector. Heck iTunes itself wasn't even born inside Apple's lab.
Beats would give Apple an instant presence on Android and WP. There are a lot of Android users who would never download iTunes for Android, but already have Beats on their phone. Also, the headphone line is very profitable and would pay for this deal in a decade by themselves.
I agree completely. It's just a bend over and smile model of customer service. Very VERY bad for us but very VERY good for the bottom line of the corporations. They get to charge eternally for the same software, though every once in a while they will throw a 'free' upgrade that adds nothing of use, but makes the naive think they're getting something for their monthly payment. It's just one step above a protection racket (sure would be a shame if your software stopped working and you couldn't access all of your documents/music/etc.) Stop and ponder this as well, with Net Neutrality going away don't be surprised if you suddenly have to pay extra to your ISP to use all these "services" you already paid for. They'll just say they are high bandwidth.
I don't rent software, I don't rent music and I don't rent games, and you know what I still have my software, music, and games when I don't have an internet connection.
It just works.
The author of the article should remind himself that Apple is 600 bilion company, and if Apple wants to design music streaming service, god they can do it in a week. You can have both business models, streaming for who wants to stream, and download for who wants to download. The problem with the itunes radio is that it didnt had a separate app, so many people are unaware of its existance.
Too late and two kinds of consumers: (I hate subscriptions)
1) Like to own their music (Why? if you can listen to almost anything streaming,
short of a few select songs)
2) Just like to listen to whatever they feel like at the moment without having to carry much more than a phone.
Subscription services have one disadvantage - if for any reason you decide to drop out after a year or two you're left with no albums at all.
I've tried Spotify and Deezer but for me "owning" tracks is too important. Besides, I think (and I might be wrong) artists don't get a lot of money from subscription services. Since I usually buy music/books to show appreciation I don't like it.
It's not the system, it's the contracts. Spotify pays too much for each song. Beats probably negotiated better deals.
Also, there's the matter of time. If Apple buys Beats outright they can launch this thing soon.