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I believe it's the first time "i miss Steve".
With the Pandora-like agreement Apple is doing exactly what a Microsfot would do: go where the money is, not where it will be.

Consumers want to have Spotify-like service, and in the end the consumer always win. If Apple doesn't do it, someone else will.

We had complete albums, then iTunes revolutionized the industry with the capability of purchasing single tracks, now Spotify and the likes revolutionize it again with their service, wich is plain better (for 90% of consumers) than purchasing music in iTunes.

I'm not using iTunes since one year, and so is any of my friends who had a chance to try Spotify. They couldn't believe it costed 10$ per month, just as i couldn't believe a song could cost 1$.

Apple should go where the consumers want to be lead, and do it better than competitors. It pays in the long run. The right thing to do is to satisfy and surprise consumers, not one-year forecast of share value.
Why on earth should i ever purchase a song that i listened from "iRadio" for 10% of what i pay to Spotify monthly to listen to it wherever i want whenever i want on whicherever device i want, all perfectly synced, is beyond my mind. And boy, yes i'm an Apple fan.
Trying to go against the tide, against what is better for consumer, might be good for iTunes sales for the next 2 years, but plainly wrong in the long run.

Purchase spotify, integrate it with your ecosystem, make it better rename it and re-invent the music industry again.

Yes I would agree with you. I think we can all see the way the wind is blowing on this issue. I think eventually we will end up with just two models: Subscription (Spotify/Netflix/Cable/Satellite/etc) and Physical Media (CD/DVD/BluRay/4K/8K).

I can already download tracks or albums with Spotify or Rdio to listen to offline so iTunes has no real benefits - it's a lot more expensive and the quality is no better.

It's the same with movies and TV shows. I can see services like Netflix and Lovefilm really taking off. Again you pay £5/month for unlimited content. It costs more than that to buy one old movie on iTunes. It just doesn't make sense.

I think Apple could make a very clever decision here. They could make iTunes a Mac/iOS only product and then offer streaming music, movies and TV shows for a monthly subscription. Imagine if Apple then created it's own MVNO with unlimited data plans. That would certainly encourage more people to buy Apple products.

Nokia and Sony already offer free music streaming with their phones I think. I can imagine it's only a matter of time before Amazon and Google/Android offer the same.
 
So how much do we think the service will be to us the consumers?

To me it will be free, as I won't be using it. I honestly have not listened to the radio properly for about 10 years. I have no intention to start again now. I know the music I like, and I will buy it. I really don't need anyone/anything playing music to me. I am capable of creating playlists, I don't care about this feature.
 
And you think that Apple is different than Spotify and Pandora? Apple´s track record isn´t necessarily the best when it comes to release some if it´s services worldwide. There´s always at least a significant delay involved (cause of re-negogiations in other countries, because you have new rights holders). If you´re in an insignificant market for Apple to make money, they are not going to offer it to you.

I think that they have more power to get things done, if they push hard enough. If they fully commit to a streaming service then they should be able to push it widely.

I'm not in an insignificant market, however neither of the other services are available here, so I think my chances are good.
 
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