Sony Music CEO Confirms 'Apple Music' Unveiling at WWDC

[theotherphil]

And how many people do you know who is prepared to spend $120 a year on music for the rest of their life?

Me neither.

I was spending way more than $10/m on music when buying it. Since swapping to streaming, I can listen to any song/ album and save them for offline use for significantly cheaper than buying. I'll happily keep streaming for the rest of my life.

 

[lincolntran]

I am a teacher, so I know how important it is to not only have rules and expectations in the classroom, but also how crucial it is to enforce them regularly and fairly if those rules are to have any "teeth".

I guess the question is - was it malice or sheer incompetence? I mean, you know Apple is super-secretive when it comes to things like this, and you still take a photograph like that and upload it to instagram? Fanboys notwithstanding, I can't imagine there is any part of the company's SOP that would allow stuff like this. Even if it was an oversight on the employee's part, I suppose there is something to be said about "common sense" and all.

Maybe it is a small thing, but if you want to prevent repeat offenders, Tim Cook will need to deal with this decisively. Otherwise, Apple's partners and workers are not going to see anything wrong with leaking info like this if they don't believe there will be any repercussions for doing so. The law is only as effective as the authorities policing them.

I agree on rules and enforcement, but the degree of enforcing them is just as important. Like I said, wanting to fire someone just by leaking small things that everyone will know the next day is very inhuman and bad. With this level of enforcement, what will happen if an employee leaked something really big? Death row?

 

[theotherphil]

I have to download a hardcopy... I'm a DJ, streaming is of no use whatsoever...

You can download copies for offline use.

Seriously, it's like nobody has ever checked out spotify and it's capabilities.

 

[theotherphil]

There seems to be a lot of conflict of whether streaming is good or not, and it really depends on who you are. If you buy music frequently, you always have access to the Internet and data is not an issue to you, then streaming can be really useful. However, if you don't buy music that often, or maybe have limited data/no access to it, streaming can be useless and a waste. As data becomes available everywhere, and high data plans become cheaper, the market and demand for streaming will grow.

With Spotify, you can download any song/ album/ playlist in high quality on any of your devices and play them without a data connection. There's lots of false assumptions in this thread about what these streaming services provide.

 

[Abazigal]

I agree on rules and enforcement, but the degree of enforcing them is just as important. Like I said, wanting to fire someone just by leaking small things that everyone will know the next day is very inhuman and bad. With this level of enforcement, what will happen if an employee leaked something really big? Death row?

Okay, maybe the person should just get a stern reminder (assuming this wasn't some sanctioned leak authorised by Apple) rather than get fired, but to me, it's not so much the scale of the leak, but the way it was leaked itself. It's not as though someone took a photo of his pass and post it online. He took a photo of it himself. It was a deliberate action on his part.

I mean, all around me, I see news of people stupidly outing themselves on social media. Just the other day, I read news of how this Taiwanese military officer allowed civilians to enter an air base (illegal, of course), and one of the visitors dumbly posted a photo of herself in a fighter jet's cockpit to Facebook. Or my colleague who called in sick, then posted a photo of herself at the zoo with her son.

It could be the name of Apple's music streaming service today. It could be the schematics of the rumoured Apple Car the next day. Or even Apple's long-term product roadmap in the next. You let one small infraction slide, and before you know it, more people start testing the waters to see what else they can get away with.

 

[theotherphil]

My taste in music is so eclectic (scattered and random) that any kind of channel doesn't deliver what I actually want to hear. Also, I prefer to listen to the entire album at once, rather than the top singles.

The real customer of streaming music are the people who still like listening to the radio.

Spotify does all you want. Search for a specific song/ album and save it for offline use. Create playlists of any song you want and play it on any device you want.

Like it or not, this is going to be the future of music.

 

[thekev]

Okay, maybe the person should just get a stern reminder (assuming this wasn't some sanctioned leak authorised by Apple) rather than get fired, but to me, it's not so much the scale of the leak, but the way it was leaked itself. It's not as though someone took a photo of his pass and post it online. He took a photo of it himself. It was a deliberate action on his part.

It's likely that he was allowed to talk about it, given the casual nature of the post. You guys are just way too eager to regurgitate unfounded nonsense.

 

[lk400]

Under Steve Jobs, a reveal in advance of the keynote would have meant a broken partnership with Sony. The employee who revealed on Instagram would have been fired instantly as well.

"The times they are a changin'."

Do you really think apple would just cut ties with Sony? No Sony music in iTunes. No Sony movies? They would have been livid at such a leak, as I am sure they currently are, but ton imagine Steve jobs dumping Sony as a partner is a little... Too much?

 

[HenryDJP]

I've been using streaming services like pandora for years now and haven't purchased any music in years.

IMO the only issue with streaming is that it uses bandwidth. Thankfully I have an unlimited plan.

Since you have unlimited data you probably wouldn't know but I assure you music streaming uses very little data. For example, my billing cycle started on the 25th of May. I've been playing multiple songs on my iPhone via Spotify since that day. My usage shows as of now 0.06GB data used. Now granted I don't stream all day but playing a few songs each day for 10 days straight ate up a super small amount of data. I don't use my data for anything else other than my GPS which also uses very little. Now VIDEO streaming is whole different story. That will eat up your data super quick.

 

[Abazigal]

Do you really think apple would just cut ties with Sony? No Sony music in iTunes. No Sony movies? They would have been livid at such a leak, as I am sure they currently are, but ton imagine Steve jobs dumping Sony as a partner is a little... Too much?

Maybe Apple wouldn't have dared. But Steve Jobs just might have been crazy enough to do it, and very often, "might" is more than enough. And sometimes, just the off-chance that a very passionate ex-CEO of Apple might go ballistic enough to burn his bridges would be enough to make everyone toe the line. After all, you don't want to be "that guy" who just scuttled a billion-dollar dollar simply because you couldn't keep your mouth shut for one more day.

 

[HenryDJP]

Maybe Apple wouldn't have dared. But Steve Jobs just might have been crazy enough to do it, and very often, "might" is more than enough. And sometimes, just the off-chance that a very passionate ex-CEO of Apple might go ballistic enough to burn his bridges would be enough to make everyone toe the line. After all, you don't want to be "that guy" who just scuttled a billion-dollar dollar simply because you couldn't keep your mouth shut for one more day.

Remind me what the Sony CEO did that was going to destroy WWDC tomorrow morning? I think people are making too much of this.

 

[natepdx92]

I just had a thought. The center square in the WWDC logo, is the Apple Music App.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Since you have unlimited data you probably wouldn't know but I assure you music streaming uses very little data. For example, my billing cycle started on the 25th of May. I've been playing multiple songs on my iPhone via Spotify since that day. My usage shows as of now 0.06GB data used. Now granted I don't stream all day but playing a few songs each day for 10 days straight ate up a super small amount of data. I don't use my data for anything else other than my GPS which also uses very little. Now VIDEO streaming is whole different story. That will eat up your data super quick.

I've used 40GB of Pandora since my last reset in November or 5GB a month.

It would be twice as high if I went to the gym more often but I was busy for half the time.

 

[Abazigal]

Remind me what the Sony CEO did that was going to destroy WWDC tomorrow morning? I think people are making too much of this.

As I said again, it's not the scale of the leak, but that it was even leaked at all. You are right, it doesn't change a thing. But again, it's more the question of whether it was appropriate for the Sony CEO to be making such an announcement in the first place.

 

[coolfactor]

I am hoping for a Mac Pro update.

My thoughts exactly! An update to the Mac Pro is long overdue. Apple has been far too quiet about it, and I hope that translates into a big surprise!

I expect that the next versions of iOS and OS X will be announced, with a strong focus on stability and refinement, no major new features. This has been the whiff in the wind, and I hope it's true. We don't need giant steps forward every year... Apple can't managed that, nor can the marketplace (from a "keeping up with things" stance).

This is a "Developers" conference... not a place to announce a consumer music service, unless there's some developer tie-ins. I will be very concerned about Apple's priorities if the primary focus on the keynote is on a consumer-only service.

 

[coolfactor]

Under Steve Jobs, a reveal in advance of the keynote would have meant a broken partnership with Sony. The employee who revealed on Instagram would have been fired instantly as well.

"The times they are a changin'."

I think the French employee will be brought into a meeting for a stern talking-to. Keynotes remain very important to Apple; they work very hard to maintain secrecy. I also think that Apple's relationship with Sony will be tarnished so long as the CEO thinks remains clueless about how Apple does things.

 

[coolfactor]

Since you have unlimited data you probably wouldn't know but I assure you music streaming uses very little data. For example, my billing cycle started on the 25th of May. I've been playing multiple songs on my iPhone via Spotify since that day. My usage shows as of now 0.06GB data used. Now granted I don't stream all day but playing a few songs each day for 10 days straight ate up a super small amount of data. I don't use my data for anything else other than my GPS which also uses very little. Now VIDEO streaming is whole different story. That will eat up your data super quick.

Are you sure that you're not streaming over wifi? That would not count against your mobile data. Streaming for two weeks should have used far more than 0.06GB of data, easy. Can you verify if you have ever on wifi networks during the last two weeks?

 

[Paradoxally]

I think the French employee will be brought into a meeting for a stern talking-to. Keynotes remain very important to Apple; they work very hard to maintain secrecy. I also think that Apple's relationship with Sony will be tarnished so long as the CEO thinks remains clueless about how Apple does things.

I highly doubt this. Apple loves to create hype. Remember when the iPhone 4 prototype leaked? Apple was furious, right? Well, history repeated itself.

Not a coincidence.

 

[HenryDJP]

Are you sure that you're not streaming over wifi? That would not count against your mobile data. Streaming for two weeks should have used far more than 0.06GB of data, easy. Can you verify if you have ever on wifi networks during the last two weeks?

Unless Wifi works in my car while driving. LOL. I'm 100% sure it's not over Wifi. I only stream music in the car while I'm driving. Like I said I play only a few songs a day so that might be why I'm not using much. I've had the same low data usage experience using iTunes Radio.

 

[iAK]

Nah, I'll stick with owning my music. Thanks though.

There's no such thing as "owning" music. You have never been legally allowed do whatever you want with music you purchased.

 

[HenryDJP]

Are you sure that you're not streaming over wifi? That would not count against your mobile data. Streaming for two weeks should have used far more than 0.06GB of data, easy. Can you verify if you have ever on wifi networks during the last two weeks?

This probably won't help a ton in terms of proving how often I play Spotify in my car but here's my data usage as of the 25th which is my billing cycle with Verizon. My average is about 4 or 5 songs daily in my car on the iPhone. I do use the 3G more so than the LTE (if that matters) because coverage is better in 3G. So either the music streaming takes very little bandwidth or Verizon is being generous and not counting my data usage....which I highly doubt.

 

[AlecZ]

Why? Apple Music is for people interested in streaming. iTunes Store is for those that want to buy. Different/Mixed audiences. Why does it have to be one or the other?

iTunes is already what Apple puts every kind of music or movie services under. The iTunes app is also what is used to buy other digital content like iOS apps. There's an iTunes streaming service called iTunes Connect, too. That's why it would be weird for Apple to make another kind of streaming service that isn't under iTunes.

 

[Reds622]

I kind of think Apple needs to be careful here... Maybe it's just indifference, but as a huge Apple fan, I'm almost starting to feel like this company is just like all the others. Every single announcement these days almost feels like a money grab..

It's the first time, in a long time, where Apples motivations seem more geared towards their "shareholders" than their customers. It's really just a feeling that I have. Don't get me wrong, I still love their devices, but they are, in a strange way, starting to disappoint me a little bit? its almost as if they are trying to force things on their customers for the sake of more revenue. Sorry, I don't want a pointless watch and a redundant music streaming service, or a half baked MacBook that's overpriced and underperforms.

Can we please get back to innovation involving high powered devices already? I've had enough of the Apple we have seen since September.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

I kind of think Apple needs to be careful here... Maybe it's just indifference, but as a huge Apple fan, I'm almost starting to feel like this company is just like all the others. Every single announcement these days almost feels like a money grab..

It's the first time, in a long time, where Apples motivations seem more geared towards their "shareholders" than their customers. It's really just a feeling that I have. Don't get me wrong, I still love their devices, but they are, in a strange way, starting to disappoint me a little bit? its almost as if they are trying to force things on their customers for the sake of more revenue. Sorry, I don't want a pointless watch and a redundant music streaming service, or a half baked MacBook that's overpriced and underperforms.

Can we please get back to innovation involving high powered devices already? I've had enough of the Apple we have seen since September.

welcome to the tim cook era of dividends.

 

[verniesgarden]

Since you have unlimited data you probably wouldn't know but I assure you music streaming uses very little data. For example, my billing cycle started on the 25th of May. I've been playing multiple songs on my iPhone via Spotify since that day. My usage shows as of now 0.06GB data used. Now granted I don't stream all day but playing a few songs each day for 10 days straight ate up a super small amount of data. I don't use my data for anything else other than my GPS which also uses very little. Now VIDEO streaming is whole different story. That will eat up your data super quick.

If you have T-Mobile streaming music doesn't count against your data. Streaming music eats up data way more than you are describing.