The big Apple event yesterday had one false note. After all the product announcements, the hall was ready for one of Apple's now-requisite musical guests, only to be massively let down
According to FADER, OneRepublic is Tim Cook's favorite band. Cook is not known for his personal taste, choosing instead to anoint a team of powerful tastemakers: Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, Phil Schiller, and Angela Ahrendts, for starters. Where Steve Jobs was a micromanager, Cook, by all accounts, is an executive CEO who picks the right talent and helps them make smart choices.
OpinionsApple is now, theoretically, a music company. Cook and his team spent $3 billion—that's Dr. Evil money—primarily to acquire two brilliant musical tastemakers, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, and their relationships. At WWDC in June, Apple launched Apple Music with two strong, culturally relevant performers: the broadly popular Drake and the ever-so-slightly ahead of the curve The Weeknd. That made Apple, at the time, look like a leader being run by influential music-industry professionals.
Apple Music's launch has been rough. The service was layered on top of the already overburdened iTunes app, and it's come under heavy criticism for "losing" purchased tracks and making it hard to tell the difference between purchased and subscription music. Apple Music's interface is confusing—the primary tabs are called "new" and "for you," driving a lot of people to the search box because it's the only way to actually find anything. And iTunes is still a massive CPU hog, even on Macs.
iPhone users don't appear to be signing on. Apple has 11 million "subscribers" during its current free trial period, Forbes reports. That sounds like a lot, but it's only 2 percent of the iPhone install base. Even with its privileged place in the default Apple music apps, it's still behind Deezer, which only French people use.
Before you shoot back that Apple has always promoted dad rock, there's a huge difference between OneRepublic and, say, U2. One of them is one of the most popular rock bands in history, although they're in decline. Hiring U2 at least shows you have massive global clout. The other one is known only from being played while you're on the Whole Foods line, as the lead singer admitted yesterday. Hiring OneRepublic means someone dropped out and you needed to call somebody else who was free.
It was fine that we heard nothing about Apple Music fixes at this event. Apple Music's trial period ends on Sept. 30, which would be the perfect time for a high-octane update. At the latest, I bet a new iTunes is coming soon with new Macs and OS X El Capitan. But the company that puts the lukewarm audio garbage of OneRepublic on stage does not look like the company of Beats and Jimmy Iovine, or a company that could be trusted to do anything innovative or culture-leading in music.
And has anyone seen "Apple employee" Dr. Dre in months? He's been out there promoting his new movie and album, and apologizing for assaulting a journalist in 1991. He does not appear to be in Cupertino, imparting taste to an executive team who appear to think OK GO would be too edgy for the kids. (See, I know my dad rock.)
Keep a close eye on Apple next month. The company needs to right the Apple Music ship, or this whole thing could go the way of failed iTunes social network Ping, to an utterly forgettable OneRepublic soundtrack.
Source: pcmag.com
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