What would you do with $178 billion? That's the pleasant conundrum Apple boss Tim Cook faces. Apple is now the most profitable company in history thanks to phenomenal revenues from selling 34,000 iPhones an hour every day for the past few months.
It is worth remembering that the company’s current profitable run began in earnest in 2003 when the late Steve Jobs decided to give the music industry the Apple treatment with the iTunes store. The record labels signed up to the iTunes’ shizzle because they reckoned it would help them sell music digitally – and they had made a hames of that up to then. Jobs wanted iTunes to help flog iPods and railroaded the labels to get his way.
Everyone won. The record labels got to make money from selling digital files, Apple sold iPods hand over fist and the consumer got a simple, easy-to-use way to buy music for their new gizmos. That, though, was then. It is streaming rather than digital downloads which is now music’s lingua franca and Apple’s iTunes set-up is a bit of a busted flush in the current music consumption ecosystem.
A dog in the fight
But Apple still has a dog in the music fight. While the 2014 acquisition of Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine's Beats operation for $3 billion was chump change in the Apple scheme of things, it did signal intent.
Apple was not first to the punch with music players and downloads; the same slow, steady approach it took with the iPod and iTunes seems to be in play here. Some time soon, it will roll out its own streaming service using the Beats moniker.
The likes of Spotify may have done all the running to date, but Apple is there in the long grass with that $178 billion war chest.
Over the years, Apple’s interest in music as a corporate strategy has inevitably waned a little. The colossal success of the iPhone, iPad and upcoming range of wearables didn’t rely on music in the same way as the iPod. On the iTunes’ balance sheet, Apple is making more cash from apps than music, paying out $10 billion to developers in 2014 from overall iTunes revenue figures of $18 billion.
But the Beats play shows that music is still part of the Apple mix and its streaming service may well be a game- changer. Remember, Apple’s brand reach and ease-of-use reputation are huge.
If people want iPhones, could this still also apply to other Apple products and services, including a snazzy, sharp and sexy music service? Could a new cheaper pricing policy upset the €9.99 streaming status quo and bring Spotify users back to Apple? All of this, however, is dependent on Apple still hankering to be a major player in the music game. We'll soon find out if this is the case or if it has parked that desire along with the iPod Classic.
YOU'VE GOT TO HEAR THIS
Grounds For Invasion
Dying Stars
(Ultrasaw)
The debut album from Galway duo Tracy Friel and Will O'Connor is a dark, enticing helping of sweetly defined electro-pop. It will remind you of many previous travellers along that terrain, but there are still moments when they slip the moorings and find their own sure footing.
ETC
You may have seen Stop Making Sense many times, but have you ever experienced the seminal Talking Heads live concert flick in a room of fellow dancers, prancers and chancers? Your latest opportunity to do so happens at Dublin;s Sugar Club on February 21st where the film will be screened as part of a night involving DJs Billy Scurry, Sally Cinnamon, Johnny Moy, Martin McCann and This Greedy Pig.
