Apple: Two Bites of the Cherry

Following a spot of cherry picking in preparation for the so-called ‘Apple Crumble’ at Radio One, the tech giant is now reportedly pushing major music labels to force streaming services such as Spotify to abandon their free tiers. This would of course dramatically reduce competition for its forthcoming streaming offering, which is likely to be the paid subscription only combination of Beats and iTunes radio that no one ever dreamed of.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission in the US are reportedly taking a close look at business practices in which Apple is flexing its considerable muscle to lobby labels into not renewing agreements with streaming services that offer free tiers. Spotify currently has 60 million listeners, 15 million of them paying subscribers so a demolition of its free tier from the majors would pave the way nicely for an Apple streaming launch.

“But Tim Cook and Dr Dre seem like such nice, laid back guys, utterly not preoccupied with complete and utter world domination” we hear you cry. Well, according to this report on The Verge a source says: “All the way up to Tim Cook, these guys are cutthroat”. The same shadowy source apparently confirmed that they have an exclusive on the existence of the tooth fairy next week. So, the newsflash is that Apple are fiercely competitive and a bit evil. Now go back to glaring into the beautiful retina destroying blue light of your latest portable gadget and quantify how much you don’t care on your Apple watch. That said, The Daily Digest yesterday highlighted some interesting comments from users on Reddit, with the tide of public opinion ebbing away from endorsing such practices.