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Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

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Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#31

Post by semi-extrinsic »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #16
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high quality audio (...) once they bring out the iPhone with lightning headphones ... and you've lost me. I mean, the 3.5 mm jack solution is used by audiophiles for connecting headphones costing several iPhones to equipment costing dozens of iPhones. If it was in any way a problem for audio fidelity, these people would've gone for a new solution long ago.

Audiophilia has nothing to do with actual sound quality.

OK, substitute "audiophiles" with "recording engineers" then. The music you listen to will have passed through a bunch of 1/4" analog stereo jacks at the studio where it was recorded.

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#32

Post by Tiksi »

Throwaway23412 wrote: post #29
markcerqueira wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those 15 million are people who forgot to turn off auto-renew on their free trial?

Apple Music has been out for a year today. After the initial three-month free trial, I would think that most people would notice $10 missing from their bank accounts every month.

I once paid $80/mo for a year for a server I forgot I had.

It happens.

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#33

Post by Esau »

abritinthebay wrote: post #20
colinbartlett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Apple Music already the #2 most popular streaming music service behind Spotify? I'd hardly call 15 million paid subscribers unpopular.

It also is way better than Spotify for me. It's everything I wanted out of a music service. Spotify was never going to have me as a subscriber but Apple Music was so much better (for me) that it was a no-brainer. But then I always preferred Pandora over Spotify anyhow (different use cases I know, but still).

In what way is Apple Music better than Spotify? I've tried both and, other than catalog differences, I don't see one as really being better than the other.

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#34

Post by Esau »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #14
tuxracer wrote: post #8

Unpopular music service to acquire even less popular music service. With those forces combined they will be unstoppable! /s

In one year they've managed to acquire half the number of paid subscribers Spotify has - and with a pretty buggy product. That's pretty impressive.

I suspect that is largely because the product is bundled with the iOS. I wonder how it doesn't on Android, where people have to go out of their way to install it.

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#35

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

I knew this would happen from the beginning, but actually seeing it happen breaks my heart.

I really can't interpret this as anything other than Jay-Z trying to be like Dr. Dre.

The difference is Dr. Dre's company actually created a product people wanted, and he deserves the success.

As for Tidal, how is this not different from union workers going on a strike? Except that people going on a strike do have legitimate reasons. For the "exclusive" artists who were on Tidal they're all rich people already. They just wanted to make more money.

They created absolutely 0 value with this company, all they did was create a collective with enough critical mass to matter and monetized on it. And when I say "monetize", it's us the fans that they monetized. It's almost like a betrayal.

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#36

Post by [deleted] »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #26
rloc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "He really said that?" http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/05/08/beats "The problem with this theory is that those licenses (to my understanding) aren’t transferable in the event of an acquisition. Music label executives may be dumb, but they’re not that dumb." >> "They're not approving it because supposedly Spotify built in their own payment system which is a clear violation of App Store guidelines. Could be wr…

>> "Maybe but I think it was a strategy. Spotify wanted to grab attention with this. The origin of the issue is really the fact that Apple is not releasing the 30% tax. This is unsustainable in the music business where there is close to 0 margin." I definitely agree it was a strategy. No way Spotify thought they would get away with that, it's a PR exercise. The issue isn't Apple's 30% though - it's Spotify's business…

[deleted]

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#37

Post by rloc »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #26
rloc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "He really said that?" http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/05/08/beats "The problem with this theory is that those licenses (to my understanding) aren’t transferable in the event of an acquisition. Music label executives may be dumb, but they’re not that dumb." >> "They're not approving it because supposedly Spotify built in their own payment system which is a clear violation of App Store guidelines. Could be wr…

>> "Maybe but I think it was a strategy. Spotify wanted to grab attention with this. The origin of the issue is really the fact that Apple is not releasing the 30% tax. This is unsustainable in the music business where there is close to 0 margin." I definitely agree it was a strategy. No way Spotify thought they would get away with that, it's a PR exercise. The issue isn't Apple's 30% though - it's Spotify's business…

Unfortunately in the music business there is only one business model. The one the labels command (with very minor differences between each service). Apple business model for streaming is the same than the spotify one except they don't have to pay the 30% tax.

The only way to command the labels is to control the market. Apple did it with the iPod and iTunes. They were able to set the .99c price for any song. The labels were upset about it.

Apple is trying to reproduce that with streaming. They're initial goal was to release a cheaper suscription ($7.99/month).

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#38

Post by heavymark »

While the Beats acquisition made sense for their talent and get a little faster entry into music streaming, but buying Tidal doesn't make much sense at all. Tidal software and technology doesn't offer anything of value. Jay Z presumably would not want to work under Apple long term.

Tidal has licenses with a lot of artists but those wouldn't transfer to Apple Music, they would have to renogitate with them. And the whole reason artists are choosing Tidal is because they dont want Apple Music and want to be with a company all about the artists. If Apple wants to be all about the artists, it doesn't need Tidal for that, it can simply update it's relevant policies.

One could say the want to buy them to get rid of the competition but I don't see Tidal being much competition since while artists may launch with them most like Adele end up on all the services anyway.

Or the most likely reason is this is simply a an unfounded rumor.

Now buying Pandora to replace their Genius feature would be amazing, but Pandora works so well because the amount of music is so small in comparison and Apple right now is anti algorithms publicly and all about human curation, so doesn't look like a pandora acquisition will be coming anytime soon as much as we want it.

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#39

Post by sjwright »

kstrauser wrote: post #22
k-mcgrady wrote: post #2

Makes sense if it's for the exclusive content opportunities. I remember seeing a report when Kanye made his new album a Tidal exclusive and the number of users they got from that deal alone was staggering. The problem is that a lot of those users will cancel after their free trial but if they keep coming back for exclusives they'll a) want to stick around b) have no free trial so will pay for a month anyway and might…

If the headphone jack rumors are true, I'd bet it has nothing to do with audio quality and is more about the limited usefulness of the old jack. It plays music fine, but has no support for microphones or controls (like the fast forward / pause button on Apple earbuds) without weird nonstandard hacks (like the extra ring on the jack of Apple earbuds).

If the headphone jack rumors are true, it will come down to reclaiming space inside the phone and possibly also waterproofing.

As long as Apple ships a small adapter with the phone, I have no problem with it.

Re: Apple in Exploratory Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

#40

Post by ben_jones »

kstrauser wrote: post #24
markcerqueira wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those 15 million are people who forgot to turn off auto-renew on their free trial?

Maybe 3. Who doesn't notice $10 a month on their card? People with little spare money would feel it, and people with lots of spare money usually get that way by paying attention to their finances.

You're right, consumers who buy the newest iPhone each year are real penny pinchers. \s
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