Jobs has a new direction. While the 48-year-old chief executive’s roots are in the arcane programming codes of Silicon Valley, Jobs is today increasingly fashioning himself as a digital entertainment impresario. Over the past two years, he has turned Apple into a producer of entertainment technology for digital photos, movies and music, culminating in Monday’s unveiling of the online music service. Read the news here, here, here or here. “Faster Than the Speed of Software: The record labels have a new idea for selling music online. The only catch: This time, they are ahead of the technology needed for it to happen” Los Angeles Times report.
Online Music Service Signals New Direction for Apple Computer
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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What’s interesting here is Apple’s development of new revenue streams other than the Mac: the iPod, it’s new venture into software, and now, an online music distribution system.
Just a bit of whimsical speculation: Since it appears that Apple will be less dependent on Mac hardware for revenue in the future, I wonder if there’s a possibility they’ll open up the Mac platform to 3rd parties, at least in a limited way?
In the past, the issue has been that Apple couldn’t allow for cloning because they were reliant on those hardware revenues for survival.
Unfortunately, the side effect of that was to deny the Mac the hardware variety and the economies of scale enjoyed by the Wintel platform, marginalizing it’s appeal.
Now that Apple is developing new revenue streams, the revenue from the Mac itself will be less important.
Perhaps Apple is positioning itself to open up the Mac, and allow for the economies of scale and variety which would grow the platform itself?
NB: The LATimes report requires registration to view.
April Announcement: 19 hours, 20 minutes and 23 seconds away…
It’s safe to say that Apple will leverage such a music service. I can see free credit with the service for purchasers of new hardware. Possibly even free credit with the service for .Mac members.
The Macintosh is still a centrepiece to this strategy, and I don’t believe that the platform will be sidelined in the short term. Longer term is another matter, but in the minds of many it’s virtually impossible to separate “Apple” from “Macintosh”.
Most people I know say “an Apple” rather than “a Mac”, as an illustration. Most of them could also correct a lot of their misconceptions by visiting the ‘FAQ’ pages on Apple’s Switch site, as an illustration.
Pending on what is actually announced, this gives me some hope that Jobs & friends do see the whole bigger picture, instead of parts of it, and what they need to do if they are serious in spreading the Macintosh around. This doesn’t necessarily include a clone program…
digitaleon.
One thing apple can do to give its pc business a quick shot in the arm is port OS X to 1386. And since they are a good software house, they can even make money by providing some of the needed software
The quick shot in the arm is the new processors from IBM. There won’t be a Intel version of Mac OS X for the public. Only on a server, somewhere in Cali.
Apple seems to be pushing out on the creative work station front and the consumer electronics front. It is interesting they are basically attacking SGIs and linux types as well as the sony’s of the world, and they are doing it well.
I just hope they stay away from a purchase of a record companys….bad idea.
Tell me who has gone for OS X instead of Linux in the business world. Definitely not in the server business. Linux has more desktop market share than Apple.
Why is it that 100% the business world must use one platform? Last I remember people were free to use whatever they wanted. The Creative market has always been pretty well for Apple. I don’t know of any video editing systems running on Linux nor professional print applications for design. Apple has always done well there. Even though Linux isn’t suited for that at this time they still have a place as well in that market too.
My point… they can co-exist in the same environment, why must it always be one or the other? I know plenty of mixed environments in the business world, I’m sure you do as well. Most solution environments in the creative field probably use Windows, Macs, AND some form of Linux for a backend system. Different strokes for different folks.
There is very little chance that Apple goes to x86, as it will cut there hardware incomes. Because even if they change many things in the architecture (no pc bios, etc.), they will still use a x86 chip…
And as darwin is opensource, and already ported to x86, it won’t be too difficult to do some tricks in order to take the eventual apple/x86 binaries and put them on a standard darwin/x86 … that’s why they couldn’t really go that way.
But, this analysis is only correct if they stay with their current business model … if they manage to change it (going to a media business ?), that is, if their main incomes change from hardware to, say, media contents, then their priority could be to spread as much as possible the apple softs needed to play/use the media contents … while still earning some money from their high-standard computers (eventually x86/amd/whatever) and from the selling of Mac OS X … It is a possibility.
Frankly it wasn’t something I personnally considered as plausible some months ago, but with all the buzz around Universal, who knows ? If Apple manage to change its business model …
Yet you are completely clueless to the real cost involved with porting and maintaining a version of x86.
x86 is a b*tch of a platform, with all the devices, motherboard variations, chipset variations. It is a nightmare for current x86 to suppor them now! do you really think that Apple can do something better than Microsoft?
Anyone know what happened to Apple Records? If they still exist or someone owns the rights to their trademarks then Apple Computers will not be buying Universal Music.
Apple on x86? Nice but it won’t happen on the desktop. Maybe an Itanium Server but it will ba an Apple branded system, not your run of the mill PC hardware.
You hit the nail on the head, what do you think are the major source of problems for Microsoft? Driver support!!! That is the major source of crashes under Windows 2000/XP. Badly written third party drivers. Of course Macs are better at plug and play, Software, Hardware, and for the most part, periferals are all controlled by one company. In fact, I think it’s shameful that Macs don’t work BETTER than they do. Not that they work badly, now.
You have it wrong. Apple doesn’t have to maintain a full port. Only what they need, because in the chance that they do want to go with x86, they will go with apple PCs, tightly controlled hardware, as in the case of the PPC. Apple will NEVER need to support everything.
Read here for the idea behind it: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1393
I thought that when Apple computer started that they agreed to not go into the music business as part of their agreement with Apple records. Since they will be starting a music distribution service couldn’t Apple records question that Apple computer was weakening their trademark? People would start wondering which Apple you were talking about if you talked about music. Just wondering whether Apple’s legal team thought of this or that they have already got Apple records to ok this?
Just a bit of whimsical speculation: Since it appears that Apple will be less dependent on Mac hardware for revenue in the future, I wonder if there’s a possibility they’ll open up the Mac platform to 3rd parties, at least in a limited way?
Perhaps, but, I doubt that anything like this will happen in the near future, perhaps after 90% of it’s users are on OS X and Apple has significant revenues in other areas.
[i] One thing apple can do to give its pc business a quick shot in the arm is port OS X to 1386. And since they are a good software house, they can even make money by providing some of the needed software. [i]
Not only would porting OS X to x86 be a very bad idea, it is not anywhere near possible. If you don’t believe me, try running Darwin/x86. Unless Apple has some code hidden deep in Cupertino somewhere that none of us know about, OS X on x86 is not gonna happen anytime soon.
Skipp
Apple Records has not existed for many years now. Michael Jackson bought their assets back in the late 80’s (MJ owns the rights to all early Beatles music, incidentally, McCartney has to pay him royalties to play the material. How wrong is that?) Apple Records is no longer an issue for Apple wishing to expand into the music market.
Apple should stay away from becoming involved in any aspect of the music industry. It will be financial suicide in the end.
I think EMI now owns or is handling the Apple Records catalog.
I think problems with the Apple Records name would only come into play if Apple changed the Universal name to Apple. I’m not sure why they would. One thought about the idea of Apple as a media or entertainment company is much like how the formation of Dreamworks brought in the heads of arguably the best and brightest in their respective fields. Well, maybe bad example… but If Apple went that way, only with companies instead of people, they could easily look to Pixar, Universal (or some variation such as how they’re been rumoured to be doing with the music service), and, heck, who knows from there. Of course they’re already in the computer, software and gadget business. A few of the right steps and Apple could be a potential baby Sony(!). At least in the USA.
At the very least, it seems they’re doing their best not to sit too still in the computer industry.
This is completely OT, but McCartney doesn’t pay a dime to Jackson in royalties, nor did he lose anything that he had before Jackson bought the Northern Songs/ATV catalog (which incidentally was never an asset of Apple records).
What happened was that in order to avoid paying huge amounts of tax in the sixties, McCartney and Lennon set up a publishing company, Northern Songs, and any songs written by the beatles would be owned by Northern. Under this arrangement, 50% of the royalties went to Northern and the other 50% was distributed amongst the band and its management.
Come 1985, and Jackson buys the Northern catalog for $47 million, but all he was really buying was that 50% share of the royalties. He has limited control over the publishing aspects, as evidenced when he tried to use “Revolution” in a Nike ad. McCartney, Starr and the estates of Lennon and Harrison still get their 50% cut.
What’s more, under the original agreement, royalties are not paid to either Northern/Jackson or McCartney if McCartney performs any Beatles song (after all, what’s the point of paying a royalty to yourself). But if Jackson were to record a Beatles song, he would be liable to pay a royalty to McCartney, even though he owns the publishing rights.
Go figure.
It’s OT, but I always figured that if Apple went to x86 they would use the CPUs in their own motherboards with their own chipsets, still giving them the tight control but taking advantage of the x86 speed advances. I might be wrong though…
Why do articles about Apple always turn into discussions about OS X on i386?
Or any Unix article turns out linux discussions.
I’ve been preaching this gospel about Apple ever since Jobs came back and Apple put out iMovie and iTunes. This is the next logical step.
I must agree that becoming an actual music producer like Universal is very risky today. On the other hand, the music industry has been so clueless as to how to get back on an even keel, this could part of the solution.
If Apple goes with the IBM 970 chip and it and its offspring get Macs really fast again, I see no reason to go to x86. Like Eugenia said, it would be all tightly controlled proprietary hardware anyway.
Although it is illegal, Ballisk II allows us to emulate 68k macs if you can find a ROM file (which are all over the net). The only reason it hasn’t happened with PPC is that no one has been able to emulate it.
Surely, if Apple went x86 then these emulators with pirated ROMS would be a real problem for Apple.
Help me, where can I see the keynote?