There are indications, coming from Apple staffers who have leaked information, that the company is planning to shift their entire music business away from selling tracks to a streaming model founded entirely on their Apple Music platform.
If the reported move is true, it would herald the end of a chapter kicked off by Apple when they dragged the music industry kicking ands streaming into the digital era. Before iTunes made it possible to easily purchase music online, the most common digital music format was “stolen” – if former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was to be believed.
But Apple negotiated, or perhaps strong-armed, record companies to make their inventories available digitally, initially by locking down the ability to share music between lots of devices through their FairPlay DRM but eventually by making the music effectively DRM-free.
But the next revolution began in Sweden when Spotify popularised the idea of not owning music but simply streaming tracks when you wanted them. Reports suggest Spotify has about 60 million paying users at the moment with Apple Music having about half as many. Both camps are growing while sales of digital downloads are falling.
It’s not hard to see a world where buying music remains a niche market. After all, people still buy CDs and vinyl has retained a loyal, but small, following. Apple is a business and while they can still turn a profit they will continue to sell music.
We’ll get a better indication of Apple’s timeline, if the rumour is true, when Apple releases a separate Apple Music app, in the same way as they have removed app management from iTunes – which is easily the company’s worst piece of software.
Will you miss the ability to buy songs? Or have you moved to streaming all your music on demand already?
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