Apple's Beats brand in April unveiled the Powerbeats Pro, a redesigned wire-free version of its popular fitness-oriented Powerbeats earbuds.
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Apple Music: 'We Worry About the Humanity Being Drained Out of Music'
In an extensive profile of Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek, Fast Company's Robert Safian recently sat down to speak for a few minutes with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California.
The topic was, of course, Spotify and Apple Music, two of the major players in the streaming music market and fierce competitors. Cook said that he looks to music as inspiration and motivation, a philosophy that's shared at Apple and has guided its focus on human-based music curation.
"Music inspires, it motivates. It's also the thing at night that helps quiet me. I think it's better than any medicine," Cook said.
While he declined to mention Spotify by name, Cook told Fast Company that Apple worries about streaming music losing the human touch, alluding to Spotify's more algorithmic approach to highlighting content.
Apple has always had an edge over Spotify due to its massive 1.3 billion active installed base, and the fact that it's never needed to worry about profitability like Spotify has. "We're not in it for the money," Cook told Fast Company.
Ek, too, didn't mention Apple Music by name, but he said he believes Spotify has something going for it that other companies don't: a singular focus. "Music is everything we do all day, all night, and that clarity is the difference between the average and the really, really good," he said.
Spotify's dedication to music and music alone is what Ek believes will ultimately help the company beat Apple and expand the Spotify service in the future.
Competing with Apple was always Spotify's plan, says Ek, even before Apple Music. Apple dominated digital music downloads via iTunes in 2008 when Spotify launched, with Ek aiming to replace the iPod with on-demand music.
Competition with Apple and working within tight margins, Ek says, has driven Spotify to be more disciplined.
Despite industry complaints and criticism from Apple, Spotify has continued to focus on free music, which is how Spotify draws in new paying subscribers. After going public earlier this year, Spotify overhauled its free listening tier, offering new features that include on-demand playlists and a data saving mode, which were previously limited to paying subscribers.
Ek believes that there's money to be made with Spotify's free tier, with radiolike advertising options. "Billions of people listen to radio, and most of that today isn't monetized very efficiently," Ek said.
Going forward, in addition to working to expand revenue via its free tier, Spotify plans to focus on artists. Ek eventually wants to get 1 million artists to make a living off of Spotify, ultimately imagining something akin to YouTube where artists and listeners can interact.
For anyone interested in the inner workings of Spotify or how Ek operates, Fast Company's full profile of the founder is well worth checking out.
The topic was, of course, Spotify and Apple Music, two of the major players in the streaming music market and fierce competitors. Cook said that he looks to music as inspiration and motivation, a philosophy that's shared at Apple and has guided its focus on human-based music curation.
"Music inspires, it motivates. It's also the thing at night that helps quiet me. I think it's better than any medicine," Cook said.
While he declined to mention Spotify by name, Cook told Fast Company that Apple worries about streaming music losing the human touch, alluding to Spotify's more algorithmic approach to highlighting content.
Cook's words embody Apple's longstanding critique of Spotify, which is that its algorithms are eroding music's spiritual role in our lives. Cook doesn't mention Spotify by name but says, "We worry about the humanity being drained out of music, about it becoming a bits-and-bytes kind of world instead of the art and craft."Despite launching just three years ago, Apple Music has 50 million paid subscribers and free trial members, with the company slowly catching up to Spotify. At last count, Spotify said that it had 83 million paid subscribers around the world.
Apple has always had an edge over Spotify due to its massive 1.3 billion active installed base, and the fact that it's never needed to worry about profitability like Spotify has. "We're not in it for the money," Cook told Fast Company.
Ek, too, didn't mention Apple Music by name, but he said he believes Spotify has something going for it that other companies don't: a singular focus. "Music is everything we do all day, all night, and that clarity is the difference between the average and the really, really good," he said.
Spotify's dedication to music and music alone is what Ek believes will ultimately help the company beat Apple and expand the Spotify service in the future.
Competing with Apple was always Spotify's plan, says Ek, even before Apple Music. Apple dominated digital music downloads via iTunes in 2008 when Spotify launched, with Ek aiming to replace the iPod with on-demand music.
Competition with Apple and working within tight margins, Ek says, has driven Spotify to be more disciplined.
Despite industry complaints and criticism from Apple, Spotify has continued to focus on free music, which is how Spotify draws in new paying subscribers. After going public earlier this year, Spotify overhauled its free listening tier, offering new features that include on-demand playlists and a data saving mode, which were previously limited to paying subscribers.
Ek believes that there's money to be made with Spotify's free tier, with radiolike advertising options. "Billions of people listen to radio, and most of that today isn't monetized very efficiently," Ek said.
Going forward, in addition to working to expand revenue via its free tier, Spotify plans to focus on artists. Ek eventually wants to get 1 million artists to make a living off of Spotify, ultimately imagining something akin to YouTube where artists and listeners can interact.
For anyone interested in the inner workings of Spotify or how Ek operates, Fast Company's full profile of the founder is well worth checking out.
[ 241 comments ]
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
13 months ago
Sounds a bit too pompous. Lighten up, Timmy, you're a multi-millionaire and most others are not - we'll take that a bit too self-servingly.
13 months ago
“I would listen to more country music if i knew what country they were singing about”
My dad, 2005
My dad, 2005
12 months ago
I'm still a firm believer that streaming music of any sort takes away the "humanity", and that includes Apple Music and Spotify and YouTube. Buying music means you own it and you directly support the makers of the music, and you can hold that collection at any time, anywhere, with service or not.
But what do I know, I still use my iPod classic and iPod nano just about every day. :P
But what do I know, I still use my iPod classic and iPod nano just about every day. :P
13 months ago
Apple has always had an edge over Spotify due to its massive 1.3 billion active installed base
So sick of this argument.
Because Spotify is not pre installed on gazillions of Android devices.
Because Spotify doesn't work on Alexa, Google Home and PlayStation (Xbox?)
Because Spotify didn't start to go after the carriers and made them pre install Spotify and zero rate their traffic.
Because Spotify isn't owned by the big boys in music (Warner, EMI and Universal).
13 months ago
I personally never even use Apple Music's discover feature. I know the music I like and don't need Apple helping me find more.
I would actually like to use that feature to find more music that I like but unfortunately I always get the same recommendations. It‘s either music I already listen to or Hip-Hop/Rap which I hate. Disliking doesn‘t help either. I‘ve already deleted the handful Hip-Hop/Rap songs that were in my library, disliked every single Hip-Hop/Rap playlist and „Essential“ album and redid the „Choose Artists for You“ several times. Their Algorithms are just crap. They should work on them instead of saying "We worry about the humanity being drained out of music, about it becoming a bits-and-bytes kind of world instead of the art and craft.".
13 months ago
I personally never even use Apple Music's discover feature. I know the music I like and don't need Apple helping me find more.
13 months ago
Apple has always had an edge over Spotify due to its massive 1.3 billion active installed base, and the fact that it's never needed to worry about profitability like Spotify has. "We're not in it for the money," Cook told Fast Company.
Except for those of us who have gone back to Spotify because Apple Music has dismal recommendations.
[ Read All Comments ]
For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Reolink to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win an Argus 2 wire-free rechargeable home camera and a solar panel for charging it up outdoors.
...
Apple Music has renamed its "The A-List: Hip-Hop" playlist to "Rap Life."
Ebro Darden, global editorial head of hip-hop and R&B at Apple Music, will host a companion...
Samsung is believed to be Apple's exclusive supplier of OLED displays for iPhones, but it may have company soon.
In a research note shared with MacRumors, Barclays analysts said fellow...
1Password has restored the option for customers who originally purchased its iOS app to create a local vault during setup, after users queued up online to voice their frustrations with the fact that...
Apple is planning to open an office in highly desired location in Vancouver, Canada reports Bloomberg. The company has leased space in a 24-story office building at 400 West Georgia owned by...
Elevation Lab, known for its line of popular iPhone charging docks, today released the FamilyCharger, a multi-charging setup designed to allow you to charge all of your devices in one place.
The...
Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming macOS Catalina update to its public beta testing group, two weeks after seeding the second public beta and a day after seeding the fourth developer...
Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 13 update to its public beta testing group, two weeks after seeding the second public beta and day after seeding the fourth developer beta of...
