Watch out Spotify!

Google & Apple are hot to take on Spotify, the subscription based music delivery service.

Hear a track you don’t know, Shazam it. Spotify it. Got it. Simple. And all for a tenner a month! (Unless you’re a Beatles fan, and a few others who haven’t signed up). I’m still desperate for a ‘Genius’ style button so I don’t have to make playlists, but apart from that, Spotify just works. It’s great.

So what’s the problem?

For us, the consumer there isn’t one. It’s happy days. We get great music, easily, quickly and cheaply, but Spotify is soon to become the victim.

Apple has been waiting in the wings, watching Spotify prove the business model. Knowing that if iTunes profits were to fall, or if Spotify were a hit (uhuh), they *could* simply turn on a subscription based version. Plus, to nail coffins – This side of Xmas, Google are releasing their own cloud based music service.

So what happens to Spotify?

It will eventually sink I imagine. Unless they move into movies, offer a better service or diversify in some other way. They do have the heads up but Apple and Google have the infrastructure, the licensing agreements and a HUGE international customer base.

Sign up to alternatives now and see what you think. Also keep your eye on Apple TV & AirPlay (especially how the latter could be used in non-Apple products. V interesting.)

PS Watch Facebook Places kill Foursquare & Gowalla location based social media platforms. A sad .com fact of life. Sometimes the 15 minutes is cut a little short.

Dan

www.theengineroom.co.uk

Making sure IT doesn’t start with S and H

New Apple Toys

A quick run down of the new stuff Apple introduced at yesterday’s talk:

• New iPods, Shuffle, Nano and Touch.
• New iTunes 10
• Ping, social networking for music in iTunes
• Apple TV and AirPlay
• iOS 4.1 and 4.2
• Game Center

The New iPods

These are so cool. Now even smaller, the Nano just looks like something you could ware as a watch. In terms of size, Tom says ‘The new Nano is to the old Nano as the old Nano was to the Mini’, it’s actually tiny and cool, rather than just a small version of the larger one. The Shuffle just shows how much technology has changed and how something so small can hold so much music and play for so long.

The new Touch is just like an iPhone 4 now, just without the phone. One of the new great things they introduced is FaceTime over wifi,  you can now make calls with it to other iPhone or iPod Touch users for free. As Jobs pointed out, it’s just like an iPhone without the contract.

Hand in hand with the new range of iPods is the new iTunes. They changed the icon as iTunes downloads is set to overtake CD sales and it has a new, smoother, interface, as every iTunes version seems to have.

The major new feature is Ping, a social network for finding new music. Basically Apple’s version of Spotify.

There’s also the new iOS updates coming out, giving the iPad wireless printing. It will also introduce the ‘Games Centre’ an Xbox Live/PSN for Apple products. Giving you friend’s lists and achievements for your iPhone/iPod Touch gaming. Not really something new or innovative, but welcome all the same. I imagine great fun will be had on the morning commute between colleges.

Apple TV and AirPlay, what used to be AirTunes will now cover streaming media like photos and TV shows. £99 for Apple TV and the ability to stream any of the shows or movies you buy through iTunes onto your TV. Seems a bit excessive for what it is, you could just plug in a laptop directly.

Amazon followed up with their own announcement of matching the 99c rental cost for shows, while Apple claims that users can view their Netflix rentals through it. Not that relevant for us here in the UK though, Apple advertises a starting price of £2.50 for SD movies here.

All in all, a pretty good show by Apple. They’ve given us a look at some great tech to play with while catching up in providing what others like Microsoft and Spotify provide.