SA gets Apple Music service early
APPLE’S Worldwide Developers’ Conference in San Francisco this week was notable for a dizzying range of tweaks and fixes for existing products. As a result, many commentators dismissed the event as “Apple playing catch-up”. The company’s share price slipped even as the announcements were being made, and continued to trend lower for much of the week.
But some analysts have pointed out that it is an annual tradition. Since 2008, Apple’s share price has maintained a trend of falling on the day of the conference. The reason used to be simple, as Fortune pointed out the week before this year’s event: Apple investors buy the rumour and sell the news.
Nowadays there are few surprises in an era when the consumer-technology rumour mill tends to be astonishingly accurate. It was no surprise when CEO Tim Cook announced the launch of Apple Music, a musicstreaming service designed both to compete with subscription services like Spotify and to complement Apple’s own iTunes music store. It will go hand in hand with a 24-hour radio station called Apple Beats 1, available globally — including in South Africa.
The one surprise here, perhaps, was the news that Apple Music will be available in 100 countries from the start, as opposed to previous phased rollouts, which tended to put South APPVENTUROUS: Apple CEO Tim Cook waves before speaking during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, US, on Monday. Analysts say Apple played catch-up at the event with tweaks to existing products and services Africa at the back of the queue. Now South Africans are likely to see Apple Music available here on Android and iOS devices from June 30.
More predictably, Apple unveiled iOS 9, the next version of its mobile operating system, and OS X El Capitan, the new version of its operating system for Mac computers.
Announcements of tweaks and improvements involved products such as Apple Watch, which will get a software update to allow it to run some apps “natively” on the device, rather than relying on the wearer’s iPhone. Rival smartwatches already have that option. Comparative to Google Maps, Apple Maps will now include public transport systems.
Perhaps the biggest surprise — but still an example of Apple matching benefits offered by other manufacturers — was the introduction of multi-tasking for iPads. Rival tablets running Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows operating systems have long been capable of running multiple apps at the same time. Apple stuck doggedly to the single-app approach, ostensibly to guarantee an optimal user experience. But with rumours of a large-format iPad on the way, it needed to show it could adapt to users’ needs rather than dictating to users.
Apple extended its mobile commerce system to include loyalty cards, and will combine all payment formats in a new app called Wallet. The Google Wallet payment platform has been offering that functionality since 2011.
With the latest tweaks, Apple is setting the scene for an invasion of each of the industries or market segments in which it appears merely to be catching up. If competitors think they are watching Apple in the rear-view mirror, they are already in big trouble.