How Tim Cook can fix Steve Jobs’s biggest failure or something

“At times like these, you recognize just how badly Apple misses Steve Jobs,” Rocco Pendola writes for TheStreet. “If the reports are true — and Apple has hit a road block with the music industry as it pursues some form of Internet radio — you can’t help but wonder how things might be different if Jobs, not Tim Cook, sat at the negotiating table. But, hey, it is an objective truth — Steve Jobs is dead.”

“iTunes might be Steve Jobs’ single most impressive success at the same time as being his biggest failure. If Cook really is pursuing ‘iRadio,’ I bet he’s doing it to make iTunes something more than a serviceable platform from which to play your vast music collection. Because that’s really what it is,” Pendola writes. “That quick summary leaves out a major detail. Steve Jobs took the music industry for a ride.”

MacDailyNews Take: Yes, Jobs took the music industry on a ride from certain death into a future where they still exist.

“Steve Jobs knew. And Apple knows. Spotify is everything iTunes should be, but is not. That, for all intents and purposes, is the impetus for Apple’s Internet radio ambitions, assuming they exist,” Pendola writes. “To roll iRadio into the iTunes platform and make it sing or to offer it as a standalone service so we’ll forget about how ho-hum iTunes really is.”

MacDailyNews Take: “Ho-hum?” Maybe it’s your “music” collection, Rocco.

Mossberg reviews Apple’s iTunes 11: Significant improvement, cleaner, and easier to use – December 5, 2012
CNET reviews iTunes 11: Complete makeover brings speed; Apple on the right path – November 30, 2012

“If Apple wants in the space, it needs to buy Spotify. That would be a big deal. Give every person with an iTunes platform the ability to toggle between iTunes as we know it and Spotify as it is,” Pendola writes. “In no way do I advocate or endorse this acquisition. I consider it a waste of Apple’s time… Revenue from Internet radio amounts to a pimple on Apple’s behind.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: One-note Rocco strikes yet again. Tim Cook isn’t Steve Jobs, so blah, blah, blah. This grew tedious the third time you trotted out this act, Rocco, a hundred similar articles ago. Try out a new trick for a change, pony.

Rocco Pendola isn’t half the hit-whore Troy Wolvertone was, so TheStreet.com is doomed.

Related articles:
Has Tim Cook become a liability at Apple? – March 4, 2013
Tim Cook continues to slowly kill post-Steve Jobs Apple or something – September 21, 2012
Apple’s downfall is coming courtesy of Tim Cook – April 20, 2012

27 Comments

        1. F2T2: Thanks for making me throw up my lunch. Here I had moved 3000 miles to get away from the San Hosay Murky Sleaze (and that wienie waver Troy Wool-fart-on), and you have to provide a link to the whore of Silicon Valley. Not one of my friends at Apple likes him either.

    1. If Pendola was as smart as he believes he is, he’d know that Eddy Cue was the one responsible for negotiating the initial music contracts that led to iTunes success.

  1. A nobody trying to get the attention they crave by belittling people a billion times more successful at anything than they will ever be. That’s all. Nothing to see folks, let’s move it along.

  2. No, no, no.

    Steve Jobs was right all along:

    I want my music in my device, so I can control it, and listen to it as many times as I want to. Internet Radio is OK, but the CHOICE of me listening to a song whenever I want to, being online or offline, from my computer, iPod or iPad, is only feasible having control over your media.

    Subscription based music… no, thanks. You stop paying and your music goes bye-bye? No, thanks.

    1. That’s not how it would likely work with Apple.

      It would be ad-supported (iAd). No subscription fees. Think “universal jukebox” for “free.”

  3. “Music streaming service Spotify has shared that it now has over 5 million paying customers globally, from a pool of 20 million total active users. The United States now sports 1 million paying users, showing that the social music service has found significant traction in the country.”

    http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/06/spotify-announces/?fromcat=all

    As of September 2012, the iTunes Store possesses 400 million active user accounts, and serves over 315 million mobile devices, including iPods, iPhones and iPads.
    Wikipedia

  4. I gotta go with subscriptions. I never, ever, ever thought I’d feel that way. I love Pandora and Spotify though. I’ve stopped buying music.

    I just watched the trailer for Joss Whedon’s new Shakespeare movie, “Much Ado About Nothing.” (Fully of Buffy Alumni). The trailer is very slick looking with Saint Germain’s “I want you to get together” playing in the background. Now I want to hear, “I want you to get together” and other Saint Germain masterpieces. Just gonna pop into Spotify, type Saint Germain, and hit play. Love that.

  5. MDN you are right about the constant references to Steve Jobs by everyone. He’s dead. Everybody needs to just move on. Steve Jobs was not the only reason that Apple succeeded. Tim Cook and present company will succeed or fail on their own merit. And personally I believe iTunes could be much better. It seems that Apple builds the best hardware and software but don’t do as well with services.

  6. Did everyone forget that its Eddy Cue who is running the label negotiations, NOT Tim Cook? Sure Steve did the initial strong sales to get the iTunes Music Store up and running, but from there its all Eddy.

  7. 5-6 years ago I thought Pandora was the biggest thing ever, and that Apple should’ve acquired the service altogether. Now…I dunno. Still, even though I don’t give a single fuck about Spotify (mainly because they require a Facebook account to register) I very much doubt that Apple will get as good as Pandora or Spotify.

  8. I wonder how Spotify got their license in the first place. I’ve read that the artists share of the deal is minimal. Basically the deal is ripping off the artists.

  9. Crass or just incoherent?

    But, hey, it is an objective truth — Steve Jobs is dead.

    Oh really?

    That, for all intents and purposes, is the impetus for Apple’s Internet radio ambitions, assuming they exist.

    So this entire cuckoo article is based on pointless speculation. And you get PAID for this rubbish? August Effect much? Hey dude. It’s March! Turning in foolish filler verbiage doesn’t cut it. 😛

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