Sandoval reports, “Jobs’ own lucid and careful contemplation of the music industry is apparent in a 2003 interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine’s Jeff Goodell. My colleague Tom Krazit pointed me to the story after stumbling on to it recently. We were bowled over by the preciseness of Jobs’ assessment of what the future held for digital rights management, music subscription services, the four largest recording companies, and Apple. The interview in retrospect is a fascinating read.”
“Jobs correctly predicted that attempts by the major labels to find a technological solution to piracy would fail. When it came to subscription music services, he said the public would reject them. He foresaw a day when iTunes would sell 1 billion tracks a year–a bold statement, considering that at the time, iTunes had only sold 20 million songs,” Sandoval reports. “One can sense from Jobs’ comments that he was ready to pounce on a music sector that five years ago possessed precious little tech savvy. He described leaders at the top labels as technologically innocent.”
Sandoval reports, “Also by 2003, Jobs had concluded that Apple was ready to move beyond computers. He suggested that his company’s talent at melding innovative hardware and software designs could help it build winning consumer products.”
“Jobs warned that competitors would find it difficult to duplicate the success of Apple’s iTunes music service, then just 8 months old. Yeah, that’s another thing that’s striking about the interview. In every word, there’s a fierce confidence,” Sandoval reports. “At one point, Goodell asks Jobs if he wrung his hands over the decision to bring iTunes to Windows. The tech legend responded, ‘I don’t know what hand-wringing is.'”
Full article, with highlights from, and a link to, the interview: here.
MacDailyNews Take: This is an excellent companion piece to the interview we reported on yesterday which shows Jobs was eerily prescient on a much wider range of subjects way back in 1985 at the ripe old age of 29: Mac at 25: Playboy republishes extensive February 1985 interview with Steve Jobs – January 29, 2009
