“With consumer behavior increasingly shifting toward access to a music catalog from ownership of specific songs, Apple launches an iRadio service,” Richard Greenfield blogs for BTIG Research in “BTIG’s Top 13 Media Predictions and Events to Watch for in 2013.”
“We expect iRadio to be incorporated into the iTunes iOS app with personalized radio functionality akin to Pandora, integrated with iTunes to purchase music and other music related content such as concert information/tickets/merchandise via Live Nation and Ticketmaster. We believe Apple is negotiating direct deals with music labels to offer a far more robust service than current digital radio services that rely on compulsory licenses,” Greenfield writes. ” iRadio will not only be a global solution, but will include increased skips per hour and extended caching for offline playback. While a Spotify-like music subscription service will not be included in iRadio’s launch, we believe it could come in future iterations.”
Greenfield writes, “Despite Tim Cook’s repeated statements that the television is an area of “intense interest” for Apple (see Dec. 2012 blog, click here), the mythical Apple Television is not released in 2013. The so-called “next big thing” remains hampered by concerns over the legality of the managed/specialized service exception to net neutrality rules, TV Everywhere usage restrictions and solidifying nationwide coverage/accessibility.””
Read more about “Apple Television” and 11 other predictions for 2013 (Hulu and News Corp. sitting in a tree, Instagram ads, and more) in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, according to Greenfield, at least, 2013 will be more like 1920 than 1928, digitized.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]