Why can’t the Estonian president buy a song off iTunes for his Latvian wife? | Ars Technica: "PALO ALTO, Calif.—I don’t usually dress up for interviews, but I also don’t usually interview heads of state, either."

Me three, either.

Labels: itunes, spotify, streaming

Tidal artist Prince disses Apple for taking money from musicians Apple Music may be gaining an edge over rival companies like Spotify thanks to its remuneration of artists — but in a new interview, the artist currently known as Prince inexplicably blames Cupertino for musicians making no money on the Internet.

Prince is sassy enough to articulate his opinion. We like Prince.

Labels: free download, future music, indie labels, itunes, itunes radio

Beats acquisition to result in first and only Apple apps for Android & Windows Phone: "By keeping the popular Beats brand alive, Apple has found a way to give itself a presence on competing platforms — and sell music subscriptions to even more users — without directly using the Apple name."

For Apple to keep growing, they would need to address the other platforms. So I think the world "only" might be premature here.

Labels: itunes

Beats by Apple: Why a deal makes sense -- and what it says about today's Apple | VentureBeat | Media | by Devindra Hardawar
Apple’s biggest potential acquisition ever is also its most confusing."

It's not confusing to people who make and listen to music. It's confusing to upper middle class fans of bland corporate rock.

Labels: apple, beats, itunes

Rumor: Apple to offer hi-res 24-bit tracks on iTunes in coming months - Citing an unnamed source, blogger Robert Hutton claims Apple will launch hi-res audio sales "in two months" to coincide with the release of three Led Zeppelin remasters.

AAC sounds great relative to MP3. But compared to virgin vinyl, not even in the same universe. Which means music distribution is about to gain 1980s state of the art.

Labels: itunes, producing

Apple buys social media analytics firm Topsy for over $200M - Topsy offers highly targeted analysis of Twitter's "firehose," or the stream of tweets posted to the microblogging service. As a Twitter-certified partner, the firm looks at tweets and other user data to track user sentiment, find influencers for specific subjects and measure the effectiveness of Twitter ad campaigns, among other metrics.

My guess: dynamic marketing intel for iTunes content.

Labels: itunes, twitter