{"id":20425,"date":"2018-02-05T15:43:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T20:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=20425"},"modified":"2018-03-02T10:56:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T15:56:52","slug":"the-apple-music-and-homepod-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/05\/the-apple-music-and-homepod-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Apple Music and HomePod Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Rossignol<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

Apple Music now has 36 million paying subscribers around the world, an increase from well over 30 million<\/a> reported last September.<\/p>\n

Apple confirmed the updated total to The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>, which today reported that Apple Music is growing at a faster pace than Spotify in the United States, and could soon eclipse the service in popularity in the country.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Kirk McElhearn<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Also note that Apple Music is available in many more countries than Spotify. Spotify has a presence in 62 countries, and Apple Music is present in 117 countries, notably including India and China, where Spotify is absent.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Ben Thompson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

What HomePod shows, though, is that Apple Music is part of the strategy story. Remember, strategically speaking, the point of services is to differentiate hardware. To that end, HomePod is not exclusive to Apple devices to prop up Apple Music; rather, Apple Music is exclusive to HomePod to sell speakers. Most commentary has assumed that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Customer wants HomePod<\/li>\n
  2. Therefore, customer subscribe to Apple Music<\/li>\n
  3. Apple profits<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Again, this doesn’t make sense because Apple Music isn’t profitable!<\/p>\n

    Instead, I think the order goes like this:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Customer owns an iPhone<\/li>\n
    2. Customer subscribes to Apple Music because it is installed by default on their iPhone<\/li>\n
    3. As an Apple Music subscriber, customer only has one choice in smart speakers: HomePod (and to make the decision to spend more money palatable, Apple pushes sound quality), from which Apple makes a profit<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

      If the goal is to sell speakers, why does HomePod lack an aux input and support for Bluetooth audio<\/a>? You can’t use it from Android even if you subscribe to Apple Music there. You can’t even reliably<\/a> play audio from third-party iOS apps.<\/p>\n\n

      Previously: HomePod to Arrive February 9<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

      Update (2018-02-05): Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

      \n

      More than anything, I think Simon falls into the same trap many others do: Apple isn’t setting out to build the biggest user base, but a large paying<\/em> user base. A free trial accomplished that goal; a free tier does not.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

      Update (2018-02-06): Third-party app support may get better when AirPlay<\/a> 2<\/a> is released and apps are rewritten to use it.<\/p>\n\n

      Update (2018-03-02): See also: Exponent<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Joe Rossignol (Hacker News): Apple Music now has 36 million paying subscribers around the world, an increase from well over 30 million reported last September. Apple confirmed the updated total to The Wall Street Journal, which today reported that Apple Music is growing at a faster pace than Spotify in the United States, and could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[222,38,1230,422,101,1584,31,85,157,1257,158],"class_list":["post-20425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-airplay","tag-apple","tag-apple-music","tag-bluetooth","tag-business","tag-homepod","tag-ios","tag-iphone","tag-music","tag-spotify","tag-strategytax"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20425"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20773,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20425\/revisions\/20773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}