Apple Beats The Competition

Apple announced their Apple music service at the recent developers conference. This 'teaser' ad seems to make a triangle of connections - Music, Life Moments, Apple. Omnipresence in your life via the devices ti has been working to plant seems to be the strategy. While the iPod gave you easy, reliable mobility with 'a thousand songs in your pocket', the shift is now that all of your devices can reach you everywhere and, because you are tethered to the internet you can now be bound to Apple. Instead of being a self sustained pod that you loaded with supplies you will be harness to the mothership - it will feed you the music through the umbilical of Apple Music/Beats Radio.

The difference now is that the device isn't a mute player it. Apple can whisper in your ear via DJs and advertising messages. That, strategically, is a big shift. Do consumers trade autonomy for a cost (buying your own music and programming it yourself)? Or do they accept the tradeoff of free music to be a soundtrack to their lives - though with a word or two from the sponsor?

At a time when the advertising industry is discussing the impact of ad-blocking software Apple have quickstepped the problem by creating a vertically integrated platform that offers the ubiquity of music (you don't have to focus on a screen) to get the jump on Facebook in an arena where there are only three serious contenders - Apple, Facebook and Google.