Embracing Chaos

Many times I’ve been asked about the possibility of Apple offering a subscription music service for iPods and iTunes. Here I’ll lay out why I think this will happen, what the timeline is for it, how that relates to the future of DRM, and what impact it would have on the competitive landscape. First off, I am confident Apple will launch a subscription music service. As every Rhapsody fan and many industry analysts agree, subscription services are the best way to consume music. Just like Hotmail moved email into the sky, and Google Docs are doing the same for office…

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So Apple is releasing the Safari browser for Windows. My first reaction is “great, just what we need — another minority browser.” It’s a funny move for Apple because IE will probably remain the #1 browser for quite a while just because of inertia, even as Firefox gains shares based on markedly superior features. So realistically the best Apple can hope for is #3, which really isn’t their style. Their claims about speed just aren’t going to win over users because application performance just isn’t that important for browsers on full-sized computers. On small computers with limited CPU people generally…

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