A recent article on WIRED about Spotify is very interesting. Spotify is a streaming music service has been operating in Europe for a year. It offers around 6 millions tracks, which is pretty impressive, and it will soon be coming to the US.
Similar services (Napster, Emusic et al.) have tried this subscription method providing music, and have been largely unsuccessful. Spotify works by offering a free, ad-supported option, and a premium, 10€/month option.
In the past, the subscription model has not interested me - I don't want to pay for limited access to music, I want to own it. But something about Spotify seems to work and make more sense. Perhaps it is the promise of those 6 million tracks.
Imagine this as a basis for the future of music availability. What is all the released music in the world were available on a service like Spotify. For a minimum fee (not unlike Netflix) you would have access to everything - from Bach, to Sugababes, to Tuvan throat singers. All the music of the world, accessible on your computer via the internet, without all the problems of having enough hard disk space.
You wouldn't have to worry about rights, or ownership issues, because it would all be available remotely. You could create a library of your favourite albums and songs. An über playlist, if you like. You'd access it from your phone, your laptop, and connected device. Whatever you want, whenever you want it.
Of course, to have this for free would be fantastic, but a minimal monthly fee with benefits would be acceptable.
I think this would transform the way we 'use' music in a good way. It's not dissimilar from visiting a friend with a huge music collection, discovering new music, and being able to listen to it whenever you want. THis is surely much better than ripping CDs, downloading torrents, installing into iTunes libraries, copying and backing up to disks, synchronising with iPods and iPhones.
All the music, all the time, whenever, wherever.
That could be the future of music.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Independence Day
While browsing the Twitter trends as the clock ticked to 12:01 AM and July 4th, 2009, I was sadly not surprised to see a plethora of "Happy Independence Day's" interspersed with plentiful nationalist sentiment from my American cohabitants. Not exactly a nation to shy away from nationalism, I was nevertheless a little dismayed to see so many people conflating a celebration of independence with xenophobia, arrogance and ignorance.
I wanted to say something - anything - to point out the innate hypocrisy of a nation celebrating independence and freedom while at the same time carrying out acts of war in other countries around the world in name of said freedom. The recent TV series, Kings - unsurprisingly prematurely cancelled - showed promise in highlighting the contradiction of a nation celebrating freedom yet embroiled in war; its absolute monarchic state - which Independence Day celebrates jettisoning - an ironic metaphor for the presidential state of the USA.
But I couldn't say anything. As much as I wanted to, I felt it would be too cynical of me to rain on America's parade.
Instead, I offer the words of someone far more articulate: Stephen Fry. Here, he summarizes the contradictions and hypocrisies of the land of the free, while at the same time sharing, as I do, an admiration for it's people and their belief in hope.
"So what is quintessentially American? Apple pie or Apple computers? Walmart or Wall Street? Trump Towers or Twin Towers? Jimmi Hendrix or Jimmy Stewart? Opportunity or opportunism? Small town courtesy or small-minded bigotry. Hearty milk and cookies or Harvey Milk and hookers. Blue collars, red necks, white supremacy or black power? The Simpsons or The Waltons, Family values or Family Guy, Holly Golightly or Hollywood, Penn State or the State Pen or Sean Penn, the right to life or the right to electrocute, capitalism or capital crimes, poncey dreams or Ponzi schemes, Nobel prize winners or ignoble price fixers, a country that can land men on the moon and yet has a majority who believe that angels walk amongst us – I suppose we could play this game of opposites for ever for I do not know a single thing that can be said about America whose reverse is not also true. It is a land of opportunity and yet there are more seventeen year old black youths in prison than in college. It is a land of freedom where in many states you can’t buy fireworks or alcohol or cross the street as a pedestrian where you please and where children’s books are banned and educational material suppressed if they do not square with some religious dogma or other. It is a land of church-going traditionalists and a land of freaks and fancies. A nation founded in revolution where radicalism is next to Satanism. A land of industry where indolence has created an epidemic of obesity whose walking examples, or waddling examples I should say, have to be seen to be believed. One country riven by a depth of mutual bipartisan enmity, loathing and distrust that threatens entirely to divide it into two and propel the nation into a new Civil War. However much Britain may be divided along tribal lines, it is as nothing when compared to America. The reciprocated antipathy is intense and seems irreconcilable. Did the election of Obama heal that fissure? Briefly seal it perhaps, but certainly not heal it. A hundred days later it all seems to be opening up again as wide as ever and anyone who watches Fox News will know that as far as President Obama’s political enemies are concerned the honeymoon was over before the garbled vows were out of the bridegroom’s mouth: the United States were soon disunited all over again."
http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/2009/07/04/america’s-place-in-the-world/
I wanted to say something - anything - to point out the innate hypocrisy of a nation celebrating independence and freedom while at the same time carrying out acts of war in other countries around the world in name of said freedom. The recent TV series, Kings - unsurprisingly prematurely cancelled - showed promise in highlighting the contradiction of a nation celebrating freedom yet embroiled in war; its absolute monarchic state - which Independence Day celebrates jettisoning - an ironic metaphor for the presidential state of the USA.
But I couldn't say anything. As much as I wanted to, I felt it would be too cynical of me to rain on America's parade.
Instead, I offer the words of someone far more articulate: Stephen Fry. Here, he summarizes the contradictions and hypocrisies of the land of the free, while at the same time sharing, as I do, an admiration for it's people and their belief in hope.
"So what is quintessentially American? Apple pie or Apple computers? Walmart or Wall Street? Trump Towers or Twin Towers? Jimmi Hendrix or Jimmy Stewart? Opportunity or opportunism? Small town courtesy or small-minded bigotry. Hearty milk and cookies or Harvey Milk and hookers. Blue collars, red necks, white supremacy or black power? The Simpsons or The Waltons, Family values or Family Guy, Holly Golightly or Hollywood, Penn State or the State Pen or Sean Penn, the right to life or the right to electrocute, capitalism or capital crimes, poncey dreams or Ponzi schemes, Nobel prize winners or ignoble price fixers, a country that can land men on the moon and yet has a majority who believe that angels walk amongst us – I suppose we could play this game of opposites for ever for I do not know a single thing that can be said about America whose reverse is not also true. It is a land of opportunity and yet there are more seventeen year old black youths in prison than in college. It is a land of freedom where in many states you can’t buy fireworks or alcohol or cross the street as a pedestrian where you please and where children’s books are banned and educational material suppressed if they do not square with some religious dogma or other. It is a land of church-going traditionalists and a land of freaks and fancies. A nation founded in revolution where radicalism is next to Satanism. A land of industry where indolence has created an epidemic of obesity whose walking examples, or waddling examples I should say, have to be seen to be believed. One country riven by a depth of mutual bipartisan enmity, loathing and distrust that threatens entirely to divide it into two and propel the nation into a new Civil War. However much Britain may be divided along tribal lines, it is as nothing when compared to America. The reciprocated antipathy is intense and seems irreconcilable. Did the election of Obama heal that fissure? Briefly seal it perhaps, but certainly not heal it. A hundred days later it all seems to be opening up again as wide as ever and anyone who watches Fox News will know that as far as President Obama’s political enemies are concerned the honeymoon was over before the garbled vows were out of the bridegroom’s mouth: the United States were soon disunited all over again."
http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/2009/07/04/america’s-place-in-the-world/
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Time Capsules
Nice article over at iLounge on the frustrating limitations of Time Capsule. I have to agree - I've often wondered why Apple doesn't really develop it's hardware to fully cater for modern usage. The create something with great potential that somehow doesn't quite manage to exploit it's own abilities.
Why, for example, can't I have multiple users accessing an iTunes library via wifi on the Time Capsule? Why aren't the iPhone's iTunes and Remote apps integrated into one single app? Why can't I listen to my iTunes library from my iPhone without having to use a third party's app? Why can't the time capsule we used as an AirTunes server if the basic Airport Express can? The top of the range hardware should have all the functionality of the cheaper hardware.
It's weird. It's as if some of the departments at Apple don't use the hardware they create.
Why, for example, can't I have multiple users accessing an iTunes library via wifi on the Time Capsule? Why aren't the iPhone's iTunes and Remote apps integrated into one single app? Why can't I listen to my iTunes library from my iPhone without having to use a third party's app? Why can't the time capsule we used as an AirTunes server if the basic Airport Express can? The top of the range hardware should have all the functionality of the cheaper hardware.
It's weird. It's as if some of the departments at Apple don't use the hardware they create.
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