1. “speculation is already rife that Apple won’t accept Spotify’s planned iPhone app because it’s too much of a threat to Apple’s iTunes music store.” Or it might accept the app, just like it has accepted several other streaming music apps like Flycast, Pandora and Slacker.

2. “And in that respect, Apple’s decade of investment in music and current domination of the online music world may become an Achilles’ heel, as Android’s openness and neutrality give it greater flexibility than Apple’s closed system” Apple’s system is not closed anymore. I can buy songs from anywhere or rip them from CDs and then play them in iTunes. I can buy songs on iTunes without DRM and play them on my crappola LG phone.

3.” Thus far, Apple has shown considerable flexibility in working with streaming music providers” and they will probable continue to do so, don’t ya think?

4. “But those advantages could erode as increasingly simple and powerful apps are introduced on mobile devices — applications Apple may have to reject” or not. Apple never considers simple and powerful apps, does it?

5. “Apple will have to make new choices to fend off its competition.” Wow, that is an amazing insight and Apple has done so poorly in this regard in the past they currently own 80% of the downloads market and 80% of the mobile media player market.

Caching is a great mechanism, but Apple seems to dismiss such products. It is unfortunate.

Also please note that people tend to do other things besides listening to music all day. And they tend to pick favourites and listen to them. So for the typical person, it makes more sense to buy a song. I am sure Apple have made many studies to reach the conclusion to stay away from the subscription model so far.
The reason record companies like it, is because they think if they turn music into a utility business, they can charge every inhabitant on earth a monthly fee, and not have to worry about running a competitive business any more. Wishful thinking!

Mobile streaming service . . . just the thing to suck battery life on any mobile device!

As for Music Store profit, Apple used to say often at its conference calls that its iTMS was break-even or made a little profit after subtracting out its bandwidth, hosting, credit card, and store mgmt expenses.

If we say build an application that contains video commentary on an album and embed music as well (these are waiting for Apple to approve), the rejections states that it confuses iTunes users. Then why can’t we download the music to iTunes and play it from the application? My belief is that music will primarily be sold as music experiences in the future. The music will be one aspect that is usable outside of the experience. Streaming is at best an introductory mechanism. People use music in other ways, and the platforms need to support this.

iTunes is being defended as some shining citadel that offers the best user experience possible, rather than simply the best experience under current scenarios. If Android offered a better media experience in terms of interaction, I can see the platform making inroads. Competition is good, and my recent experiences have proven this. As a lifelong Apple user, I am upset enough to happily leave the platform behind. The experiences of NIN and in our case Aiden will provide reasons for companies to move elsewhere as the opportunities arise. The less they invest now, the lower the barrier to transitioning.