Tim Cook says Apple could have built a subscription music service, but didn't need to
"Could Eddy's [Cue] team have built a subscription service? Of course." That's what Apple CEO Tim Cook told the New York Times today following the announcement that it had acquired Beats Electronics. But the fact of the matter remains, the company didn't. Instead it went out and purchased a pre-existing service. As the digital music industry shifted away from paying for individual tracks and albums towards an all-you-can-eat model, iTunes stuck to its guns. That's left Cupertino in the slightly odd position of not being at the forefront of innovation in the industry. Observers have been suggesting that Apple would launch it's own Spotify killer any day now, but Tim Cook seems to believe the company's resources would be better used else where. "We could've built those 27 other things ourselves, too," referencing the 27 other companies acquired over the last year, "you don't build everything yourself." That's especially true if you think that you're buying the "first subscription service that really got it right," as he told Re/code.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/28/a...music-service/
