Slacker’s CEO On iTunes Radio And Apple’s Walled Garden
"Maybe people want to rent music, after all," wrote Slacker CEO Jim Cady, reacting to Apple's late entry into music streaming with yesterday's announcement of iTunes Radio. In addition to his touch of scarcasm, Cady wanted to remind us that, however well designed, Apple is still a closed eco-system.
“Apple
finally jumping into the streaming music space validates the work we’ve been
doing at Slacker since 2010, offering anytime, anywhere access to the world’s
music library on any device,” Cady continued.
“Apple creates great products, but unless you’re in the Apple ecosystem
you’re out of luck. Walled gardens don’t
benefit listeners and Slacker believes in the importance of giving users true
freedom to access their content, whether they’re on iOS, Android, Windows, a
smart TV, Xbox or in-car infotainment system.”
According to Apple, iTunes Radio will have 25 Million song titles in its library versus Pandora’s 900 Thousand; additionally, iTunes Radio will be native to IOS7 devices. Finally, an add-free Pandora subscription is $3.99 per month versus Apple’s $1.99 per month with iTunes Match subscription. I have been a Pandora user since it has been available on my iPhone, but I plan to try out iTunes Radio immediately and will switch altogether if it only matches or is relatively close to matching my current experience with Pandora.
Apple’s strategy is not to be ubiquitous across every platform, but to bring more value to its own platform; subscriber retention, new subscriber adoption, and affecting defections from competing platforms onto Apple’s platform.