Apple Pushing Record Labels for More Exclusive Beyonce-Like iTunes Albums

Apple’s iTunes chief Robert Kondrk met with record label executives during Grammy Week in January about the potential of more exclusive album releases, like Beyoncé’s iTunes-exclusive album last December, according to Billboard.

Apple Inc.’s music chief Robert Kondrk has been pressuring major labels for releases similar to last year’s Beyonce exclusive, excluding services like YouTube and Spotify to help shore up slowing download sales, according to music executives familiar with the conversations.

While digital movie sales fell from 1.34 billion units to 1.24 billion units in 2013 due to the rise of streaming services like Spotify and YouTube, Beyoncé’s album sold 1 million copies globally on in a week iTunes alone.

Kondrk is using the album’s success to sell label executives on the prospect of exclusively releasing albums on digital storefronts like iTunes. He told executives the exclusives don’t have to be limited to iTunes as long as they weren’t on streaming services like Spotify. The move would be to preserve sales on digital storefronts.

Finally, Kondrk asked executives if they could lock down individual track sales until after a certain window of time, which would then allow users to purchase individual music tracks and listen to albums on streaming services. This is in stark contract to Steve Jobs’ sell of unbundled legal access to music when the iTunes Music Store was introduced in 2003.

In January, it was reported that digital music sales declined year-over-year for the first time since the opening of the iTunes Music Store as more users opt for streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio, Pandora and iTunes Radio.

Excerpt From New Book Offers Look at Tim Cook’s Management Style

The Wall Street Journal today published a new excerpt from former WSJ reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane’s new book Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs, offering a new look into the management style of Tim Cook.

Kane notes that when Cook started at Apple in 1998, he set high expectations for everyone working for him, asking them to act like Apple was a $20 billion company when they were a $6 billion company and to procure the best yields, delivery and prices on components.

To some, Cook was a machine; to others, he was riveting. He could strike terror in the hearts of his subordinates, but he could also motivate them to toil from dawn to midnight for just a word of praise.

Cook ran his operations meetings in an orderly and disciplined fashion, going through every item and finding any possible error in meetings that could last up to six hours long. These meetings, according to Kane, could sometimes be terrifying for employees.

Meetings with Cook could be terrifying. He exuded a Zenlike calm and didn’t waste words. “Talk about your numbers. Put your spreadsheet up,” he’d say as he nursed a Mountain Dew. (Some staffers wondered why he wasn’t bouncing off the walls from the caffeine.) When Cook turned the spotlight on someone, he hammered them with questions until he was satisfied. “Why is that?” “What do you mean?” “I don’t understand. Why are you not making it clear?” He was known to ask the same exact question 10 times in a row.

Unlike Jobs, Cook apparently used deafening silence when he wasn’t happy with something. For instance, the excerpt explains an incident where someone was unable to answer one of Cook’s questions so Cook didn’t say a word and let the silence fester, causing everyone in the room to stare at the table. The atmosphere of the room would grow to intense levels as Cook kept his eyes on the person who wasn’t able to answer until Cook pulled out an energy bar from his pocket to eat as he waited for an answer.

However, once Cook became CEO he made moves to make Apple feel more open internally than it had under Jobs. He opted to communicate with employees more often via emails and town-hall meetings. And, unlike Jobs, who opted to have lunch with Jony Ive, Cook would have lunch at the cafeteria and introduce himself to employees he didn’t know and ask to eat with them.

Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs will be published on March 18.

Apple Launching ‘iOS In The Car’ Next Week With Ferrari, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz

Nearly a year after it was announced, Apple appears ready to introduce launch partners for its “iOS in the Car” initiative, according to a report in the Financial Times. The piece claims Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari — where Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue is a board member — will be Apple’s initial partners.

Though it does not mention iOS in the Car by name, the article claims drivers will be able to use Apple Maps for navigation on the car’s in-dash screen, as well as watch movies, listen to music, make calls and send text messages through the system with full Siri integration.

The FT says the announcement will be made at the Geneva Motor Show next week, one of the premier motor shows on the calendar.

The technology group will next week launch its first in-car operating system with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo as it attempts to take the lead in a fierce race to dominate tomorrow’s smart cars.

[…]

The deal marks the first time that Apple is embedding its software in devices other than its own branded products. The choice of the Ferrari, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz is seen to be in keeping with the US tech group’s high-end phones.

Apple executives have said in the past that iOS in the Car is “very important” to the company and is an essential “part of the ecosystem”. At it’s WWDC keynote last year, Apple claimed it was working with a number of partners including Honda, Nissan, Chevrolet, Hyundai, and more, in addition to Ferrari, Volvo and Mercedes. It was reported earlier this year that iOS in the Car had been plagued by organizational issues but, if the FT report is accurate, it would appear the project is quickly moving towards a public launch.