This weekend, Apple changed its position on Apple Music after multi-Grammy Award winner Taylor Swift penned a blog post admonishing the company for its initial plans to not pay royalties to artists during the company's music service's free, three-month trial for users. Last night, as a response to Swift's entry, Apple‘s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, assured Swift and the rest of the Internet that the company had changed its mind and will now pay artists throughout Apple Music's free trial period. Considering TayTay's slayage (not officially a word) of Apple Music, I thought of a few more things that I think Taylor Swift could try to change.
Apple will always make sure that artist are paid #iTunes #AppleMusic
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer’s free trial period — Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
Earlier this month, at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), the company announced Apple Music as a competitor to current music streaming services like Spotify. Planned to be priced at $10 per month, Apple Music is set to launch at the end of this month and will start by offering users with a free three-month trial. Initially, the company had planned on not paying royalties to song writers, producers, or artists throughout that trial period; however, thanks to Taylor Swift, Apple reversed that decision a few hours after she posted her blog post.
“I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service,” writes Taylor Swift in her blog post. “I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.”
Responses to this news has been varied from the Internet community, with a new Twitter hashtag, #DearAppleLoveTaylor, now tracking what other things Taylor Swift should try to change. Inspired by these, here's my own list of things that we hope Tay can try to change:
- Ability to delete pre-installed apps; I am (arguably) too smart for Tips
- Size of my iPhone 6; must be able to pee without fear of dropping phone due to bulk
- Quality of my selfies; please make me prettier through Apple magic
- Lack of literal Apple magic
- People talking about a tech bubble
- Or at least change references of a bubble to that of a pimple; bubbles are fun…pimples are not
- That damn Series A crunch
- The diversity gap in the tech industry
- Our treatment of women entrepreneurs
- Majority-male venture capital panels
- Snapchat's confusing UI so I can finally be a normal Millennial who snaps
- Instagram's comment policy with URLs
- The glamorization of burnout
- Our denial of founder depression
- Our perceptions on mental health
- The near-pointlessness of Twitter lists
- LinkedIn's god-awful UX
- Amazon's iPhone app crashing every time I try to order toilet paper
- Google Chrome's performance
- My follower : following ratio on Instagram
- Our societal standards for what qualifies as success
- And our standards for beauty
- Price of Lululemon's “ABC” pants
- Netflix's judgmental tone when marathoning Gilmore Girls
- The zero dollars in my bank account
- Calories in McDonald's McNuggets
- Every dating app that isn't Tinder
- Kim Kardashian's voice
- South Carolina State Capitol's hanging of the Confederate battle flag
- The belief that we're in a post-racial society
- The number of pounds I have to lose for my #summerbod
- People's engagement posts somehow always floating to the top of my Facebook feed
- The season 5 finale of Game of Thrones
