Apple

The linked essay makes the case that the music industry is going through an artist-friendly disruption, as evidenced by the business success of Lady Gaga. Drawing parallels to the disruptive rise of Uber, the case is made that this new business model is Beats’ true underlying value and a large part of Apple’s motivation in making this acquisition.

Good read.

Adrian Perica went to West Point, did some intelligence work, got an MBA from MIT, and made his way to Apple via his experience as an investment banker. He is now Apple’s head of M&A (mergers and acquisitions).

Perica doesn’t get a lot of press, but he played a significant role in the Beats acquisition.

9to5mac:

Hot on the heels of the announcement that Apple had acquired the Beats Music streaming service for $3 billion to help bolster its own struggling competitor, 9to5Mac has learned that Apple is introducing a new ESPN station for iTunes Radio.

That’s an incredible performance.

Yesterday, we posted about the wave of Find My iPhone ransom hacks reported in Australia. From the post:

There is conjecture that the hackers have access to some recently stolen eBay passwords and that the victims have the same password on both eBay and for their Apple ID. Regardless of whether this is true or not, this is a pointed example of why you should not reuse passwords.

This morning, Apple made a statement that lent some credence to the password reuse theory:

Apple takes security very seriously and iCloud was not compromised during this incident. Impacted users should change their Apple ID password as soon as possible and avoid using the same user name and password for multiple services. Any users who need additional help can contact AppleCare or visit their local Apple Retail Store.

Also, the ransom attack affected customers in New Zealand, Canada and the US, as well as in Australia.

The Financial Times reported [paywall] that Apple will push for Jetsons style home automation in next week’s WWDC reveal. Whether or not there is any truth to this conjecture, the home automation/internet of things space is maturing rapidly.

Forbes:

Corporate M&A decisions are increasingly being driven by offshore tax policy. It’s hard to argue the business logic of using offshore income to acquire foreign companies versus bringing the money back into the U.S. for a domestic acquisition.

Following the rough tax math of a foreign acquisition, Apple’s $3.2 billion bid would really be more like $2 billion if the transaction could take place in Ireland. Considering the fact that Apple currently has approximately $54 billion in cash parked offshore, the benefits of doing a foreign acquisition over repatriating that cash back into the U.S. become even more apparent.

Interesting conjecture.

Re/code:

The Internet is filled with tales of frustration from those who have traded in their iPhone for an Android phone only to find their text messages trapped within Apple’s cloud. The issue arises when an iPhone customer trades in his or her phone for, say, an Android device, but keeps the same phone number that Apple’s messaging system recognizes as an iPhone.

iMessage is far from perfect but has gotten much better over the past year (at least from my experience). But that said, there is a point here.

What responsibility does a tech ecosystem bear to enable customers to easily leave that ecosystem? More…