It almost seems as if a growing number of my columns are very much about comparing the present with the past, or just remembering something I did or observed years ago and how it relates to a current event. So I read an article about the iPod’s 15th birthday. But this is something Apple won’t make […]

Years ago, the late Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, proudly proclaimed that people wanted to own their music. In touting the iTunes Music Store, he said it was the best way to get the music you want at affordable prices. For the music industry, the iPod and iTunes were salvation for a time. Stung by loads of […]

When stories first appeared in the mainstream media that Apple was in deep negotiations to buy Beats, a company that builds fancy headphones and other accessories, and runs a music streaming service, for the princely sum of $3.2 billion, there was a media freakout of sorts. Apple’s stock price dropped as analysts wondered just what Apple […]

When the iTunes Music Store (that’s before they added movies and TV shows) first appeared, the pricing structure was absolutely rigid. Steve Jobs, they said, was obsessive about simplicity, witness the fairly limited Mac lineup since he took over Apple. So it would be now and forever 99 cents per song. When TV shows were […]