Our Question of the Week this week concerns Elon Musk’s recent comments on Apple’s car efforts. In an interview with a German newspaper, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said (among other things), “You can’t just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car.” Our Question of the Week is to what extent Elon Musk’s comment was justified. Around that middle topic, we have two others: we kick off the episode with a review of some of the findings of Jan’s recent music consumption surveys and what they tell us about Apple Music usage and subscribership. And our third and final topic is Marco Arment’s new Overcast app and its unique patronage-based business model, the controversy it’s caused, and what it says about the state of the iOS app market. And we wrap up, as always, with our Weekly Pick.
The SoundCloud Player is embedded below, and beneath that are links to other versions of the podcast and a host of links to things we mentioned on the show today and other relevant items.
We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also now have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.
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Show notes:
Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:
- The Jackdaw Research website, where Jan’s music survey report will be published in the next few days.
- Reinventing My Music – Jan’s piece on Apple Music from Apple, on Techpinions.
- Elon Musk’s comments on Apple making cars, as reported by MacRumors.
- The Auto News piece Aaron mentioned, which lists many of the suppliers Tesla uses for components in its cars.
- YouTube video of Tesla S assembly (made by Wired).
- YouTube video of Mac Pro assembly (made by Apple).
- Steven Levy’s piece on Apple’s design process for the new iMacs and related peripherals.
- An earlier episode of the podcast, when we discussed Apple’s car moves.
- Marco Arment’s post on the new Overcast app, and his follow-up post in response to critics, including Michael Anderson and Samantha Bielefeld.
- Adobe’s apps on the iOS App Store, including the new and updated ones Jan mentioned as his Weekly Pick.
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