GIVING ITUNES A RUN FOR ITS MONEY

iPhone Spotify, a Swedish music-streaming program, recently announced it is launching an iPhone application, if Apple lets it. The twittering classes have been debating over whether or not Apple ought to welcome a program that threatens to beat their iTunes at its own game. The argument reduces to a basic truth: Spotify is the quintessential post-Apple program (dare we say postlapsarian?). It combines Apple's elegant reliability and ease of use with a comprehensive catalogue of music and a very non-Apple emphasis on the ability to create and share playlists with friends, for free.

Its founders hit on a simple realisation: that the essence of modern music ownership is not the physical presence of the album, whatever you might hear from the more entrenched vinyl junkies and high-fidelity nerds. It is rather the qualities associated with ownership: that you can listen to the record wherever and whenever you like. Like Britain's we7, Spotify streams music on demand to European computers in exchange for the occasional advertisement, legalising what many have been doing illegally. "It is a bright spot in the music industry’s long, perilous journey to the digital world," heralds The Economist. "If 95% of music downloads are illegal... there is a huge potential market for legitimate music. Free streaming appears to be tapping it."

It looks likely that, to begin with at least, the iPhone application will only be available to those signed up for Spotify's premium service (£9.99 per month). If iTunes does not respond to its increasingly mature-looking disciples, it is fighting a war it is sure to lose.

~ ED CUMMING

Picture credit: Dylan Parker (via Flickr)