By John Murrell: Siliconvalley.com | Wednesday | 19/03/2008
In his public pronouncements, at least, Apple's Steve Jobs has consistently pooh-pooh the idea of subscription music services. "Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it," Jobs said in an interview almost a year ago. "The subscription model has failed so far. ... People want to own their music." That final declaration was widely quoted, but the more significant part of the quote may have been "never say never."
Even as Apple rose to comfortably dominate online music sales, the company has been keeping tabs on the subscription market, just in case. In 2005, just after Yahoo launched its Music Unlimited service, Business Week reported that Apple execs made the rounds of music execs with some serious questions about a subscription strategy. Nothing came of it at the time, but now the Financial Times is reporting that Apple is once again sniffing around the rental market. According to the FT, and buttressed by other sources, Apple is in talks with the major music companies about several approaches to a subscription model. One plan, along the lines of Nokia's "Comes With Music" program, would charge a premium -- as much as $100 more -- for iPhones and iPods bundled with lifetime unlimited access to the iTunes library (that's the device's lifetime, not yours).
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