Eddy Cue has given an interview to U.K. newspaper the Evening Standard, in which he describes the company’s long-term approach to making Apple Music work, as well as hinting at Apple’s plans to help customers avoid roaming charges when they take their iPhone abroad.
Answering a question about Apple Music subscriber numbers, Cue says that, “[W]e’re pleased with the number of people who have tried [it]. Everybody gets fixated on the short term but we’re in this for the long haul.”
In lieu of hard details about how many subscribers Apple Music has picked up (which, to be fair, are virtually meaningless until the free trial ends), this is the approach Apple has taken with questions regarding its streaming music service — talking about it in the hobby-like way it used to talk about Apple TV, or describing it in beta terms as it did with early Siri.
Apple has, however, been pushing the service hard as of late, with an Emmys ad, China launch, and series of videos designed to sell users on Apple Music. This is particularly significant this week, since the three-month free trial has now come to an end.
Cue also talks briefly about a plan Apple may have for getting rid of international data roaming charges for handsets. As the Evening Standard‘s journalist writes:
“[Eddy Cue] taps his phone and makes an offhand comment about ‘trying not to get roaming charges’ while in London which, I note, proves how insanely expensive phone calls and data can be abroad. ‘It’s sad, it’s another problem,’ says Cue. ‘We’re trying to fix it and we’re making a little bit of progress but you’ve got to convince a lot of people.'”
A look through Apple’s patents for the past couple of years doesn’t immediately highlight anything in this area, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Color us intrigued!
Source: Evening Standard
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
One response to “Eddy Cue talks Apple Music and getting rid of data roaming charges”
Strange that Eddy Cue brings this up in the UKEU. Come 2017 roaming in the EU will cease to be an issue. And we already have carriers (3) which allow us to roam large chunks inside & outside the EU really cheaply (I’m £15 a month unlimited data).
Maybe he is directing this a US operators but still strange to bring up in a UKl event.