I think Ive is doing a little after the fact rationalization. I suspect Apple execs drank the Kool Aid for so long about the absolute importance of one-handed operation that it was difficult for them to admit they were wrong and give the marketplace what it wanted. But they could’t afford to do that anymore so they finally ripped the band aids off and just did it.

And we are all better off for them having done so. But in all honestly the new phones are more difficult to use with one hand and I do find myself fumbling with them and dropping them more as a result. I would not go back to a 3.5 or 4 inch form factor. I’m jut saying that all larger phones, even the iPhones, have some drawbacks. I don’t think the rounded edges or thinness (both of which many other large phones have as well) make that much difference in large screen usability.

When there is only 1 place to get music, and that’s whats gonna happen in the next 10 yrs

Everything you said is true but the above statement is just depressing. Why would any lover of music think this is a good thing? We would just be trading one crappy system where the artists got shafted for an even crappier one just because people are too cheap to pay what amounts to two beers a month for access to paid streaming. Why does everything have to arrive at the final price of free?.

I don’t want to live in a world where one company gets to control the marketplace and put the screws to artists even more than they already do. The only way to stop such absolute commoditization of music is to raise awareness… which is exactly what Beyonce, Swift, Thom York, The Black Keys etc are doing by refusing to let Spotify have some or all of their music.

Music is as cheap as its ever been. But apparently for some people that’s not enough. They want it all and they want i for nothing and they take great glee in watching multinational digital giants like YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, etc further tighten the screws on artists and labels.

I think a lot of artists who tried to appease these cry babies are finally saying no more. This is what our record costs. It was not free to make, nor was it free to promote, and we put a lot of care into it and this is what we think a fair price is. Even Trent Reznor has gone back to a real label after years of self releasing because its a lot of freaking work to do it all yourself.

Everything else in the word has gone up in price. A meal at freaking McDonals costs 7 or 8 bucks now but people still bitch when they are asked to spend the 10 bucks a month to listen to as much music as they want.

I’m curious, did you ever sit down with the phone in your back pocket? I sit with the 6 in my front pocket all the time but I would never dare do that with any phone in my back pocket no matter how big or small. That is just tempting the laws of leverage a little too much.

So anyone who does’t swallow the prevailing technologist party line that free-streaming-music-is-inevitable-so-stop-yer-whining-and-get-on-the-train hook line and sinker is an "industry astroturfer" or a "shekel lord"? Artist have only two choices: make nothing or accept the small change that the streaming industry overlords throw at them? Sadly that is the attitude that rules tech site message boards. Supposed fans siding with multinational corporations looking to squeeze every last ounce of profit out of what’s left of the music industry. Now who exactly is an industry shill?

If an artists does not want their music to be perceived as worthless it is totally within their rights to pull it from any service that wants to give it away for free. It does not matter who you think wronged them.. Spotify or their labels. The end result is the same. They get shafted.

I don’t blame the woman one bit for pulling her music from a service that seems hellbent on driving the perceived value of music to absolute zero while its executives make out like bandits. Its bad enough that Rdio, Beats, etc pay so little to artists but at least they are getting their customers to pay something. But the free Spotify plans are insidious. They pay less to artists than streams from the paid tiers and they train customers to expect the world to be handed to them on platter for free.

The race to the bottom only goes in one way and once we are there there is no going back. I’m tired of listening to entitled brats bitch about not wanting to pay for music. If music matters to you the least you can do is scrape together the cost of a couple of coffees a month to support it.

I agree. I’ve seen the same thing with Nilay and I even saw it with Josh when he was around. Its really frustrating to see a journalist you respect become such a deferential lapdog when they finally get a chance to ask the hard questions that should be asked.

The only thing I can guess is that like with his "press conference" this CEO has to pre-select acceptable questions. In which case its not really an interview but a glorified press release.

Such BS. Notice how this guy dances around the simple question (twice in fact) of whether MCX partners will be fined for allowing NFC payments. He so desperately wants to push this PR shit-storm off on the stores and claim they made these choices all on their own. But his casual mention that "there will be consequences" says that’s not really the case. And I love how he tries to paint an industry consortium created by Wal-Mart and a bunch of other huge national retail chains as a scrappy little startup with limited resources (I’m guessing some PR lackey told him that might play well in the tech press).

A small business who does’t take cards or who makes it a hassle to use them in 2014 is really shooting themselves in the foot. Cards are table stakes for modern businesses (especially any one who wants to attract young professionals with disposable income). Only the most curmudgeonly or short sighted tight wads would think making it more difficult for customers accustomed to paying for everything with cards will be good for business.

Card fees are simply a cost of doing business in 2014. I don’t ant to hear you bitch about card processing fees any more than I want to here you bitch about your insurance or your problems with the city works department or your product suppliers. Inside baseball in for those on the inside. It’s not the customer’s concern.

A CEO’s job is to be full of shit. They are essentially for hire politicians who have to always pait everything their companies do, no matter how sleazy, in the most positive light They are surrounded by PR types who give them talking points to feed the media. The idea that their could ever be an honest "interview" with a CEO is kind of a joke.

"I would observe parenthetically that I don’t think too many people complained when Apple went to market with the exclusive that you could only buy it at AT&T;"

A better analogy would be Apple contracturally forbidding AT&T; from selling any competing smartphone. Which they did not do (nor would have AT&T; have tolerated such a ridiculous demand… and rightly so).

This guy is a typical talking head who spins BS for a living and dances around subjects without ever giving a straightforward answer. There is no reason to believe anything he says is anything more than carefully crafted PR speak.

Yeah except MCX didn’t give a flip about competing NFC payment sitcoms until a few days after Apple Pay went live. Which means Apple Pay is what scares them, not Google Wallet or whatever other third party systems were already live but not being used by enough people to actually worry about.

So the article title in this case is accurate.

Its not just superstar pop queens who do this. Lot’s of artists reject Spotify when an album first comes out. The Black Keys, Broken Bells, etc all keep their new releases off of Spotify even though their back catalogue is there. For whatever reason it seems to work for them just fine.

How dare you question the prevailing tech world narrative that streaming is the future and any artist who rejects it is a sad old luddite stuck in the past? ;-P

Seriously, I couldn’t care less about Taylor Swift’s music but Spotify’s line about wanting to be "fair" to artists is a bunch of BS. Spotify cares about Spotify (primarily its CEO and shareholders) They are only slightly less sleazy than Pandora. If a service came along that paid artists more fairly and made that their reason for being I suspect a lot of fans would switch to them in a second.

I always talk to Uber drivers who pick me up about how it works for them. Almost universally the ones doing it on the side for extra money or part time in school like it. And almost universally the full timers trying to make ends meet while Uber pushes them into sketchy auto loans and fiddling with their rates and percentages every week pretty much hate the company.

It sounds like a classic version of slick silicon valley slime bags taking advantage of the poor and the less business inclined. Sad. In theory, Uber is a great idea but if you keep treating people like they are expendable automatons you will get a bad rep and no amount of flag waving can patch that up.

Wait, when has Apple ever cared than a new iOS feature slows down old 2 year old plus phones? They want you to buy new ones after all.

I don’t buy its about "a better experience". Jony Ive is one of our most thoughtful designers but at some basic level he still has to deal with the realities of the marketplace. And for whatever reason, people love to hear that the shiny new thing they got this year is x amount thinner and y amount lighter than the one they got last time. They have to be able to market the phone as thinner and lighter, faster etc.

Another reality is that the mobile accessory market is almost pure profit. So even though Apple could choose to make the iPhone finish more durable they continue to treat iPhones like precious jewels because that 30-50 dollar piece of plastic you buy that has the words "Made for iPhone" on it is just extra money in their pocket.

That’s wonderful that some people can see us just as normal as being straight. But I assure you its still not that way in much of American and definitely not that way in most of the world. Witness the deeply homophobic responses to Cook’s announcement in Russia and China. But keep in mind your twenty or thirty something urbanite friends are not representative of the world at large. There is still much work to be done. Which is why responses of "so what?" seem so glib.

And I thought I was just lazy for not finishing most games. But its nice to know I’m not alone. So much of what you bring up is true:

1. Open world games are fascinating but often the worst thing about them is the actual story. It always feels stilted… like an afterthought loosely draped over series of hoops they want you to jump through. In open game’s defense, novels which try to give you choice have typically failed as well. There can be only one cook in the kitchen and that cook needs to be the storyteller.

2. There is something to be said for a short succinct little game that doesn’t explain too mahny things or tell you what to do. Its more fun to simply learn through exploring. Limbo was the last game I played that really took my breath away in that way I’d love to see more 3 or 5 hour games. Limbo is the game equivalent of the tight little 40 minute album. Just the good stuff, no fluff.

Virtual tourism to another time is one of the reasons I’m interested in the game. I find it fascinating to see game designers filmmakers, authors etc doing the research to really give us a sense of what a place might have been like in the past. Its one of the reasons I loves HBO’s Rome so much. Yeah its not 100% accurate but you can tell a lot of attention to detail went into it.

Abso-frickin-lutely! Sometimes its like banging your head against a wall. I’m like "straight pride?" Do I really have to explain this to you or do you always let words come out of your mouth without thinking? Same thing with brain dead "white history month" comments.

Its the same knee jerk impulse that causes some men to write reactionary stuff like #notallmen. This isn’t about YOU. Maybe, just maybe, you could learn something about what other people experience if you would just stop formulating snarky comebacks. Keep quiet for moment and actually l-i-s-t-e-n before you respond.

There is still a world outside your little left coast bubble. Being gay is not "no big deal" in the world of professional sports. It’s not "no big deal" in the the conservative board rooms that dominate the world of business. It’s certainly not "no big deal" in the 29 states where we can still be fired for admitting who we love. And I guarantee you its not "no big deal" for the dozens of countries around the world where we can still be jailed or executed for even being suspected of being gay.

If the struggles of others is so yawn inducing or no big deal why even bother to comment? Why not just "move on" to the next article?

The situation can be sometimes still be sad but being visible and unapologetic and successful is reason for hope.

"Queer" has a long history of use by modern gay rights activists. People find it to be a useful term because it re-appropriates a word that was once used derisively against us and turns it onto its head as a celebration of who we are. And it’s an umbrella term that includes all of us (gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, questioning, etc). Its a hell of a lot catchier than saying a string of letters.