Jimmy Iovine to step down as Apple Music chief in August, take on consulting role, report ...
The music industry luminary, part of Apple since the Beats purchase in 2014, plans to give up day-to-day involvement but will stay with the company.
Jimmy Iovine, who turned 65 earlier this month, will reportedly give up his day-to-day involvement later in 2018 and step into a consulting role, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing "people familiar with his plans." Iovine is motivated, the report said, by the timing of the vesting of his Apple shares, and will step away in August.
Back in January, Iovine had denied multiple reports that he was planning to leave Apple.
Iovine, long a major figure in the music industry, cofounded Interscope Records in 1990 and presided over the conglomerate Interscope Geffen A&M while also dabbling in movie production. Along with Dr. Dre, Iovine cofounded Beats Electronics in 2008, helping to bring about a renaissance in the headphone business.
Ever since the sale of Beats to Apple for $3 billion in 2014, Iovine has worked for Apple and helped shepherd the launch of Apple Music. Others who joined Apple in that purchase, including Dr. Dre, Trent Reznor and former CEO Ian Rogers, have since stepped away.
Iovine's change in role, the Journal reported, has a chance to "raise questions about the lasting value of Apple's largest deal at a time when its acquisitions strategy is attracting new interest."
Apple executive Eddy Cue has Apple Music as part of his supervisory oversight.
Jimmy Iovine, who turned 65 earlier this month, will reportedly give up his day-to-day involvement later in 2018 and step into a consulting role, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing "people familiar with his plans." Iovine is motivated, the report said, by the timing of the vesting of his Apple shares, and will step away in August.
Back in January, Iovine had denied multiple reports that he was planning to leave Apple.
Iovine, long a major figure in the music industry, cofounded Interscope Records in 1990 and presided over the conglomerate Interscope Geffen A&M while also dabbling in movie production. Along with Dr. Dre, Iovine cofounded Beats Electronics in 2008, helping to bring about a renaissance in the headphone business.
Ever since the sale of Beats to Apple for $3 billion in 2014, Iovine has worked for Apple and helped shepherd the launch of Apple Music. Others who joined Apple in that purchase, including Dr. Dre, Trent Reznor and former CEO Ian Rogers, have since stepped away.
Iovine's change in role, the Journal reported, has a chance to "raise questions about the lasting value of Apple's largest deal at a time when its acquisitions strategy is attracting new interest."
Apple executive Eddy Cue has Apple Music as part of his supervisory oversight.
Comments
First of all... "allegedly"
I'm pretty sure, Jimmy Iovine did not sit down and design the interface for the Music app. He probably has NOTHING to do with it. He's not a programmer or UX designer. He's a music executive and producer who knows more about the industry than just about anyone else on the planet. Apple wanted to get serious about pushing back into the music industry, the 3 billion they spent for Beats was worth it, just to get Jimmy on board (and to a lesser extent, Dr. Dre). Their involvement and influence in pop music and pop culture cannot be underestimated. Whether or not you like the headphones or their music, you cannot deny that they are both extremely smart and powerful industry titans.
Music is is not central to my life though it used to be nice to have some background sounds playing. About three years ago iTunes became unusuable for me, learning to put up with the changes just was not worth it to me.
We saw this a little while back, followed by a quick backpedal from Lovine and friends.
But here it is.
Lovine can now step back and let Apple get back to making things great again.
Who cares if cook is unhappy. The customers sure are with Lovine turning an area of apple that was formerly streamlined and excellent not a disaster.
It is better now. After the outcry of Lovine's original slaughter of the service. Sure, he didn't design the UI, but he had his input there because he thought of himself as this expert on the way people need to be steered toward their entertainment, rather than, you know, letting them discover and easily choose just what they want.
His idea of curation was "oh you like that? That's nice... but here is what you really should listen to...this is what the 'cool people' listen to" and that's basically what the app did, while sporting a confused mess of a UI.
Who is unhappy? Just because some curmudgeons on a techie site say so doesn’t mean anything. Same old story.
Yeah that sounds like total BS, can you say exactly how the app does that? Mine recommends music based on my library and Likes. Where is this “cool people” option?
That's not how it works though. You feed it your likes/dislikes and your existing library and it tries to give you related items that you might like. You know, just like iTunes Genius Playlists have done for years. The more you actively use the like/dislike feature and, you know, actually feed it useful information, the more accurate its suggestions "For You" will be. Or, if you're browsing an artist, the suggestions below that are artists that have been curated as things you might also like based on the artist you're viewing.
It's like Dalrymple always complaining about how the main featured artists and stuff in there are hip hop and pop and not all the same AC/DC album he's been listening to for 30 years. Ignore the main featured artists if you're not interested in that.
Beats One Radio.