So, Taylor Swift persuades Apple to pay royalties to artists during Apple Music's free ninety-day trial, and a new meme is born. One where she can solve world hunger and bring about world peace. Who doesn't love a good meme?

But what really happened? Could Apple instantly turn on a dime like that, assuming that this was not all a pre-planned publicity stunt? Based on my prior observations with high-stakes corporate negotiations, I think so.  Here is what I think happened.

CNET reports: Hack affected every single federal employee, union says

These headlines have been coming in fast and furious over the past couple of weeks and if I was an Android user they'd be making me nervous. It appears that foreign hackers were able to successfully penetrate U.S. Government servers and steal all personnel data on every single employee.  

Tuesday's keynote for the developers conference did not disappoint. There were a lot of things I'm happy to see coming but when I think back after a couple of days, these were the most memorable.


Opening Video - Ha! That was the best opening video for a corporate keynote ever. Bill Hader's clever performance managed to work in all those app references and be funny without resorting to R-rated comedy. To whomever put that together, job well done. 

El Capitan – What a name. If naming the next version of OS X after a granite structure doesn’t say “stability,” I don’t know what does. Yeah, it’s a bit awkward to say, but from a messaging standpoint it was spot on. And the fact that the underlying performance enhancements are going to apply to old hardware is amazing. The market knows that Macs sell for a premium over Windows based PCs, but Apple is also demonstrating that there are real benefits to buying from a company who tailor makes the OS to its hardware. Like getting efficiency and battery improvements years after purchase.

iOS 9 – Split window multi-tasking for my iPad Air 2! Yes!!! 'Nuff said.

Proactive - Everyone knows what it's like to try and use web services when you have a bad or slow cellular connection. Adding a predictive assistant to the device sounds like a great idea on two fronts. One, you get the performance boost of it being locally on your phone instead of sending data to a server across the country and waiting for a response. And two, you enjoy the privacy that there isn't a server somewhere storing all your data. Apple is fast becoming the better choice for people who enjoy Google services. 

News App – Conspicuously showcasing a blog like Daring Fireball during the News App demo  was a sign that Apple is trying a new tack and going after the tastemakers. The opposite of what they did with The Daily, the first ever iPad-only news app. Back during The Daily’s launch in 2011, they went for mass-market appeal through the use of original news with lots of embedded media that would hopefully attract the masses. It never happened. Now Apple is allowing popular bloggers to upload their content. Brilliant decision. There is a much better chance that these bright comets will have a nice long tail of an audience that will follow. 

Apple Music – The biggest story to me with Apple Music is the three months free. Everyone I know who does streaming said that after they "tried" it they got hooked. Apple is primarily going after the huge market who hasn't started streaming yet. Three months is long enough to hook someone for life, and if you don’t see the value in streaming after three months of use, then I doubt six months or longer is going to make a difference. Imagine the hundreds of millions of people who have yet to sign up with any service. Apple isn’t looking to convert the Spotify fans. Poaching users from rival services doesn’t make any financial sense until the low-hanging fruit is all gone.