Jimmy Iovine Stories June 16, 2021
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine creating new high school for kids who feel disconnected
Beats cofounders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are creating a new high school that they say will be aiming to attract kids who feel disconnected from the current schooling experience.
It will be modeled after the University of Southern California academy they funded, and which they said was geared to the vision of Steve Jobs …
Jimmy Iovine Stories January 2, 2020
Jimmy Iovine joined Apple when the company acquired Beats back in 2014, and worked closely on the launch of Apple Music and Beats 1. In 2018, Iovine took a step back from Apple after he received his final payout from Apple’s acquisition of Beats.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Iovine elaborated on his time at Apple, the relationship between technology and the music industry, and more.
Jimmy Iovine Stories June 27, 2018
Apple’s Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre hit with $25 million bill for Beats headphones royalties
Beats was purchased by Apple quite a while back. With that being said, Apple has yet to design any Beats products in-house, continuing to use the original Beats designs. Today, Apple’s Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have been hit with damages in the millions over a Beats case from 2016.
Jimmy Iovine Stories March 21, 2018
It was reported back in January that Jimmy Iovine would be leaving Apple in August after the last of his stock vested. Iovine later denied this, describing it as fake news.
A fresh report today suggests that while he may not be actually departing from Apple, Iovine will ‘step back from daily involvement’ …
Jimmy Iovine Stories January 9, 2018
Last week, a report emerged claiming that Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine was planning to depart the company come August. In a new interview with Variety, however, Iovine refutes those claims, saying “we need Donald Trump here to call it fake news.”
Jimmy Iovine Stories January 4, 2018
Update: Bloomberg corroborates and says Iovine’s departure will come after he receives a final payout from Apple’s acquisition of Beats.
Billboard reports today that Jimmy Iovine will depart Apple sometime in August. Iovine originally joined Apple when the company acquired Beats back in 2014 and has worked closely to oversee Apple Music and Beats 1…
Jimmy Iovine Stories November 29, 2017
Jimmy Iovine has never been one to stick to Apple’s talking points. Sitting right next to Eddy Cue in 2014, the Beats co-founder publicly criticized the earbuds that ship with the iPhone just as Apple announced plans to buy his company for $3 billion. Now, in a new interview with Billboard, Iovine is quoted speaking quite candidly about the business of streaming music and what it would take to knock out Spotify…
Jimmy Iovine Stories October 12, 2017
Apple’s Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre break ground for their new USC academy opening in 2019
Apple employees Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have been planning an undergraduate academy for entrepreneurs at the University of Southern California for a few years now, and this week the Beats co-founders officially broke ground for the project, ABC reports.
Jimmy Iovine Stories June 30, 2017
Jay Z calls out Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine on ‘4:44’ Tidal exclusive
Last summer it was reported that Apple was in negotiations to buy Jay Z’s Tidal music streaming business, which Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine later denied several months later. Now Jay Z and Apple are back in the news together after the rapper called out Jimmy Iovine on a track from his new 4:44 Tidal exclusive album.
Update: US/US VPN only: If you want to download the whole album go to 444.tidal.com and put Sprint as the code.
Jimmy Iovine Stories April 27, 2017
Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine at Code Conference in 2014
Apple Music may be planning to release as many as 10 original series this year, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports in a new profile of Apple’s Jimmy Iovine. The piece also describes more video-centric features in the iOS 11 version of Apple’s Music app than we’ve seen so far.
Jimmy Iovine Stories February 7, 2017
Apple’s Jimmy Iovine shares thoughts on Trump (‘he’s f-ing crazy’), paid streams, & more in new interview
Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine graces the cover of this month’s Variety, sitting down with publication for an in-depth interview concerning Apple Music, the company’s original content efforts, his political views, and more. The interview comes ahead of The Grammys this weekend, an event that could see the mark of Prince’s music coming to streaming services.
Jimmy Iovine Stories December 22, 2016
In an new interview released today, Jimmy Iovine and Larry Jackson delve deeper into some of the finer points of their artistic relationships on the Apple Music platform. The pair go into details on why hip-hop and R&B artists have seen a surge in streaming, how they maintain their relationships with artists despite labels, and the impact of Apple Music’s platform on piracy.
Jimmy Iovine Stories November 19, 2015
Update 10:20PM ET: Jimmy Iovine has issued an apology to BuzzFeed News for his controversial quote regarding him believing women have a “difficult” time finding music:
“We created Apple Music to make finding the right music easier for everyone — men and women, young and old. Our new ad focuses on women, which is why I answered the way I did, but of course the same applies equally for men. I could have chosen my words better, and I apologize.”
Apple executive Jimmy Iovine and popular recording artist Mary J. Blige sat down with the hosts of CBS This Morning earlier today to discuss Apple Music. A couple of months back, Apple debuted a new TV ad for its music streaming service starring Blige along with actresses Kerry Washington and Taraji P. Henson. In the ad, the three stars described Apple music as the “Instant boyfriend mixtape service” and touted that the For You feature is the equivalent of having a boyfriend inside your computer.
Jimmy Iovine Stories October 8, 2015
Speaking at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, Jimmy Iovine said that “Apple has taught me not to give out numbers [but] I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t doing well.”
Iovine said that while a free ad-supported tier could allow the company to rapidly acquire subscribers, a tactic popularised by Spotify, that wasn’t a route Apple wanted to take … expand full story
Jimmy Iovine Stories September 1, 2015
Luke Wood, left, pictured with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre (photo: Kevin Mazur/Wire)
Luke Wood, left, pictured with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre (photo: Kevin Mazur/Wire)
Beats President Luke Wood, who runs the audio products side of the business, told Mashable that the acquisition was a great fit because the company shared DNA with Apple.
We’re looking at our little audio slice of the world and trying to focus on creating a stellar product experience. I think that’s also the fundamental DNA of everything Steve wanted to accomplish at Apple. By product experience, that includes ID, design, technology, innovation, simplicity. Those are always things that have been fundamental to our DNA, too.
He said that the early days of low-quality digital music resulted in a ‘lost generation’ for premium audio, but that we now live in a very different world … expand full story
Jimmy Iovine Stories August 26, 2015
Vanity Fair today has revealed the list of people who will speak at its upcoming New Establishment Summit in October and once again, Apple’s Chief Design Officer Jony Ive will be in attendance. Last year, Ive attended the event and discussed many of his opinions on design and told several stories of designing the various iPhone models over the years. This year, however, Beats cofounder Jimmy Iovine will also be attending the Vanity Fair event.
Jimmy Iovine Stories August 17, 2015
Jimmy Iovine & Dr. Dre talk Apple Music, their USC program, & more in Wired cover story
Wired’s new cover story featuring Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre includes interviews with the Beats co-founders turned Apple executives and also some quotes from others on the Apple Music team. The article has a lot of backstory on the duo pre Apple’s acquisition of Beats, much of which we’ve heard in the past, but mostly discusses the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, an undergraduate program the two Apple executives have started at the University of Southern California.
“If you tell a kid, ‘You’ve got to pick music or Instagram,’ they’re not picking music,” Iovine says. “There was a time when, for anybody between the ages of 15 and 25, music was one, two, and three. It’s not anymore.”
The school aims to create a new generation of creative executives by assembling a faculty drawn from the schools of art, business, and engineering in an ambitious new curriculum. This, Iovine says, will be his true legacy, a pipeline of professionals, equally at home in the worlds of tech and culture, who can steer the music industry through whatever displacements lie ahead. “If the school doesn’t work, to me the whole thing failed,” Iovine says. “Because then you’ve got to pray for freaks, and that’s no way to run a business.”
You can read the full Wired cover story online here.
Jimmy Iovine Stories August 14, 2015
In a new interview with Billboard, Beats 1 head anchor and “special creative” Zane Lowe has shared some new information and backstory regarding Apple’s (almost) always-on radio station and streaming music service. In the interview, Lowe discusses the motives behind playing the music he plays on his show, as well as some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of being in charge of the entirety of Beats 1.
Jimmy Iovine Stories August 7, 2015
Jimmy Iovine seems to be doing the rounds of UK media at present. Following yesterday’s Evening Standard interview, he’s done another with Wired editor Michael Rundle.
Much of it is, of course, the usual sales spiel: curation is cool, nobody else will catch us or do it better, lots of great people involved – the kind of things you’d expect him to say. But the interview does contain one unexpected snippet: that Apple Music‘s curated approach could be applied to TV … expand full story
Jimmy Iovine Stories August 6, 2015
In a new interview with the London Evening Standard, Apple executive Jimmy Iovine has shed some more light on the day that Taylor Swift published her open letter to the company calling for artists to be fairly compensated during the three-month free trial of Apple Music. In her letter, Swift called on Apple to do the right thing and not ask artists to provide their music for no compensation. In today’s interview, Iovine described the behind-the-scenes workings that saw Apple change its tune regarding compensating artists during the free Apple Music trial:
Jimmy Iovine Stories June 30, 2015
In an interview with The Loop, Apple SVP Eddy Cue and Beats founder Jimmy Iovine said that depth, breadth and musical knowledge would allow Apple Music to succeed in a market where all streaming services offer access to the same 30M songs.
“One of the things we wanted with Apple Music was depth, said Cue. “We wanted you to be immersed in it when you started using it.”
Iovine pointed out that playlists generated by algorithms tended to be predictable, while those curated by people with deep knowledge of the music industry could make surprising connections – using Bruce Springsteen as an example.
[With an algorithm, you can] pretty much guess what’s going to be played. Bob Seger, John Mellencamp, and Tom Petty are always popular choices.
What freaked me out is that Apple Music played ‘Paint It Black,’ which I happen to know is one of Springsteen’s favorite Stones songs.
Iovine said that most algorithms stuck to one genre and era, while human DJs could mix things up because “the DJ is in the middle, explaining how it works.” This, said Cue, generated greater breadth, and you could find a hip-hop track following a rock one … expand full story
Apple Music makes its debut in a few short hours/minutes/seconds and if you want to spend that time reading about what early reviewers thought (after migrating your playlists), we’ve got a list of Apple’s selected journalists who’ve played with the app and listened to the music with a few choice words: expand full story
Jimmy Iovine Stories June 25, 2015
Along with today’s announcement that Zane Lowe’s first Beats 1 interview will be with Eminem, a New York Times profile on the DJ revealed the titles and hosts for other shows on Apple’s upcoming music streaming service.
As you might expect, Apple’s own Dr. Dre will be hosting a show of his own called “The Pharmacy.” Rapper Drake, who appeared on stage at the Apple Music announcement, will also have a show on the streaming radio service.
Jimmy Iovine Stories June 5, 2015
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference is about to kick off. On Monday, June 8th, company executives will take the stage at San Francisco’s Moscone Center to provide their annual roadmap for Apple’s software, services, and devices.
Traditionally, Apple has used the conference to introduce major upgrades to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system iOS, as well as the Mac operating system OS X, along with new services. Of course, 2015 will be no different. Apple has been preparing a new version of iOS 9 codenamed “Monarch,” a release of OS X 10.11 codenamed “Gala,” a new streaming Apple Music service based on Beats Music, and updates for the Apple Watch.
Over the last several years, we have provided advance reports on the lion’s share of announcements that will be made at WWDC, as well as a comprehensive roundup ahead of the event. Read on for our roundup of what’s coming, along with fresh new details not found in our earlier reports.
