for recorded music, making up 52% of total digital income in 2014 according to IFPI numbers. Apple holds the lion’s share of this, making it the single biggest music retailer in the world. But download revenue peaked in 2013 in the UK at £283m and fell to £249m in 2014. The decline in download sales hit the US in 2013 so Apple bought Beats in 2014 for $3bn, not only to get into the premium headphone market, but also to make the transition from music ownership (downloads) to music access (subscription streaming). Apple, and the record industry, cannot afford to get rid of the download market just yet – so streaming and downloading will have to coexist under the Apple brand, one representing the future as the other gets progressively slower and sicker. The vast majority of people out there like music but don’t love it enough to pay $120 a year to listen to it; a sporadic download purchase here and there will suit them just fine. The average spend of a music buyer in the UK in 2014, for example, was just £39.52, according to research. Expecting most of them to triple their annual spend on recorded music is something that even Apple will seriously struggle with. Has Apple Connect made Apple the most artist-friendly service? Apple have previously tried to build an artist-friendly platform via iTunes. They called it Ping and it didn’t work. Apple Connect is something