How I investigated: How are Apple Inc evolving to meet the changing demands of the music industry

I set about obtaining my objectives using online resources. As I am investigating how a business within the music industry is evolving, I primarily set out to find a time line of how Apple Inc has evolved from when they were founded, to the present day. To find this time line, I browsed and extracted findings from Wikipedia and apple museum websites. This secondary research allowed me to extract a time line of what business decisions they have had to made, and the development and release dates of their products, and whether these were successful, and if there was any synergy in place to help produce and distribute these products to an audience.
I followed up this research by logging into the Apple Inc website to find any articles on the music industry from their point of view, which coincidently I found an article called “Thoughts on music” which outlined issues which Apple Inc saw as key selling points of the music industry and how they plan to exploit these to their benefit in the future. Also on the Apple Inc website, I looked into a section called “Legal Statements” that lists all the legal stipulations affecting Apple Inc and its audience. These included synergies with other companies for software licenses, operating system software tools & server, and terms and conditions of products such as the iPod and iPhone, and also of services such as the iShop and iTunes (software companies includes final cut studios, Mac OS X and iLife for example).
I continued my research by browsing any articles and announcements made in local papers such as The Guardian. This research covered any information made public by Apple Inc about releases of their products, reviews of Apple Inc and their products by journalists, speculations about future product releases and any circumstances that may affect Apple Inc, evaluation of any progress that is or isn’t being made by Apple Inc and how these products and business choices made by Apple is affecting the music industry and their audience.
All of my research has been done subjectively, with secondary research including using online resources and qualitative information, to investigate how Apple as a business are evolving and adapting (past, present and future) to the changing climate of the music industry.
My research method of using online resources was reliable as it has provided me with an in depth view of many different perspectives including those of Apple Inc itself, the audience and the music industry. It provided me with information that would not have been accessible in different methods such as legal implications of Apple Inc, which if it was available in a different method not using technology, would have been very difficult to break down and consider logically. With newspaper articles in such papers as the guardian, would have been available to me in hard copy. However, because some of these articles were printed not just presently but in the past, this would have made this information difficult to access. The possibility of using books based around how a business in the music industry operates, and book informing me of key dates and issues that have affected, changed, influenced and motivated the music industry could of benefited my research and understanding as it broadens the angles to which I could of tackled my topic and made more links between each of these.
I was successful in finding out what I intended of finding out key issues that Apple Inc have had to consider and improve in order to take Apple Inc forward and be competitive and affect the music industry and its audience (some of these issues including any changes that are happening in the music industry influenced by their rivals, their audience (their demands and how the music industry is affecting them) and the inspiration of Apple Inc, music, technology and its audience’s and their industry’s demands).