You still have iTunes Radio and can create any station you want.
iTunes Radio will continue to exist after Apple Music goes live? Is it being folded into Apple Music or is it something separate? The presentation was very confusing in terms of how iTunes, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio and Apple Music would all work together.
So Apple is becoming a music publisher? If that's the case it wasn't clear AT ALL based on the keynote presentation. Of course that portion of the keynote was a muddled mess. It's pretty bad when even Jim Dalrymple says Apple should never put Jimmy Iovine on stage again.
Boy, I agree with Dalrymple. Iovine was a horrendous presenter...as bad as Drake!
Also, it's not crystal clear to me whether we're going to be getting Apple Music as a replacement for iTunes or as a new app. The entire last part of the keynote was a terrible mess and I'm afraid that's Tim's fault. He should've made sure the Apple Music announcement was relevant to developers and that the service itself was a clear and on point as possible. It looked and sounded like no one was in charge.
Now I realize that Apple's "For You" may turn out to be different from Beats' "Just For You". In fact, that is my only hope that this new service will be any good. But I think the odds are that the two will be more similar than different.
You said there might not be curated playlists.
apple.com (and keynote) explicitly stated there will be curated playlists.
iTunes Radio will continue to exist after Apple Music goes live? Is it being folded into Apple Music or is it something separate? The presentation was very confusing in terms of how iTunes, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio and Apple Music would all work together.
I'm not really sure but it's there. I guess it will be in the subset of Beat 1 since any user can listen to Beat 1, paid or not.
iTunes Radio will continue to exist after Apple Music goes live? Is it being folded into Apple Music or is it something separate? The presentation was very confusing in terms of how iTunes, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio and Apple Music would all work together.
I'm pretty sure they mentioned the ability to create a radio station based on a song or artist. My experience with this feature was never a positive one. I never liked anything about iTunes Radio, just as I don't like anything on commercial broadcast radio.
For those of you who are confused, I recommend you reading about Apple music on Apple's website. It is well presented in a clear & concise way.
Exactly. That keynote presentation was a mess. That's two big keynotes now with terrible endings (the September one with U2 was cringeworthy) all under Eddy Cue's domain. I hope he does a better job when ?TV is announced. Otherwise put someone else on stage who can.
Also, it's not crystal clear to me whether we're going to be getting Apple Music as a replacement for iTunes or as a new app.
Why? It is clear that Apple Music will replace old Music app and has nothing to do with iTunes since there will be people who want to buy music instead. iTunes Match will continue because of this. Some people will want to listen to only their own music.
apple.com (and keynote) explicitly stated there will be curated playlists.
What is the confusion again?
No, I said there might not be a section where you can choose among music CURATORS based on genre and listen to their playlists. There's a difference between listening to music that was supposedly curated for you, and seeking out specific people to follow based on their curation abilities.
Once again, you have not used Beats, so you have no idea what I'm talking about. I've attempted to describe the Beats experience and the nuances between the different features, but you seem insistent on taking small quotes out of context to fit your predefined narrative.
No, I said there might not be a section where you can choose among music CURATORS based on genre and listen to their playlists. There's a difference between listening to music that was supposedly curated for you, and seeking out specific people to follow based on their curation abilities.
Once again, you have not used Beats, so you have no idea what I'm talking about. I've attempted to describe the Beats experience and the nuances between the different features, but you seem insistent on taking small quotes out of context to fit your predefined narrative.
I don't understand. Why do you hell-bent on thinking it will be different from Beat? Because it doesn't have one tab Beat has. Is that it?
Why? It is clear that Apple Music will replace old Music app and has nothing to do with iTunes since there will be people who want to buy music instead. iTunes Match will continue because of this. Some people will want to listen to only their own music.
What about OS X? Apple Music will replace, or be a tab in iTunes?
Here's what I wish Apple would of done with music.
The announcement should've been no more than 15 minutes tops of the entire keynote.
Just Eddy Cue on stage announcing an Apple streaming service and covering off the main points. No Jimmy Iovine, no Drake, no Zane Lowe videos.
Streaming access to nearly anything you can buy on iTunes (perhaps highlight music available here that isn't available elsewhere)
Incorporate iTunes Match (and match what Google Play Music offers); ability to create offline playlists like Spotify
If the labels wouldn't let Apple offer a free or reduced price tier then incorporate iTunes Radio (maybe rebrand it to Beats Radio) and make that your "free" offering
$9.99 or 14.99 for families; emphasize the number of countries it will be available in at launch
That's it. That's all Apple Music needs to be. None of this social network crap (leave social to Facebook). Skip the 24/7 radio station. I can launch TuneIn and listen to over 40K live radio stations whenever I want. Apple Music will come preinstalled on all ios devices. It doesn't need to be revolutionary or unique to get people to try it out and to get some to subscribe.
Music is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Financially it's going to be a blip on the top and bottom line. Apple should not expend a lot of time and energy over this. The fact that the length of the keynote veered into Google I/O territory mostly because ~40 minutes was spent on music concerns me. There are so many things more important than streaming music. I would have taken a longer demo of iOS 9 over Eddy Cue playing random snippits of music for 20 minutes.
Some good points - but I have some questions.
The announcement should've been no more than 15 minutes tops of the entire keynote. 100% agree. I don't recall One More Things... being this long...
Just Eddy Cue on stage announcing an Apple streaming service and covering off the main points. No Jimmy Iovine, no Drake, no Zane Lowe videos. 100% agree.
Streaming access to nearly anything you can buy on iTunes (perhaps highlight music available here that isn't available elsewhere) It does this, I believe.
Incorporate iTunes Match (and match what Google Play Music offers); ability to create offline playlists like Spotify It does this, though not sure about the "clean your crap quality MP3 up" if you cancel. With iTunes Match, I have converted what I have stored on my iMac to the iTunes quality version for anything that matched, which was greater than 90% of my 14,000 songs. Also, you can have offline playlists/tracks.
If the labels wouldn't let Apple offer a free or reduced price tier then incorporate iTunes Radio (maybe rebrand it to Beats Radio) and make that your "free" offering I think there is a free radio tier akin to iTunes Radio
$9.99 or 14.99 for families; emphasize the number of countries it will be available in at launch True, no idea what "international" really means. Or did they say "Worldwide"?
The added stuff, specifically Connect? As long as the above is done well, I don't care what else they throw at it.
I don't understand. Why do you hell-bent on thinking it will be different from Beat? Because it doesn't have one tab Beat has. Is that it?
Yes, the one tab that made Beats worthwhile to me.
If Apple manages to incorporate the same functionality elsewhere in the interface, I'll be a happy camper. But so far I've seen no evidence of this,
It amazes me how much time they wasted in that rambling and confusing presentation while failing to convey how the service will actually work. This is what happens when you have too many people in charge trying to please different clients (consumers, artists, record labels, developers, media.) It's a situation begging for a benevolent dictator, a la Steve Jobs, to remind everyone that none of it matters if the consumer isn't delighted.
Boy, I agree with Dalrymple. Iovine was a horrendous presenter...as bad as Drake!
Also, it's not crystal clear to me whether we're going to be getting Apple Music as a replacement for iTunes or as a new app. The entire last part of the keynote was a terrible mess and I'm afraid that's Tim's fault. He should've made sure the Apple Music announcement was relevant to developers and that the service itself was a clear and on point as possible. It looked and sounded like no one was in charge.
Yes. I know some have speculated that the music section was put together last minute when ?TV got axed. Maybe so but still no excuse for the poor execution. The music part should have been 15 minutes tops. Make it very clear what it is and what it's replacing. The fact that it was so unfocused is kind of worrying. People have been complaining about iTunes becoming a big bloated mess for a while now. I fear the same thing will happen with Apple Music. And for what? Nobody knows.
[*] The announcement should've been no more than 15 minutes tops of the entire keynote. 100% agree. I don't recall One More Things... being this long... [*] Just Eddy Cue on stage announcing an Apple streaming service and covering off the main points. No Jimmy Iovine, no Drake, no Zane Lowe videos. 100% agree. [*] Streaming access to nearly anything you can buy on iTunes (perhaps highlight music available here that isn't available elsewhere) It does this, I believe.
[*] Incorporate iTunes Match (and match what Google Play Music offers); ability to create offline playlists like Spotify It does this, though not sure about the "clean your crap quality MP3 up" if you cancel. With iTunes Match, I have converted what I have stored on my iMac to the iTunes quality version for anything that matched, which was greater than 90% of my 14,000 songs. Also, you can have offline playlists/tracks. [*] If the labels wouldn't let Apple offer a free or reduced price tier then incorporate iTunes Radio (maybe rebrand it to Beats Radio) and make that your "free" offering I think there is a free radio tier akin to iTunes Radio [*] $9.99 or 14.99 for families; emphasize the number of countries it will be available in at launch True, no idea what "international" really means. Or did they say "Worldwide"?
The added stuff, specifically Connect? As long as the above is done well, I don't care what else they throw at it.
My bullet list was more around how Apple should have announced it. Just s bullet list on the most important things. It's not clear that iTunes Match is equal to Google's offering and I think it should be equal to or better. And I don't remember Cue saying anything about offline playlists. That's something he should have mentioned. Also an easy way to import playlists from other services would have been really cool.
My bullet list was more around how Apple should have announced it. Just s bullet list on the most important things. It's not clear that iTunes Match is equal to Google's offering and I think it should be equal to or better. And I don't remember Cue saying anything about offline playlists. That's something he should have mentioned. Also an easy way to import playlists from other services would have been really cool.
iTunes has always had the ability to create and import playlists. So the idea of importing playlists from other services is actually dependent on those services allowing you to export your playlists.
Ok so here's a comparison of some of the key features between Beats Music and Apple Music, based on what we've seen so far. I've omitted Radio and Connect as they have no equivalents in Beats.
1) Setup Favorites
- Both feature initial setup "bubble" interface to ask user to choose a few artists and genres they like best.
2) Contextual Playlists
- Beats helps user compose a "sentence" to describe how they're feeling, what they're doing, and what they want to listen to.
- Apple simply lists "activities" like "celebrating", "chilling out", and "commuting."
3) Personalization
- Beats "Just For You" suggests albums and playlists based on genres or artists, chosen to match the user's preferences and listening history - typically weak for some music genres, and only features older music.
- Apple "For You" appears to present playlists based on broad genres (e.g., 'alternative", or 'rock'), presumably those for which the user has indicated a preference.
4) New Music Discovery
- Beats Curators' Playlists: "Discover new songs, playlists, artists, and albums from the best experts in music." Large selection of curators, each featuring an extensive catalog of playlists based on specific genres and sub-genres. Includes great selection of club/dance/electronic music.
- Apple "New Music": Appears to be a list of recently released songs and or albums, filterable by genre. Unclear how much "human curation" goes into this selection, and there is no sign of mixed playlists. Also, Apple's selections of genres tends to be limited to broad musical categories.
I think it's quite clear Apple Music, especially the presentation didn't go over well at all. I was listening to The Rebound podcast (Dan Moren, John Moltz and Lex Friedman) and they all panned the presentation and said it was the wrong audience for this demo. Jim Dalrymple said Jimmy and Drake were awful, called it a complete failure. And Bob Lefsetz wrote a scathing blog post about how there's nothing innovative about Apple Music.
[quote]But the heart and soul of Apple Music is its streaming service. And it broke the number one rule of technology. That in order to succeed you’ve got to deliver something better, bring in those who were disinterested or scared to participate previously, and there’s nothing in Apple Music that isn’t widely available elsewhere, including its social network and playlists. Is that what we need, a new place to display musicians’ thoughts and wares? You can’t compete with Facebook just like you can’t compete with Google. Innovation can kill them, but there’s nothing innovative about Connect other than it’s located on Apple’s platform.[/quote]
[quote]That’s right, there’s a huge backlash to Monday’s presentation. Primarily in the press, because the public doesn’t care. But you can’t find anybody saying anything good, from Iovine to Cue. Furthermore, there’s the story of the indie act having previous ties to Iovine and being fake. Those who care are aghast, even if most people don’t give a crap. But the truth is Iovine is tone-deaf. He’s way out of his league. He comes from a land where relationships and intimidation mean everything. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours and we’ll make it on the image of propped-up stars. But the truth is in the modern era the winners are faceless techies who go their own way, whether they be Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Evan Spiegel of Snapchat or Nick Woodman of GoPro. They’re giant slayers who think different, something Apple used to have a hold on.[/quote]
Ouch. I obviously was never a fan of Apple buying Beats and what I saw on stage and with Apple Music makes me more convinced it was a mistake. Apple is not revolutionizing music the way they did with the iTunes store. This is basically your run-of-the-mill streaming music service with unnecessary things like radio and social tacked on. And if "human curation" was so important to the average Joe Beats original streaming service would have taken off and it never did.
Sure Apple needs to have streaming music. But they could have easily done what Google did. Offer up a streaming music service for $9.99 and integrate iTunes Match with it. And perhaps keep or integrate iTunes Radio as a free offering since the lables wouldn't let them do a free with ads model. It would be just a simple me-too service, because the thing is Apple doesn't need to revolutionize music. This isn't going to be a huge money maker, it's not going to meaningfully add to the top or bottom line so it's perfectly fine to be a Spotify clone that just happens to be installed on nearly every iOS device out there (and have access to more artists than Spotify does). You don't need to spend $3B to do that. You don't need Jimmy Iovine to do that.
Comments
Isn't it symptomatic how much confusion there is after the keynote presentation?
The Apple Music presentation is one to forget:
Businessinsider sums it up pretty well.
For those of you who are confused, I recommend you reading about Apple music on Apple's website. It is well presented in a clear & concise way.
Because YOU don't care you assume no one else does?
P.S. This guy doesn't know Apple
Bought Beats....
iTunes Radio will continue to exist after Apple Music goes live? Is it being folded into Apple Music or is it something separate? The presentation was very confusing in terms of how iTunes, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio and Apple Music would all work together.
Boy, I agree with Dalrymple. Iovine was a horrendous presenter...as bad as Drake!
Also, it's not crystal clear to me whether we're going to be getting Apple Music as a replacement for iTunes or as a new app. The entire last part of the keynote was a terrible mess and I'm afraid that's Tim's fault. He should've made sure the Apple Music announcement was relevant to developers and that the service itself was a clear and on point as possible. It looked and sounded like no one was in charge.
<<<<What's this rambling about, seriously>>>>Now I realize that Apple's "For You" may turn out to be different from Beats' "Just For You". In fact, that is my only hope that this new service will be any good. But I think the odds are that the two will be more similar than different.
You said there might not be curated playlists.
apple.com (and keynote) explicitly stated there will be curated playlists.
What is the confusion again?
iTunes Radio will continue to exist after Apple Music goes live? Is it being folded into Apple Music or is it something separate? The presentation was very confusing in terms of how iTunes, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio and Apple Music would all work together.
I'm not really sure but it's there. I guess it will be in the subset of Beat 1 since any user can listen to Beat 1, paid or not.
iTunes Radio will continue to exist after Apple Music goes live? Is it being folded into Apple Music or is it something separate? The presentation was very confusing in terms of how iTunes, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio and Apple Music would all work together.
I'm pretty sure they mentioned the ability to create a radio station based on a song or artist. My experience with this feature was never a positive one. I never liked anything about iTunes Radio, just as I don't like anything on commercial broadcast radio.
Exactly. That keynote presentation was a mess. That's two big keynotes now with terrible endings (the September one with U2 was cringeworthy) all under Eddy Cue's domain. I hope he does a better job when ?TV is announced. Otherwise put someone else on stage who can.
Also, it's not crystal clear to me whether we're going to be getting Apple Music as a replacement for iTunes or as a new app.
Why? It is clear that Apple Music will replace old Music app and has nothing to do with iTunes since there will be people who want to buy music instead. iTunes Match will continue because of this. Some people will want to listen to only their own music.
You said there might not be curated playlists.
apple.com (and keynote) explicitly stated there will be curated playlists.
What is the confusion again?
No, I said there might not be a section where you can choose among music CURATORS based on genre and listen to their playlists. There's a difference between listening to music that was supposedly curated for you, and seeking out specific people to follow based on their curation abilities.
Once again, you have not used Beats, so you have no idea what I'm talking about. I've attempted to describe the Beats experience and the nuances between the different features, but you seem insistent on taking small quotes out of context to fit your predefined narrative.
No, I said there might not be a section where you can choose among music CURATORS based on genre and listen to their playlists. There's a difference between listening to music that was supposedly curated for you, and seeking out specific people to follow based on their curation abilities.
Once again, you have not used Beats, so you have no idea what I'm talking about. I've attempted to describe the Beats experience and the nuances between the different features, but you seem insistent on taking small quotes out of context to fit your predefined narrative.
I don't understand. Why do you hell-bent on thinking it will be different from Beat? Because it doesn't have one tab Beat has. Is that it?
What about OS X? Apple Music will replace, or be a tab in iTunes?
Here's what I wish Apple would of done with music.
That's it. That's all Apple Music needs to be. None of this social network crap (leave social to Facebook). Skip the 24/7 radio station. I can launch TuneIn and listen to over 40K live radio stations whenever I want. Apple Music will come preinstalled on all ios devices. It doesn't need to be revolutionary or unique to get people to try it out and to get some to subscribe.
Music is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Financially it's going to be a blip on the top and bottom line. Apple should not expend a lot of time and energy over this. The fact that the length of the keynote veered into Google I/O territory mostly because ~40 minutes was spent on music concerns me. There are so many things more important than streaming music. I would have taken a longer demo of iOS 9 over Eddy Cue playing random snippits of music for 20 minutes.
Some good points - but I have some questions.
The added stuff, specifically Connect? As long as the above is done well, I don't care what else they throw at it.
I don't understand. Why do you hell-bent on thinking it will be different from Beat? Because it doesn't have one tab Beat has. Is that it?
Yes, the one tab that made Beats worthwhile to me.
If Apple manages to incorporate the same functionality elsewhere in the interface, I'll be a happy camper. But so far I've seen no evidence of this,
It amazes me how much time they wasted in that rambling and confusing presentation while failing to convey how the service will actually work. This is what happens when you have too many people in charge trying to please different clients (consumers, artists, record labels, developers, media.) It's a situation begging for a benevolent dictator, a la Steve Jobs, to remind everyone that none of it matters if the consumer isn't delighted.
Yes. I know some have speculated that the music section was put together last minute when ?TV got axed. Maybe so but still no excuse for the poor execution. The music part should have been 15 minutes tops. Make it very clear what it is and what it's replacing. The fact that it was so unfocused is kind of worrying. People have been complaining about iTunes becoming a big bloated mess for a while now. I fear the same thing will happen with Apple Music. And for what? Nobody knows.
What about OS X? Apple Music will replace, or be a tab in iTunes?
Exactly the same as iTunes 12 I would guess. Apple Music will mix in with the portion you're using to listen to your music
My bullet list was more around how Apple should have announced it. Just s bullet list on the most important things. It's not clear that iTunes Match is equal to Google's offering and I think it should be equal to or better. And I don't remember Cue saying anything about offline playlists. That's something he should have mentioned. Also an easy way to import playlists from other services would have been really cool.
My bullet list was more around how Apple should have announced it. Just s bullet list on the most important things. It's not clear that iTunes Match is equal to Google's offering and I think it should be equal to or better. And I don't remember Cue saying anything about offline playlists. That's something he should have mentioned. Also an easy way to import playlists from other services would have been really cool.
iTunes has always had the ability to create and import playlists. So the idea of importing playlists from other services is actually dependent on those services allowing you to export your playlists.
Ok so here's a comparison of some of the key features between Beats Music and Apple Music, based on what we've seen so far. I've omitted Radio and Connect as they have no equivalents in Beats.
1) Setup Favorites
- Both feature initial setup "bubble" interface to ask user to choose a few artists and genres they like best.
2) Contextual Playlists
- Beats helps user compose a "sentence" to describe how they're feeling, what they're doing, and what they want to listen to.
- Apple simply lists "activities" like "celebrating", "chilling out", and "commuting."
3) Personalization
- Beats "Just For You" suggests albums and playlists based on genres or artists, chosen to match the user's preferences and listening history - typically weak for some music genres, and only features older music.
- Apple "For You" appears to present playlists based on broad genres (e.g., 'alternative", or 'rock'), presumably those for which the user has indicated a preference.
4) New Music Discovery
- Beats Curators' Playlists: "Discover new songs, playlists, artists, and albums from the best experts in music." Large selection of curators, each featuring an extensive catalog of playlists based on specific genres and sub-genres. Includes great selection of club/dance/electronic music.
- Apple "New Music": Appears to be a list of recently released songs and or albums, filterable by genre. Unclear how much "human curation" goes into this selection, and there is no sign of mixed playlists. Also, Apple's selections of genres tends to be limited to broad musical categories.
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2015/06/10/apple-music/
[quote]But the heart and soul of Apple Music is its streaming service. And it broke the number one rule of technology. That in order to succeed you’ve got to deliver something better, bring in those who were disinterested or scared to participate previously, and there’s nothing in Apple Music that isn’t widely available elsewhere, including its social network and playlists. Is that what we need, a new place to display musicians’ thoughts and wares? You can’t compete with Facebook just like you can’t compete with Google. Innovation can kill them, but there’s nothing innovative about Connect other than it’s located on Apple’s platform.[/quote]
[quote]That’s right, there’s a huge backlash to Monday’s presentation. Primarily in the press, because the public doesn’t care. But you can’t find anybody saying anything good, from Iovine to Cue. Furthermore, there’s the story of the indie act having previous ties to Iovine and being fake. Those who care are aghast, even if most people don’t give a crap. But the truth is Iovine is tone-deaf. He’s way out of his league. He comes from a land where relationships and intimidation mean everything. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours and we’ll make it on the image of propped-up stars. But the truth is in the modern era the winners are faceless techies who go their own way, whether they be Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Evan Spiegel of Snapchat or Nick Woodman of GoPro. They’re giant slayers who think different, something Apple used to have a hold on.[/quote]
Ouch. I obviously was never a fan of Apple buying Beats and what I saw on stage and with Apple Music makes me more convinced it was a mistake. Apple is not revolutionizing music the way they did with the iTunes store. This is basically your run-of-the-mill streaming music service with unnecessary things like radio and social tacked on. And if "human curation" was so important to the average Joe Beats original streaming service would have taken off and it never did.
Sure Apple needs to have streaming music. But they could have easily done what Google did. Offer up a streaming music service for $9.99 and integrate iTunes Match with it. And perhaps keep or integrate iTunes Radio as a free offering since the lables wouldn't let them do a free with ads model. It would be just a simple me-too service, because the thing is Apple doesn't need to revolutionize music. This isn't going to be a huge money maker, it's not going to meaningfully add to the top or bottom line so it's perfectly fine to be a Spotify clone that just happens to be installed on nearly every iOS device out there (and have access to more artists than Spotify does). You don't need to spend $3B to do that. You don't need Jimmy Iovine to do that.