Watch: Apple Music gets more social in iOS 11
Starting this fall with iOS 11, Apple Music users will be able to share their listening habits and playlists with friends. AppleInsider shows you how it will work.
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Comments
When is Apple going to ever understand that there is no such thing as an iterative social application?!?!? It needs to be fully baked at the onset. Especially since the social landscape is already saturated with fb, sc, ig, etc.
There's pretty much no point to having the personal profile in its current iteration. Apple should pull it until they can release a version that people will actually want to use. The needs are blatantly obvious, and should be incredibly easy to implement:
-The profile page look should be modifiable by the user, so they can upload pictures, art, or personal branding (like all aspiring DJs have, also athletics instructors who want to direct traffic to their profile, etc., etc.).
-There should be a way to write down thoughts on playlists, songs, etc.
-There should be a way to post event lists: e.g. a class schedule for athletics instructors, upcoming DJ sets for local DJs, shows or festivals coming up that you are planning to attend, etc, etc. (This will drive people to *actively* promote it, unlike the current passive, uninspiring version).
-Although it was the right call to remove system-wide facebook/twitter connections, this would be the perfect place to promote them, with links, and including instagram. These inclusions will dramatically increase Apple Music engagement, not distract from it.
-You should be able to add Beats 1 shows that you like.
-You should be able to share musicians' connect posts to your own profile, with the ability to comment on them.
Iterative improvement is a great way to progress world-leading hardware and software that already has an install base. The same concept DOES NOT apply to social applications. Like the messaging apps that now dominate their respective markets (e.g. wechat in china, whats app in india), you need to get the critical mass upfront in order to get people engaged. With social media, the most important feature is who is on it.
No one is going to want to invest effort into being active in the personal profile as it stands right now. People are going to take one look at it, maybe, possibly add couple playlists, then forget about it, and probably give up and never go back to it, no matter what comes next.
How Apple does not understand these basic things is maddening.
I mean it's still in beta form so we don't know what's going to finally be released.
I like the idea but with all ideas execution is key. Ping was not as bad as people made it out to be but it came out when Facebook and Twitter came into full swing. Now that Facebook is sort of on a downward slope and Twitter is pretty much on the way out Apple Music could have a good chance IF people give it a chance.
This not going to draw any time away from any of the other social media apps out there. I hope Apple fixes it. Right now the "social" integration seems to be mostly useless.
I assume that Apple assumes that just because people use Apple Music, they will use whatever social features are on there. That's not how social applications work. That's why ping and Connect failed. How many times does Apple need to learn the same, exact lesson???
Instead of having the media all scattered around the web, there could be a central location for musicians to promote this. Even if they linked out to or integrated other social platforms at times, it could still act as the hub for it all. An Instagram gallery plus Facebook/Twitter feed plus video performances plus tracks plus concert info and booking all in one place. If they integrated Messages, the musicians could directly message all their fans at once.
Another form of marketing, which MusicKit will likely tap into is the kind of thing that Spotify does where apps allow you to link songs and playlists to other profiles. Dating sites and other social apps let you link playlists and songs into the profile. It would be nice to be able to even message someone on their birthday or other occasion and gift them a song but it might only stream for free for that day without the subscription. Apple could perhaps cover the stream cost up to a certain number of plays for other platforms too. For example, if the API hooked into an app and someone linked a song or playlist into their profile, someone might play the song 100 times for a given profile. This would be maybe 0.8 cents per play so 80 cents per profile. If they hook it into apps that are being used by 100 million people then it can get expensive but if 5 million then become subscribers at $100/year then it pays for itself.