Apple Music reportedly reaches 10 million paid subscribers in 6 months
Apple's new Apple Music streaming service has reportedly exceeded 10 million subscribers in its first six months, a feat that took established Swedish rival Spotify six years to achieve in 2014.
Cafe Flore, San Francisco
According to a report citing unnamed sources by Matthew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times, Apple grew past 10 million less than three months after Apple officially reported having reached 6.5 million paid users in October.
The report cited music industry analyst Mark Mulligan of Midia Research as saying that Apple had "the potential to be the leading music subscription service sometime in 2017," given its rapid growth rate. However, streaming also comes at the cost of downloads.
Total album sales in the U.S. had already fallen by 9 percent in 2014, while individual track downloads had dropped by 12 percent, according to Nielsen Music, while streaming had increased by more than 50 percent.
Apple entered the music streaming subscription business with the announcemnet of Apple Music last June, a new service featuring access to Apple's extensive iTunes catalog, human-curated playlists, Beats 1 radio and iTunes Connect social networking for artists.
Apple Music went live on June 30 alongside iOS 8.4 and new iTunes software for Macs and PCs. Monthly fees start at $9.99 for single users, while a $14.99 family plan grants access for up to six people. Apple added an Android app in November.
This year, Apple is said to be developing a new Hi-Res Audio format featuring an expanded 96kHz, 24bit sampling rate for its Apple Music subscribers, leveraging the higher fidelity audio output capabilities of Lightning ports.
Cafe Flore, San Francisco
According to a report citing unnamed sources by Matthew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times, Apple grew past 10 million less than three months after Apple officially reported having reached 6.5 million paid users in October.
The report cited music industry analyst Mark Mulligan of Midia Research as saying that Apple had "the potential to be the leading music subscription service sometime in 2017," given its rapid growth rate. However, streaming also comes at the cost of downloads.
Total album sales in the U.S. had already fallen by 9 percent in 2014, while individual track downloads had dropped by 12 percent, according to Nielsen Music, while streaming had increased by more than 50 percent.
Apple entered the music streaming subscription business with the announcemnet of Apple Music last June, a new service featuring access to Apple's extensive iTunes catalog, human-curated playlists, Beats 1 radio and iTunes Connect social networking for artists.
Apple Music went live on June 30 alongside iOS 8.4 and new iTunes software for Macs and PCs. Monthly fees start at $9.99 for single users, while a $14.99 family plan grants access for up to six people. Apple added an Android app in November.
This year, Apple is said to be developing a new Hi-Res Audio format featuring an expanded 96kHz, 24bit sampling rate for its Apple Music subscribers, leveraging the higher fidelity audio output capabilities of Lightning ports.
Comments
Apple have ironed out a lot of the early bugs with the service and I don't really have any complaints about it anymore.
One suggestion for any Apple staff who are reading this is to put a bit more emphasis on social sharing of playlists. I don't personally need it (as I don't care what other people are listening to, LOL!) but friends who are still using Spotify constantly cite this as a reason for them staying with Spot.
Apple Watch
Apple TV
Apple Music
iTunes
Macbook (w/single USB-C port)
...
Additionally it can output 3D music i.e. Dolby 7.1 or THX sound from compatible headphones such as from Sennheiser.
So the move to lightning port headphones means Apple is gunning for even higher sound standards that cannot be done using the standard headphone jack. Consumers are going to be even more pleased with the experience. And it will be a great reason to upgrade. Audiophiles will flock to the iPhone.
Music is actually a very complex service. Apple is combining streaming, listening to your own collection, radio, music discovery, links to buying music from the iTunes Store, and social media. It is difficult to do all of this in a simplified 6" user interface.
But Apple is continuously improving the service. Since it is cloud based, improvements at the server level are experienced instantaneously by everyone.
so far once you get use to the current UI, it is not bad at all. Yes it can improve but that will be done gradually over time.
It isn't the Lightning port itself that has the limitation, as it uses USB 2, which can easily go to 24/192. It's the converters inside that only do 24/48. But these converters only use the analog port. It's likely that this is a software situation that Apple needs to rectify.
last June, I was at an high end audio show in California called T.H.E Audio Show , Newport Beach. While I was there I went to the Meridian demo of their new compression technology called M.Q.A. This enables 24/96 audio quality with the same bandwidth as 16/44.1. It's primarily intended for streaming, but can be used for local stored music as well.
I don't want to get into the details of how it works, but it sounded pretty good. Meridian is the company that developed the compression technology and standards for blue Ray, so they know what they're doing. The info is on their site.
But here's the interesting thing. The two head homcho's were giving the demo. One said that they had over 100 licensees of this technology. He said that a very well known and large electronics company had licensed it, and that they were excited about that. I asked him if that company might make an announcement about a week from then. He turned to me and smiled. 'Yes", he said, it's possible. We all know who we both meant. I then spoke to the other guy, and told him that if Apple adopts this it will be a success, and that if they didn't, it would be iffy. He agreed with me on that.
Apple didn't make an announcement. But Apple rarely makes announcements about things like this until they're ready for release. With all the recent talk about Apple and high Rez, I wonder if MQA is getting ready for release. Back in June, it required a d/a from Meridian with the software for use, but the concept is to get the software into hundreds of millions of devices. If Apple is going to do this, we could see it in a software update of either the OS, or the music player.
Of course, I have no specific knowledge of what Apple is doing here, if anything, but this certainly is a possibility.
What's more, is that their streaming business model is actually sustainable.
The Lightning Port on the iPad Pro is compatible with USB 3.0.
And it can output digital music to compatible headphones.
Currently the existing Lightning compatible headphones cost $800+.
The lightning port doesn't need to convert to analog. It outputs pure digital data. It is the headphone or external DAC that converts the data to analog.
This is the huge advantage Apple will have by abandoning the analog port and going Lightning for headphones.