John Welch:
WEDR, and its DJs taught me things. Like what funk was. What soul was. Not the calm, whitewashed things you saw on TV when they trotted out Ray Charles for yet another rendering of “Georgia on My Mind” or “Hit The Road, Jack”. But the deep dirty funk. It’s where I first heard Prince, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and so many other artists.
But here’s the thing: WEDR and the DJs were the only way I was going to hear that. My friends were all into either Zeppelin & Pink Floyd, or Disco. From them, I’d have never heard this stuff.
My friend John Welch makes a great point about Apple Music and Beats 1. Like him, I’m interested, if not excited, by what Apple and their DJs come up with. Like John, I’m of an age when DJs mattered. Maybe Apple can bring that age back.
The monthly charge is to high! Plus if one is paying that monthly sum better not get commercials!
I spent a short time in the late 90s working for a radio station conglomerate. When I realized how it actually worked, the magic was gone, and so was my desire to work in the industry. The DJs didn’t get to choose music, take requests, nothing. They were glorified bumpers, trying to find something interesting to say between a strictly defined song list.
Would sure be nice to see the glory days return and to get a real taste of different music that isn’t just the same old crap.
It’s no higher than any other offerings and there likely won’t be commercials.
Similar situation here. As John says, Clear Channel and the like ripped the soul out of radio DJs. Maybe Apple can bring it back.
Shawn, how do you think Apple Music will differ from Sirius/XM? I get the value of the DJ curating what gets played. Sirius/XM does that.
The number of legendary DJs that Sirius/XM employs on its rock genre channels is pretty big.
Out of the box, the biggest thing I see is that Apple Music is cheaper for a family than paying for 2 Sirius/XM car receivers and Internet access.
Where Apple Music doesn’t measure up is in non-music. They didn’t announce any audio news channels or live sports. Those would be hard for me to give up.
What’s XM cost again?
Okay, now I’m interested in Music. I hope they eventually adopt MQA technology into the music, so it’s capable of higher resolution sound without the larger files. Apple has been getting 24 bit source files from the music publishers for a while now. But, MQA is so new it’s going take time to spread, and to add it to our devices so we don’t need a separate $200 decoder.
As Tom Petty sings, “There goes the last DJ.” He’s gonna’ be singing about Music now.
If the Global Radio is the only unique feature, then it’s a bit of a downer. But more importantly, Iovine and Drake clearly didn’t rehearse well enough. They were kind of embarrassing, not to mention unnecessary.
oh lord, $9.99 a month. WE’LL ALL STARVE
they’re similar, but different. Apple’s thing is music. Not sports or talk. If you want something else, then it’s not for you. For me, it’s perfect. Talk and sports radio make me want to eat glass.
Sorry Dave – no idea. I’ve never used Sirius. But as to “spoken word” channels, I can guarantee Apple will do it at some point in the future, according to the Little Birdies who have spoken to me about it.
Try Radio Paradise for diverse, curated music.
Oh, and it’s free. (Please make a donation).
There are still independent and college stations delivering good programming, WFMU and WKCR among them.
Apple needs to add SONOS support for the service. I personally think this has kept adoption of iTunes radio low and will affect adoption of Apple Music.
Every other music service is supported by SONOS. You even can directly play music that resides in your music library on your iDevice to SONOS. But not any streaming media. If they are going with Android support, SONOS support should be a priority as well.
“this has kept adoption of iTunes radio low” I would disagree strongly. You overestimate SONOS’ popularity.
I disagree. SONOS is huge. Sales over 1 billion. I also do AV installs and SONOS is the most requested product. Personally, I gave up on iTunes Radio for this reason. At home no easy way to listen to it or any iCloud music (Doable but highly convoluted) via SONOS.
“Sales over 1 billion…” A billion what? Units? Revenue? Profit?
1 Billion+ in annual sales 2014. 2013 was around $535mm, which was about double that of 2012. 2008 – 2012 saw a 10x growth rate.
I’m not saying that iTunes Radio adoption is low solely due to Sonos, but I believe that the lack of the ability to play that or any of its streaming content on a Sonos device alienates millions of HOME music loving customers. I wouldn’t run out to sign up for Apple Music if I couldn’t easily listen to that same music service in my home. Sonos does seem to indicate that it won’t be avail “at this time”, since Apple is currently focusing on mobile. But hopefully this means it will be coming in the near future.
I was looking into Sonos, but limitations like that make me not want to buy it instead of making me give up service choice. Right now I can stream any audio to a Bose speaker I have using Bluetooth. I can’t do that with Sonos? Hmm… Maybe I’ll stick to Bluetooth and AirPlay devices then.
The Bose you are referring to is a single speaker setup. The Bose soundtouch is a multiroom solution that does not have bluetooth, just WiFi like Sonos.
Sonos can be a single speaker but the ideal solution is multi-room. Sonos connects wirelessly using its own wifi mesh tech. Any rooms you group together are all played in sync. Music services, like Spotify, Rhapsody, Tidal, Pandora,radio stations, Sirius, etc, are streamed direct from the Sonos system itself. Not off the device. (Same in all rooms or different music in each room). You can play music stored on your iDevices or Android as well to one or more rooms. You “could” add a bluetooth receiver and play audio to that room or play that local source in any other rooms you group together. This is what I was doing with Airplay sources, by adding an airport express for iTunes Radio or Youtube.
Sonos also has the Playbar (Speaker bar) which connects to your TV. TV sound is played through the playbar. Music can also be played out of the playbar and you could watch something on the TV (for viewing only) but then play music at the same time. There is also a wireless sub and can add rear speakers as well. Denon also has a system like Sonos. Came out about a year ago.
All good info to have. Thanks. I still would like it to be more directly interactive with something as easy as bluetooth, but I do know the limitations of that especially when you’re putting together a multi-room system like Sonos or other larger setups. I’m a bit far away from doing even a soundbar, though. The neighbors in our paper apartments would kill me. 🙂
The Playbar is the first piece I’ve been considering. It’ll be a while before I have a place big enough — if ever — that would need multi-room syncing. Also, I have to be mindful now of the neighbors, so even getting the subwoofer is probably not a good idea unless I really want to irk the apartment complex. All good info to know,though, so thanks!