As much as I may disagree with Apple Music’s focus, I do agree with this.
Yet despite competition from Spotify, Jay Z’s Tidal, and others, Iovine doesn’t believe that streaming has to become a winner-take-all proposition.
“Not if streaming is done right,” he says. What “right” means is that each service is culturally different, he explains, so that each has a different feel. “Yeah, they all have the same catalog, but what we’re doing is we’re just building on top of that. That’s where the personality and the feel will come from.”
I only wish that Apple’s culture included less pandering to celebrities and more focus on the user experience, as well as including a wider variety of musicians and genres they are willing to promote. I doubt that will happen, but one can hope.
Beats Music’s human curation (advantage) was high on the list of reasons Apple bought the company. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for Iovine (Apple) to highlight it. Although ads would go further than an interview.
But reducing Apple Music friction has to rank above all other benefits of the service. Usability is still not up to Apple’s traditional standards.
I agree, less celebrity more user experience. Spend that money wisely
Last year I bought three albums worth of music from people I like.
I also purchased concert mp3s from a few shows I went to.
I will curate myself thanks.
what is this “focus”? AM is different things to different people! it’s all about your preferences and Loves in the UI, and plenty of catalogued Beats radio shows (guest DJs) for many genres. but if you don’t see one you like you can curate your own.
as a guy who listens to lot of alternative stuff i have no problem finding music.
what original content?
what on earth do the artists have to do with the UI builders? nothing. nothing is what they have to do with each other.
what’s that you say? you’re not that into new music so you’re not interested in a music service? shocking, dear fellow! i do apologize for the hardship you must have endured from the existence of a service you personally aren’t in the market for.
We’ve been family subscribers to Apple Music for a while now, and I really enjoy it.
Though I still recall the early days when Steve pooh-poohed subscriptions and thought being able to “own” music iTunes’ way was far superior. I didn’t disagree, and still don’t.
But since I’ve experienced Apple Music and have been able to find and stream virtually all the oldies I can remember, as well as stuff I hear and identify via Shazam, I really enjoy that flexibility for what seems to be a reasonable monthly fee.
I’m not obsessed to own in the traditional sense, and with some of the old artists whose work I listen to 40 or 50 years hence, I realize now that not all of their work was/is “great”, or at least worth listening to, in my opinion. So I can add and delete track/albums/artists/playlists with impunity.
I also find the current iTunes UIs for Mac and iOS to be pretty good and better than they’ve ever been.
Totally agree. It’s interesting to see these services from the outside, even if I never use them. I listen to music that isn’t popular, so I find and buy it the old fashioned way, so it’s inherently full of personality, mine. 😉 (@mdelvecchio, you don’t have to respond to this comment, if you can possibly help it.)
From Iovine:
so it’s unreleased, you haven’t seen it yet, but you’ve decided it’s the new Ping? not following how that’s possible if it’s unreleased.
sshhh, our real world experiences don’t jive with the new “Apple doesn’t know software” narrative.
Settle down. To each his own. AM works for you, but it doesn’t work for everyone. That it’s an Apple service means folks in the latter group are projecting their preferences upon it, and griping about feeling left out.
And that’s something a lot of us do, regardless of whether the Apple product works well.
Apple Music could use a big boost in the classical music genre overall.
There are 3 radio stations buried at the bottom under All Genres/Classical and these play the top 100 classical tracks. Sorry Apple, but classical music is many times more sophisticated than you give it credit.
I would welcome all record labels opening up their entire catalog to Apple Music, not just the best selling albums. There are so many albums not available for listening or buying, and its a crying shame.
Provide an options for lossless playback. 256 or 320 kbps really doesn’t cut it on nice speakers and a solid system. Overtones and volume are generally lost in any compression scenario.
There are 9 main stations and 9 Featured Stations on Radio, not one Classical. How about customizing it to show the stations I prefer, rather than pushing Roots Reggae (and I like Reggae fine and listen to it once every 10 years) or ESPN Sports (never listen to this).
Custom-tailored radio stations are clunky and frustrating to create, use, and modify. Pandora is decades beyond what Apple is doing here. Maybe Apple can’t do the same thing as Pandora because of some IP conflict, but Apple’s implementation of custom radio stations should be removed altogether (or at least let me remove it. It serves no purpose.)
Apple Music, by and large for me, is used for syncing playlists and impulsive listening al al carte. Syncing is great and so much better than a year ago. For You still has a lot of room to grow. And Connect, well let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist. I can’t imagine Apple seriously wants people to use Connect.
All of us LOVE “our” music. Apple would do well to keep that in perspective when they evolve Apple Music service/app.
Fair enough. I didn’t word my opinion carefully enough to clearly suggest that I am not hopeful, nor do I see it as necessary.
Happy to be wrong, as I stand to gain materially if Apple original content proves to be a success in retaining and attracting new customers.
My opinion remains the same regarding Apple and content. Apple gains the most (and alienates the fewest) by ensuring that its products remove as much friction as possible between its customers and its content provider partners.