Introducing Apple Music

He's one of the world's most successful record producers and also co-founder of Interscope. He worked on Springsteen, Tom Petty, U2, Dire Straits, John Lennon records and more.

Dirlewanger• 11 years ago

It took this instance of Apple's chronic weasel-word-using habit for you to question it?

seivan3• 11 years ago

Looking forward to ditching Spotify. Stopped paying once they removed Cmd-F filtering and the app started to lag on my 2014 Macbook Pro (with dedicated GPU).

Also, I agree with the keynote speakers, Spotify "Radio" never worked for me. Always got repeated songs or songs I hated.

I wanted automated "thumbs up" if I finished a song, or "thumbs down" if I skipped it, without having to worry about repeated songs.

And a million of other complaints.

LesZedCB4• 11 years ago

I don't have a compelling reason to leave spotify yet, but I'm open to changing. I think their redesigned app aesthetic is pretty nice. I have good luck with the radio and repeated songs, but I wish it were smarter about genre/mood matching.

hammock• 11 years ago

Stopped paying once they removed Cmd-F filtering

Didn't realize Ctrl-F was ever a thing in Spotify. But I just tried it and it works for me (MacBook Pro). I'll be trying that out more now.

seivan3• 11 years ago

Go to an artist page or "Global Top 50" and try that. As I said, I never figured why they removed it or disabled it on certain places.

zyxley3• 11 years ago

Always got repeated songs

This has started to get to me. It seems like if I pick any even mildly obscure artist as the seed for a radio stream, I've got high chances of the same songs showing up in the first half hour even across different days.

ryanSrich2• 11 years ago

I'm so glad I finally have an alternative to Spotify. They removed staring, apps, and filtering. Their radio is abysmal (almost as bad as Pandora).

What I'd really like to see is a radio feature that plays songs that sound like the song you requested. What all these algorithms seem todo is play songs that other people listened to after or before the song you requested. Or they just play something in the same genre. Genres are kind of dead now, so it doesn't make sense to recommend songs this way. Why not suggest songs with similar guitar riffs? Why not suggest songs with artists that have similar voices?

jessriedel2• 11 years ago

What I'd really like to see is a radio feature that plays songs that sound like the song you requested.

Isn't this exactly what Pandora does?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project

cheald2• 11 years ago

Google Music does this pretty well for me. The one issue I have with it is that their radio selections will repeat songs, but there's a "reroll this station" button that builds a new playlist on demand.

gpmcadam3• 11 years ago

Another Spotify customer here ready to jump ship. The entire iTunes catalog and Family Sharing are the 2 features I was hoping for and I'm really happy to see them available from release.

jaronheard• 11 years ago

The entire iTunes catalog available for streaming would be a killer feature. Where did you see hear that the entire catalog would be available to stream?

jayceekay• 11 years ago

cmd + f works for me

emilsundberg• 11 years ago

Don't forget the the annoying red notification bubble when a new song has being added to a playlist. Which never needs a notification bubble.

That simple thing will make me switch instantly to Apple Music. The Spotify app was so much better a couple of years ago when just a few people worked on it.

lazuli• 11 years ago

CMD-F is back and better than ever!!!

myblake• 11 years ago

cmd+f is back now, but I agree that was a breathtakingly bad product decision, I'm amazed they removed the feature and left it out for like two months. It's not like it's a hard product to dog food or they otherwise have shitty product sense.

dvcc• 11 years ago

So the radio, shared playlists and Beats? Except now when you listen to the radio, you get to eat away at your data plan.

LesZedCB4• 11 years ago

unless you have t-mobile, which has free audio streaming.

uncletaco• 11 years ago

Unless you use Sprint in the US. Or connect to wifi when you're streaming music in your home.

vbezhenar• 11 years ago

It's funny how much of Apple functionality is tightly coupled with US. In my city (capital of my country) Apple Maps are worthless, Siri suggestions are worthless, PayPass is worthless, Apple Pay is worthless, iTunes Movies are not available, Bookstore is not available. Now streaming will be worthless too, because mobile data plan for 1 GB per month costs more than this Apple Stream (though I might listen to it at home or at work, but I prefer to listen music in car or while walking, so it's less attractive).

threeseed3• 11 years ago

Or at home, work, gym, cafe etc. Lot of places have free Wifi.

zyxley3• 11 years ago

"Beats One" sounds like it's halfway an attempt to move into the SiriusXM space - live radio over the 'net and on devices, with actual DJs and so on, packaged in a way that's slicker than most internet radio streams. It will be interesting to see if it's any good.

heyts• 11 years ago

The "connect" feature is eerily reminiscent of Ping if you remember that. It was part of iTunes and was a failure from the start and subsequently killed at some point. I'm really wondering if they will succeed this time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Ping

rimantas• 11 years ago

Connect is about connecting artist to listeners. Was Ping about that?

tjl3• 11 years ago

Yes it was. I think the main difference this time will be integration with Twitter and Facebook. If the artists know that what they post on it can show up in Facebook and/or Twitter they'd be more likely to use it. We'll see. It could flop like Ping, or it might not.

mercer5• 11 years ago

I don't quite understand why they put so much emphasis on 24/7 radio. First, I knew few (younger) people who listen to radio. Second, it's technically not that impressive.

But most importantly: music is very divisive and tastes differ greatly. Apple has usually done a great job to keep their image as neutral as possible. There's a reason why the types of artists they generally associate with are rather inoffensive (Coldplay, The Beatles) or at worst found annoying (U2, or rather Bono).

So who gets excited about such a radio station?

(I just saw Drake get on stage, which actually illustrates this. He's neutral enough to not offend, but because it's music, I imagine a collective groan from pretty much all of my friends.)

To be clear, it's kind of a cute idea, but why emphasize it so much?

frik• 11 years ago

There was a big web radio hype in 2000-2001.

"Web Radio Not Making Waves - An unfulfilled Internet vision: thousands of low-cost stations to challenge the status quo."

as titled by LA Times in December 13, 2001, see the article:

https://web.archive.org/web/20011216053056/http://www.latime...

(Many web radio stations are still alive, but the hype is gone)

mercer5• 11 years ago

Exactly. Music is one of the most hype-sensitive industries. It's good that Apple is in the space, but they should be very careful about trying to be 'cool' about it. When they had U2 play some hits, that was innocuous enough. When they released a 'few U2 album' that was actually offensive to people (for a variety of reasons). Then, when Bono came on-stage and high-fived Cook, well, let's forget that moment. Surely their PR 'feelers' are aware of this and should've warned them that letting Drake ramble on stage would not be a great idea...

ssharp• 11 years ago

Radio still has to be a wildly popular format, even though I don't listen to it anymore. Otherwise, Sirius/XM wouldn't still be in business, despite having a limited selection of music and terrible sound quality. All those subscribers can't just be there for Howard Stern.

Also, digital music has become extremely popular, just not online radio. That could be an issue of quality (low) compared to selection (high) or just that a lot of people who utilize connected devices for music prefer listening to their music on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, etc.

By investing in both sides of the fence, on-demand and curated, they can capture both audiences. And by hiring people like Zane Lowe, they are giving people additional reasons to go listen to radio vs. on-demand.

arfliw4• 11 years ago

Ya, that is how Russ Hanneman made his money. He invented radio on the internet.

r00fus• 11 years ago

It's pretty obvious web radio died because of usurious royalty fees [1] compared to terrestrial broadcast.

[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-07-...

notatoad2• 11 years ago

Fashion and taste is a huge part of apple's brand (and the "Beats" brand), and can definitely be apple's competitive advantage in the music space. There's really only two ways for a streaming service to differentiate itself: exclusive content and curated content. If they aren't going for the exclusives, they have to depend on radio.

I think you're underestimating the popularity of radio, too. Pandora and songza are purely radio services, and spotify, google music, and rdio all heavily promote their radio services.

mercer5• 11 years ago

My problem is not the 'radio' part. My problem is that it's a single, 24/7 station, and that they made such a huge deal out of it. The radio concept in itself is indeed very nice, and still very popular (in various forms).

All the examples you name either adapt to your tastes, or offer different 'channels' for different genres. I do see the appeal of that. In fact, I love discovery, and human-powered discovery can be amazing.

The thing that doesn't make sense is that it's 1) a single station, and 2) in no way adjusted to the time and tastes of particular locations.

Why would anyone want to listen to that with exactly the kinds of alternatives you name, on top of the fact that a countless amount of more specific stations can be listened to online?

To make a comparison: imagine if Apple released a new Apple TV and then spent a big chunk of time promoting their single, world-wide channel.

Do you know any people who put on the tv and watch whatever comes on nowadays, without switching channels a few times? And if so, do those people do this because they prefer it over, say, Popcorn Time or Netflix, or just because they're used to doing so, and probably pretty old?

Again, releasing such a 24/7 channel in itself is a nice idea. It just seems really odd to put such an emphasis on it.

tsurantino• 11 years ago

The whole problem with radio is that it completely misses how music is consumed nowadays.

It's no longer driven by the ivory tower of the music industry.

The whole idea of playlists created by others is that it exposes me as a listener to the long tail of music, mostly composed of everything I want to listen and more. I discover new sounds based on the fact that I am now able to find that other person on the other side of the world who shares my taste. I can skip through the songs and get right to the content I want.

I drive my listening experience, versus the radio station.

gress• 11 years ago

I guess you paid no attention to the actual product, which is all and increasing the long tail even to unsigned artists.

arfliw4• 11 years ago

It's no longer driven by the ivory tower of the music industry.

Jimmy Iovine is running this thing. He is the ivory tower. It appears he is trying to recapture the industry.

k-mcgrady8• 11 years ago

IMO that's the key to their offering. Even with all the ways streaming services offer to discover music they fail miserably. Radio is a good way to discover, they have some top class DJ's on board AND I have a hope that people won't be able to buy their way on to it which means that the DJ's can actually play music they sincerely like.

I think you're thinking of radio in it's current form and that's why you don't like the idea - I wouldn't either. But if the DJ's have completely free reign I can see it being really great.

dperfect3• 11 years ago

"Free reign" or not, the last thing we need right now is more music shoved into our ears because it's what a few people think we should listen to.

"Really great" is subjective in music, movies, and pretty much anything related to art or entertainment.

Netflix has it right - everyone has individual tastes, so everyone should get individual recommendations. If the quality of those recommendations/algorithms is poor, then that's where the innovation needs to happen (in my opinion).

frandroid• 11 years ago

This is not one radio station, this is a ton of channels, like SiriusXM and Spotify, which are quite successful. This is also about competing versus Youtube/Google Music in the music discovery business.

jonknee2• 11 years ago

No, Beats 1 is literally one channel and they made a huge deal about it being the first global radio station (except for the millions of other internet radio stations I guess).

johneth• 11 years ago

I don't quite understand why they put so much emphasis on 24/7 radio.

Another thing is that they're lying when they say it's the first global 24/7 live DJ-driven radio station. The BBC's music stations have been broadcasting live and timeshifted online for about 15 years already, unrestricted. I'm sure other broadcasters also do this.

donatj• 11 years ago

The Current in MN is ad free and has been streaming online for 10+ years.

cheald2• 11 years ago

There are quite a lot of local radio stations that broadcast online for anyone to listen. I picked my favorite local station (http://kslx.com/), found their website, and there's a "Listen Live" button right there.

It seems rather ignorant - willful or otherwise - to claim that this is something groundbreaking. I have no doubt it'll be well-executed, but at best it can be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

PopeOfNope• 11 years ago

Another thing is that they're lying when they say it's the first global 24/7 live DJ-driven radio station.

My college radio station did this back in 2003.

austenallred3• 11 years ago

I would kill to be able to go to the party Spotify will undoubtedly throw tonight.

There wasn't one thing in the entire presentation that was even intriguing, let alone in innovative. The reason I loved my iPod is because I didn't have to listen to the radio. And now Apple is making that the killer feature? RADIO? Like it's freaking 2002?

Other than that and artist communication (which I would maybe care about for one artist), Apple Music is Spotify. Their solution for finding what you want to listen to? "I like rock and alternative" (whatever that means). This has been done a dozen times, and rarely well.

Spotify has been iterating exact same concept for years and has all of my friends listening to it, as well as all of my playlists. People tell me Rdio is similar, but I've never had reason to use it. The only way Apple wins is if the power of something being the Apple default is truly that strong. Having Siri integration is literally the only thing that Apple has a leg up on any of the other music services on.

And then they call it "revolutionary" and throw it in a "ONE MORE THING!" slot? That's pretty bad. And I'm an Apple fanboy.

JonFish85• 11 years ago

"The only way this wins is if the power of something being the Apple default is truly that strong."

For something like this, yeah, Apple default is probably that strong. Considering that it'll button right into all of their hardware (laptop, iPad, iPhone), I could see it being a fairly significant thing for them. It's one less app to have to use, one less payment interface to deal with, and integrate with whatever music the user already has.

Not to mention that Apple probably has a lot more clout in the bargaining arena with the record labels than Spotify does, and a LOT more cash to throw around.

realityking• 11 years ago

They have one thing I'm missing from Spotify: music videos. I was all excited about the "video in Spotify" announcement, only to discover they meant podcasts and TV shows. Maybe this announcement causes some movement.

listic• 11 years ago

To be fair "ONE MORE THING!" slot was always for the most important thing of the moment. .

sfeng• 11 years ago

Just to provide an alternative view, I listen to Spotify in my house, but in the car I almost always listen to XM. There is something attractive about not needing to think about what is going to play.

coldtea3• 11 years ago

I would kill to be able to go to the party Spotify will undoubtedly throw tonight.

Yeah, a new service that offers a larger selection for the same price, and will be preinstalled to the majority of their customers phones, and free for 3 months will sure be a great cause for celebration...

The reason I loved my iPod is because I didn't have to listen to the radio.

And one reason iPod et al. got boring and people turned to places like Spotify is because it's not radio (that is, it's not a shared social experience). That's why stuff like Spotify playlists (curated music) got hundreds of thousands of subscribers. And DJs haven't died, they just took it outside radio, and into arenas, because modern radio has both annoying ads and marketing-oriented programming, something that this announcement is not meant to share.

If done right it could be big, and things can come and go in circles. Heck, there are millions of hipster kids out there buying vinyl, which wasn't even in fashion when they were born.

makeitsuckless• 11 years ago

Spotify is horrible. The UI suck, the interface sucks, there is no decent way of organizing my favorite music, discovery is meh (although the only thing that has actually been improving instead of getting worse). And killing the apps has completely reduced the usefulness to streaming all the music available, but only if you know exactly what you want or are satisfied with bland prefab playlists.

The only reason I listen to Spotify is because there is no decent alternative with a sufficient catalog. Like many, I've been dying for a better alternative.

I don't know if Apple Music will be it, but I do remember what the iPod and iTunes did to the MP3 player.

markque• 11 years ago

Spotify will be holding a wake tonight, and if I were shareholder I would be offloading ASAP.

coldtea3• 11 years ago

I don't quite understand why they put so much emphasis on 24/7 radio. First, I knew few (younger) people who listen to radio.

This can change if there's a enticing offering. Ads, endless automated playlists and crappy programming are not very interesting even for older people. But someone with a unique radio program can potentially get a large following -- like EDM DJs have.

Second, it's technically not that impressive.

A social service is not about the technology anyway.

But most importantly: music is very divisive and tastes differ greatly.

That's rather a problem with endless fragmentation than something nice and desirable. Music can also be a uniting force -- and in the past it was, with people able to listen to many genres, not just celebrate their small corner of the music world.

mercer5• 11 years ago

I'm open to the idea that it could work, I guess. But I just can't imagine an 'enticing offering'. What would you consider enticing?

Furthermore, they're not competing with existing radio, but rather with things like Pandora's part-human algorithms and Spotify's many human-curated playlist. As well as the thousands of radio stations that broadcast online.

That's rather a problem with endless fragmentation than something nice and desirable. Music can also be a uniting force -- and in the past it was, with people able to listen to many genres, not just celebrate their small corner of the music world.

I'd say people moved primarily to non-radio alternatives (big music libraries on devices, spotify/pandora/etc.) because they preferred them, and they finally could do so conveniently. This same phenomenon can be seen in the move away from tv toward on-demand select-your-preference solutions like Netflix (or online streaming via Popcorn time or certain websites).

Or to turn it around: I've never heard anyone complain that they wished they didn't have to 'celebrate their small corner of the music world' and would rather move back to single sources of music if not for the advertising and programming. People love their little corners because it is part of their identity.

flycaliguy• 11 years ago

I wouldn't disregard it so quick. A good radio host can garner attention and if Apple finds themselves with something like a captivating morning show or lively interview program, they can build an audience. Radio is good at spreading by word of mouth because it can capture a person during their drive and gives them something to talk to coworkers about. If Apple makes it prominent on people's phones, it would be easy to spread.

It would make no sense for people to be excited about a radio station before it launches outside of the DJ's previous audience. There is nothing to hook people in yet. I personally listen to the CBC news on the radio everyday and if Apple launched a news station... who knows. It's not really an area that any other big tech companies are competing in. Sports radio is great if you are a sports fan, maybe they'll expand to that. Other talk radio as well, people love it and live call in shows with a "community" of listeners is still a concept best served in radio.

Commercial radio is terrible because it doesn't make a revenue like it used to. I think people dismiss it more so due to it's low quality than the fact that they can curate their own music now. Playing your own music in your car isn't a new concept.

Wild guess, but maybe radio is part of a long term vehicle plan. Broadcast radio is a significant part of the vehicle user experience. Highest radio ratings during a weekday are 7:45AM.

Also, it's not like running an internet radio station is very expensive anyways. Apple can afford it.

Anyways... No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

nostromo• 11 years ago

That was an inordinate amount of pomp and circumstance for an updated Music app.

A radio station? No time shifting? People replaced their radios with Walkmen and iPods for a reason...

And "Connect" just sounds like Ping 2.0.

zyxley3• 11 years ago

That was an inordinate amount of pomp and circumstance for an updated Music App.

"We're basically cloning the entire feature set of Spotify and integrating that into our existing services" is bigger than you give it credit for.

underyx• 11 years ago

It's not even the entire feature set. For instance, it seems like I can't control different devices with it, which has lately grown to be an essential feature for me — 60% of the time when I have my phone on the charger, I can just yell 'Okay, Google' from across the room, and Spotify will put whatever music I ask it to on my PC's speakers.

ctdonath• 11 years ago

One channel? Huh? I thought scheduled channel content was over.

k-mcgrady8• 11 years ago

Considering the Music app is probably one of the few that nearly everybody uses and they're completely changing how that works and how they want you to enjoy music it seems like just the right amount of pomp and circumstance.

Grue3• 11 years ago

I'm glad somebody remembers Ping. Apple's music offerings are not exactly a stream of successes as some like to think.

jameshart3• 11 years ago

So with "News" and "Music", Apple's positioning themselves as a provider of curated, editorialized content. Isn't this a bit like the old Yahoo/MSN portal play? Are Apple betting they can actually found and fund a media consumption channel solely through subscriptions?

stock_toaster2• 11 years ago

I found this entire part of the presentation a combination of boring and awkward. Honestly couldn't care less about it.

I did find it funny when Iovine said "revolutionary" though, and a few in the crowd seemed to chuckle/laugh, and he appeared a bit confused.

vinceguidry• 11 years ago

Apple only ever got away with this kind of breathless self-pimping because of Jobs. He had a unique panache that infected Apple with a curious energy. It's been really interesting watching Apple move past Steve. In many ways, they're killing it, in others, you can really feel the slow dissipation of Jobs' halo.

cjensen• 11 years ago

It was a very un-Apple-like presentation. Apple has a reputation for rehearsing presentations many times. The presentations are critiqued in order to make sure they are clear and to the point.

These presenters didn't fit the usual model. They acted like hadn't rehearsed much (Iovine in particular). It was wildly unclear what, exactly, they were talking about. Lots of abstract hand-waving instead of keeping things concrete and clear.

I'm mystified how this happened.

hamburglar2• 11 years ago

Eddy Cue was embarrassing. He made so many grammatical errors it was like he was winging it, and when he tries to seem hip it's cringeworthy. There was a moment where he queued some stuff up and then stiffly said, "yeah! I think I'm really gonna enjoy this playlist!" as if anybody in history has ever exclaimed that.

oneeyedpigeon• 11 years ago

No new iPod announced yet. Disappointing.

cletus• 11 years ago

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

iTunes Radio, Apple's first attempt in this space, is awful. X skips per hour? Really? The story went that Apple's execs actually had no idea how Spotify worked so thought they really had something.

It's the kind of fiasco that would've earned the execs a bollicking in the Jobs days and, to me, the buck had to stop at Tim Cook.

I'm a paid Spotify subscriber. Generally I like it but it has its warts:

- They did an app update a few months ago that's viewed as pretty much universally awful for reasons I can't really explain;

- Their catalog has many holes (eg Australian music, in this case probably because Spotify doesn't have an Australian service);

- I used to think artists were being Luddites by opting out but there's actually good reason for this. They don't earn royalties proportional to the actual plays. The royalty scheme imposed by the record companies gives a disproportionate amount to currently popular artists;

- Because of the last point you have artists who are missing or, in some cases, you have all their songs except their 1-2 money makers;

- Worse, for some songs, particularly for things from the 70s for some reason, you can't get the original. You just get some shitty remaster that sounds like bad karaoke.

- Spotify's radio feature is the real weak point for me. Repeats (sometimes with only a song in between) and the thumbing up and down I don't think really has the desired effect. Like I might be on a good string of songs but I know the worst thing I can do is thumb anything up OR down as experience has taught me this can only make things worse.

Really "thumbs up" should probably mean "don't change anything". Or at least me listening to something in full is itself is a positive indicator.

That being said, I'm not really sure you can do satisfying recommendations here. So much of music is I think tied to memory and nostalgia. You might like a particular song because of a particular person, place, time or event. How does liking that inform any other music choice?

At the same time your radio playlist has to be large enough not to be too repetitive.

What's more, there's actually an art to playlist selection. It's why, for example, at a concert you'll generally see a band start with something upbeat, play anything a bit more mellow in the middle and finish on a high note.

Curated playlists (which I guess Apple is calling "guest DJs" because that's what it amounts to) is an idea with some history (eg Songza, bought by Google last year I think).

I actually find myself listening to iHeartRadio a lot. I pick a music style I'm in the mood for and just try different stations until I find something not too objectionable. Sure there are DJs (99% irritating) and some ads but at least I don't need to build a playlist, worry about what's on Spotify and what isn't or make a decision each song about whether to thumb it up or down. It's it or nothing (well... something else).

Radio really has a low cognitive cost.

jhgg• 11 years ago

Surprised they are also releasing this on Android!

gpmcadam3• 11 years ago

I'm guessing they want it to compete on all available platforms, just how Spotify has. Mac, iDevices, Windows and Android is a start.

They'd do well to add a web client and/or a native Linux client to that list, but the aforementioned platforms covers almost all users I'd guess.

tjakab• 11 years ago

There's already a Beats Music app on Android, and possibly with a not-insignificant subscriber base. Since Apple Music is replacing Beats Music outright they probably didn't want to leave those subscribers out in the cold. They'd basically be handing over customers to Spotify and Rdio.

johnward2• 11 years ago

That plus the family pricing thing is enough to have me consider the service. My wife loves iOS. I currently use Android. $14 a month isn't too bad for multiple users.

god_bless_texas• 11 years ago

I think the most exciting part of Apple Music is the idea of allowing musicians to put their music into the apple store. Much like the Apple store gave a storefront to small indie developers, this might do the same for musicians worldwide. The idea that a small time guy can get a small profit via the app store instead of just posting onto Youtube and crossing his or her fingers is cool.

Aside from that, I really have expected thought changes more than anything from Apple WWDC and this one is just disappointing.

k-mcgrady8• 11 years ago

Little guys have always been able to get music on iTunes. CDBaby/Tunecore etc. allow you to upload your music and have it distributed everywhere including iTunes and Spotify. Artists will still want to go through those services as they enable you to upload one place and be available everywhere.

threeseed3• 11 years ago

It may have been available on iTunes but it sure as hell wouldn't ever be discoverable.

Apple Music should help out with this.

piyush_soni• 11 years ago

"Remember when Steve Jobs said even Jesus couldn’t sell music subscriptions?" http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/8/8744963/steve-jobs-jesus-pe...

temuze• 11 years ago

The product page is live now: http://www.apple.com/music/

devindotcom• 11 years ago

Would have been a great 5-minute update - "we're adding in direct interactions with artists, and a cool new worldwide radio station DJed by a couple really clued-in people. It's reasonably priced and works with all your existing iTunes stuff. First three months free!!"

But that looong, rambling explanation of every little feature, punctuated by clips from hip-but-safe artists, was entirely too much show for it.

stock_toaster2• 11 years ago

Strongly agree. As a user who enjoys their products, I actually hope this flops as hard as Ping did. I want them to focus on hardware, OS, and related services, and not so much on ... whatever the hell this was.

davidhperry• 11 years ago

Perhaps they needed to fill space after nixing the revamped Apple TV announcement, if recent rumors are to be believed.

Animats• 11 years ago

So what is this new product? The Apple site doesn't say.

If you just want background music, try Radio Coast.[1]. This is a successful streaming music project which annoys the RIAA because it doesn't have to pay royalties. Years ago Seeburg, the jukebox manufacturer, offered a background music service, using a special record changer which played 1000 songs over and over. The music was recorded by their own in-house musicians, so they didn't have to pay the RIAA. They never copyrighted the records, which you had to do back then to get copyright protection. Instead, they used a primitive form of DRM - the speed, record size, groove width, and hole size are all nonstandard.

All those records have been converted to files, and there's a streaming site. Hundreds of hours of 1950s elevator music.

[1] http://radiocoast.com/

istvan__• 11 years ago

This is literally the best content in this thread. I haven'd heard about this but this project is freakin amazing.

unsignedint• 11 years ago

Wonder if they'll be providing web player for it.

Personally, that would be a big deciding factor, as I don't want/can't run iTunes.

d0m• 11 years ago

The link just open a modal with "Introducing Apple music".. I couldn't find a way to watch the video or text associated with it. Is it a browser issue? Or is the link wrong?

Nicholas_C• 11 years ago

You have to click the X at the top left. For some reason it's a popup over the intro page.

thirdsun• 11 years ago

Concerning Radio: While I like the general idea of putting human curators in charge, I think the very broad target audience and the mainstream appeal + expectations of Apple will render this service close to useless for anyone who's really deep into music. I don't want to sound like a hipster, but I spent a lot of time digging up old and new gems in music and I really don't expect Apple's radio station to bring a lot of worthwhile discoveries to the table.

The format itself is great - NTS radio has been doing similar stuff for years, independent from ad money or any other influences, just the taste of the respective show host. Apple however? They have to appeal, in general, to everyone and you can't have it both ways - it's either deep, niche and interesting to a small crowd...or very wide and superficial.

Playlists: The suggestions coming from their playlists, don't sound more interesting than what rdio and probably every other streaming service (I don't use Spotify, can't compare) is doing - we saw Bruce Springsteen and "Big Rock" as automated playlists in the demo - not the hardest usecase I imagine. I'm less confident when it comes to obscure jazz fusion krautrock crossovers from the early 1970s. In that case you'll probably have to get your hands dirty yourself, with countless open tabs just like it has been for years. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy going down those rabbit holes.

k-mcgrady8• 11 years ago

> "They have to appeal, in general, to everyone and you can't have it both ways - it's either deep, niche and interesting to small crowd...or very wide and superficial."

Why can't they can do 'shows' like regular radio catering to different tastes?

bamboo_7• 11 years ago

Have you ever used iTunes Radio? I find it to be better than Pandora for connecting and discovering hidden gems that I don't know about. I'm guessing Apple Music will use the same kind of 'genius' information.

r721• 11 years ago

As Tim Cook and Jimmy Iovine revealed Apple's music streaming service on Monday, Spotify's Daniel Ek, whose streaming service is a direct competitor to Apple's, tweeted a two-word reaction that summed up his feels: "Oh ok."

http://mashable.com/2015/06/08/daniel-ek-spotify-ceos-apple-...

capkutay• 11 years ago

Before talking about doing 'revoluationary' things in the music industry, I would love it if iTunes reliably had the music I paid for every time I opened it up instead of a greyed out list item with an ambiguous cloud icon next to it.

j2bax• 11 years ago

Oh I know. This kills me. Make sure iTunes Match is turned on in your Settings > Music. Somehow it got switched off on mine at one point or another. After turning it back on, everything is appearing now. I'm still not incredibly happy with the streaming though. Sometimes a song will end mid song and go to the next one. I kind of wish it could keep a cache of the last couple hundred songs I listened to to reduce network usage as well.

rconti• 11 years ago

Spotify has done a far, far better of integration with devices like Home Theater receivers than Apple has. Airplay works on my receiver, but Spotify is awesome. Fire up a playlist on the laptop, close it, switch to my phone, it can now control the playlist I started on the phone which is now running on the receiver.

The receiver itself plays the music directly rather than being streamed from the device I started playing on. Nifty.

hyperbovine• 11 years ago

Any mention of whether it works offline / on which devices? All I want in life is to play sports while listening to Spotify on my iPod shuffle.

kyledrake• 11 years ago

It's just offering radio at cost?

Download VLC and click on "Icecast Radio". Tens of thousands of streams, for free.

jameshart3• 11 years ago

"Music has been part of the Apple DNA from the beginning". That quote's probably enough to get them back into the High Court... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

glomph• 11 years ago

Funny that they chose exactly the same name as google.

ConAntonakos• 11 years ago

Twitch.TV has actually taken up a large portion of my time listening to live DJ streams. Now if only I could easily use it on my phone while the screen light is off. If this is what Apple is trying to accomplish, then that's interesting; otherwise, there are so many products from which to choose.

chillytoes• 11 years ago

Apple Music is so underwhelming. I see nothing which differentiates it from so many other music products. It was a little sad to see the word "Revolutionary" projected above the stage. snore

Introducing Apple Music

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