Apple Hiring Genre Experts to Program iTunes Match Stations

MacRumors · Sep 17, 2013

Apple is hiring a number of musical experts to program its iTunes Match stations, according to a report from CNET. The human touch on the music stations stands in stark contrast to the algorithm-driven methodology that is used by Pandora, the current leader in streaming music.

Pandora uses algorithms and user feedback to determine what songs should be played, whereas Apple will have humans programming its wide variety of stations.

Apple has been staffing up and is looking to hire a range radio music programmers. These are people with deep knowledge in genres such Latin, metal and alternative music who will be responsible for selecting and promoting songs out of the thousands of new releases each month. Apple has also been trying to poach people from the labels themselves.

CNET also says Apple has been working with major music labels to promote "heat seekers", acts that labels believe are on the verge of breaking out, but haven't quite made it to that point.

Apple has always had a human touch on the iTunes Store, with editors reportedly choosing what albums and tracks to feature based on sales and personal preference, rather than a 'pay-to-play' system. The company uses a similar methodology on the App Store with its Staff Favorites and Editor's Choice sections. iTunes Radio also features celebrity Guest DJs, including Katy Perry and Jared Leto at launch, as well as exclusive content -- the Katy Perry station, for example, includes an unreleased track from her new album.

The ad-supported iTunes Radio is included free with iOS 7, launching tomorrow. Subscribers to Apple's $25/year iTunes Match service, however, will hear no ads and will be able to skip an unlimited number of songs.

Article Link: Apple Hiring Genre Experts to Program iTunes Match Stations

DipDog3 · Sep 17, 2013

Good, a lot of the time, Pandora plays songs that make no sense. Hopefully a human can keep this from happening with iTunes Radio.

fenderbass146 · Sep 17, 2013

I thought even match members only had 6 or 7 skips

Lepton · Sep 17, 2013

I assume they are using the genius engine for now. I think iTunes Radio is great, but it has a problem. Enter an artist for a new radio station. When you play the station, the first song is by that artist, but it almost never gets back to the artist again. You get similar tunes, but it goes off and hardly ever returns. It should reset itself every so often and force a tune by the original specified artist.

Casiotone · Sep 17, 2013

"iTunes Match Stations"?? Shouldn't that be iTunes Radio Stations?

Populus · Sep 17, 2013

Maybe is time to think about iTunes match subscription... ¿It's been improved since its launch, regarding album/track recognition?

Casiotone said:
"iTunes Match Stations"?? Shouldn't that be iTunes Radio Stations?

I thought the same

Tankmaze · Sep 17, 2013

sounds like a music director in radio station, where they handpick the music to fit the genre.

That is a good thing.

pilot07 · Sep 17, 2013

fenderbass146 said:
I thought even match members only had 6 or 7 skips

That was my understanding as well. Did they change it?

Plutonius · Sep 17, 2013

pilot07 said:
That was my understanding as well. Did they change it?

I hope so. That's the biggest problem with Pandora (limited number of skips).

Julien · Sep 17, 2013

We need a published or easily searchable list of Stations. Doesn't do a lot of good to have all the Stations if no one is aware or can find. Just as an example in Featured I see Rev Up and Spin the Globe. If you didn't see them in Featured Stations how would you ever know of them?

JohnWhitesideii · Sep 17, 2013

fenderbass146 said:
I thought even match members only had 6 or 7 skips

Yeah the skips are limited for Match users

sundog925 · Sep 17, 2013

itunes match is brilliant when your OCD about naming ALL of your tracks in your library. Ive noticed when one song is off, i.e. like a character, punctuation mark or something else very small, it wont match. So really it makes you organize your library and who doesnt like that?! it effectively killed my iPod classic.

Cant wait for itunes radio. So glad theres a perk for us Match customers who early adopted. Shouldnt they of hired a programmer BEFORE the general launch tho? lol. #wheresyourheadburied

haruhiko · Sep 17, 2013

I subscribed to iTunes match but unlucky iTunes Radio is not available outside the US

BarryL · Sep 17, 2013

Can't wait to try this.

fouramphonecall · Sep 17, 2013

Yep, I can confirm that so far there's still a skip limit for match subscribers. At least on the GM build there is.

Blakjack · Sep 17, 2013

Genre expert?......

ArtOfWarfare · Sep 17, 2013

Thank goodness they're hiring a metal expert.

I seeded a radio station with Fear of Domination (industrial metal band) and it proceeded to play Because I'm Evil (children's Halloween song, written and performed by the same person who wrote the music for the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy - point being it wasn't even metal).

gaximus · Sep 17, 2013

The biggest problem I have with iRadio so far, is that it plays edited versions of explicit songs, even though I have the setting set to allow explicit songs. This is ok for some songs where there is a different version with different words recorded, but sone songs just get silenced out and it's incredibly annoying.

2bikes · Sep 17, 2013

sundog925 said:
itunes match is brilliant when your OCD about naming ALL of your tracks in your library. Ive noticed when one song is off, i.e. like a character, punctuation mark or something else very small, it wont match. So really it makes you organize your library and who doesnt like that?! it effectively killed my iPod classic.

Cant wait for itunes radio. So glad theres a perk for us Match customers who early adopted. Shouldnt they of hired a programmer BEFORE the general launch tho? lol. #wheresyourheadburied

My experience is not the same. I have songs that are matched but the song names are not necessarily correct. Not sure if match looks at the ID, but the song.

Looks at the ID only when you want to get the album artwork.

gaximus · Sep 17, 2013

sundog925 said:
itunes match is brilliant when your OCD about naming ALL of your tracks in your library. Ive noticed when one song is off, i.e. like a character, punctuation mark or something else very small, it wont match. So really it makes you organize your library and who doesnt like that?! it effectively killed my iPod classic.

Cant wait for itunes radio. So glad theres a perk for us Match customers who early adopted. Shouldnt they of hired a programmer BEFORE the general launch tho? lol. #wheresyourheadburied

iTunes Match listens to the song to match it. The spelling has nothing to do with it. Otherwise I could just copy a song and rename it a song I want.

iGrip · Sep 17, 2013

This sounds like a bad idea to me. They will likely push out their preferred artists. Indeed, the article even says exactly that.

I like the algorithm based approach better. It is a crowd sourced approach.

What would be great is if these services supported mass customization, where you could specify several parameters rather than a single artist or genre. Then you could listen to, for example, pre-1965 British blues bands, or Italian Opera.

Eduardo1971 · Sep 17, 2013

They just hire Nic Harcourt!

Loved listening to him when he was at KCRW 89.9 FM-exposed to many great new bands. I still follow him at 88.5 FM KCSN.

For those not in the know:

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

Mike MA · Sep 17, 2013

How about some experts knowhow to finally match iTunes own purchases correctly?

naeS1Sean · Sep 17, 2013

That's awesome... :apple:

WJKramer · Sep 17, 2013

Match subscribers can only skip ahead 6 songs per hour. This article is incorrect.

Apple Hiring Genre Experts to Program iTunes Match Stations

macrumors bot

macrumors 65816

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 601

macrumors 68000

macrumors newbie

macrumors G3

macrumors G4

macrumors newbie

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 604

macrumors 6502

macrumors member

macrumors 68000

macrumors G3

macrumors 68020

macrumors 6502

macrumors 68020

macrumors 68000

macrumors 65816

macrumors 68020

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 6502

Our Staff