Deals for Apple Custom Radio Service 'Nowhere Near to Being Completed'

basesloaded190 said:

I never said anything and neither did you about Apple charging more than what Spotify currently offers.

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I know, I was following up with a secondary question. As in "Would you still use Apple's service if...".

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Plutonius said:

I will never get Spotify since they require you to have Facebook .

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No they dont - they used to, but do now offer an email sign up option.

Go here: https://www.spotify.com/se/signup/plain/?promo=1
Then bottom center, is a link that says "create an account using your e-mail address".

I thought Apple doesn't like to waste time and resources on stupid things.

Is Spotify like Netflix where content can come and go?

Small White Car said:

Is Spotify like Netflix where content can come and go?

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Nope, once it's on Spotify it's there for good. Think of it as access to stream everything in the iTunes store without having to pay for individual songs - ever.

rmwebs said:

For me- there's no point buying stuff on iTunes anymore.

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And this is exactly why Apple is working on this. The tides are shifting (again) and people are no longer buying music, digital or not. To me it has to do with the fact that most new music is crap and super-dispoable. For example, no need to buy or download Rihana's latest album, she releases one every 6 months, and the good tracks get released on radio so you listen to them until you are sick of them, then move on.

Hmm...perhaps Cue's portfolio is too big? He has a lot on his plate, and plenty of issues with maps, Siri, iCloud, iMessage, etc. throw in negotiations with record companies, cable TV companies, content providers, etc. that's a lot.

Apple can't even keep iMessage running, how are they gonna stream music??

Tiger8 said:

And this is exactly why Apple is working on this. The tides are shifting (again) and people are no longer buying music, digital or not. To me it has to do with the fact that most new music is crap and super-dispoable. For example, no need to buy or download Rihana's latest album, she releases one every 6 months, and the good tracks get released on radio so you listen to them until you are sick of them, then move on.

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If I could double-like this, I would.

Otterblue said:

Let's hope it'll be available in Canada unlike Pandora and Spotify.

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Yeah what's up with that?
How does Canada even influence the app submission process?
App Store Reviewer:
OK, I'm about to OK these music streaming apps...
App Store Reviewer Mgr.:
No Wait! Stop! The Canadians don't want free music! If we OK these apps they block our whole store.

How does it work? Is there a Google Android Lobbyist or something?
How come other internet radio apps are available?

Oh no, I've said too much.

ArtOfWarfare said:

I don't use Pandora's service from Pandora, why would I use anything like it from Apple?

If Apple wants to change models, they should move to something people want, like Spotify, not something they don't want.

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That's just your opinion. Pandora is the most popular service and I enjoy it a lot.

http://pandodaily.com/2012/03/06/pa...-competition-and-thats-precisely-the-problem/

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120910-707527.html

instead of wasting billions on court with samsumg why not buy pandora and that's it!???

rmwebs said:

Nope, once it's on Spotify it's there for good. Think of it as access to stream everything in the iTunes store without having to pay for individual songs - ever.

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Spotify Premium costs £10 a month, so £120 a year. If I own zero music and use Spotify Premium for 10 years it will cost me £1,200. If I then decide that I don't want to pay £10 a month any more, I am back to owning zero music.

That is the potential downside of using Spotify Premium, as spending the equivalent £1,200 on CDs would mean that you owned around 170 albums worth of music that you could now listen to for the rest of your life for free, whereas with Spotify you have to carry on spending £120 a year for life to listen to your music, even if you are now listening to the same 170 albums over and over again.

Now, if you constantly listen to new music and are happy to spend £10 a month for the rest of your life then that isn't a downside and Spotify is the perfect solution for you. But if you spend less than £120 a year on physical music or iTunes downloads, or if you will eventually reach a point where you know what you like and are happy to listen to that selection, then it doesn't work out quite as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think Spotify Premium is an excellent service, but I do think that some people that talk about never having to buy music ever again are missing the big picture, and thinking very short to medium term.

I personally tend to subscribe to Premium for a couple of months a year and use that as a chance to listen to new music or artists that I want to get into, and then use the £100 that I've saved by not subscribing for the whole year to then buy the albums of those artists that I like.

Good point, but ....

iTunes has grown quite a bit over the years, too. It started out only selling music and now you use it as your one-stop digital store for iPhone/iPod apps, e-books, TV shows and movies too.

I don't think streaming radio could ever "destroy" all of that?

Bottom line, though: One service requires a constant internet connection and the other (playing MP3 music you bought and saved on your device) doesn't.

Spotify and Pandora might be hurting iTunes music sales to an extent, but that doesn't mean it makes good financial sense for Apple to throw a bunch more money at imitating them.

I don't really see where such a thing would fit well with Apple's existing offerings either? I mean, what's wrong with the $25 a year iCloud music subscription so those who want to can stream their purchased music from anywhere? At least it's not like Pandora, where you're only served up what THEY want you to hear, with little control beyond giving songs a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down".

If Apple started some kind of streaming radio, it seems like it would just compete with themselves for music sales?

Radio said:

This is why spotify - pandora - rdio are destroying iTunes making it irrelevant.

I know so many people who now stream.

People don't buy as much on iTunes

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Stu-Pid said:

Spotify Premium costs £10 a month, so £120 a year. If I own zero music and use Spotify Premium for 10 years it will cost me £1,200. If I then decide that I don't want to pay £10 a month any more, I am back to owning zero music.

That is the potential downside of using Spotify Premium, as spending the equivalent £1,200 on CDs would mean that you owned around 170 albums worth of music that you could now listen to for the rest of your life for free, whereas with Spotify you have to carry on spending £120 a year for life to listen to your music, even if you are now listening to the same 170 albums over and over again.

Now, if you constantly listen to new music and are happy to spend £10 a month for the rest of your life then that isn't a downside and Spotify is the perfect solution for you. But if you spend less than £120 a year on physical music or iTunes downloads, or if you will eventually reach a point where you know what you like and are happy to listen to that selection, then it doesn't work out quite as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think Spotify Premium is an excellent service, but I do think that some people that talk about never having to buy music ever again are missing the big picture, and thinking very short to medium term.

I personally tend to subscribe to Premium for a couple of months a year and use that as a chance to listen to new music or artists that I want to get into, and then use the £100 that I've saved by not subscribing for the whole year to then buy the albums of those artists that I like.

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This is why I use Spotify.

Heres' how I see it:
I may pay for Spotify for 5, maybe 10 years tops.

But, in 5-10 years I highly doubt I'll be using iTunes, or MP3's at all, as eventually we'll end up with lossless audio.

Trying to plan your music purchases in the long-term will never work out, the same applies to Software, Movies or any form of digital goods.

There are just too many downsides to buying MP3's - the quality being one of them.

As much as I love Apple - I'm very content with the services that Pandora provides for me. Although who knows - if Apple is able to seamlessly integrate their music radio service into their already well-established OSX/iOS ecosystem, I may be willing to jump ship -- assuming that their service is able to match if not outperform Pandora's current service quality.

Thanks for posting this!

Good

"Nowhere near completed" - Good, if the Radio is anything like the Map and we getting lost in our own music collections/selections on the iPhone.... ugh.

Slacker Radio is my favorite. When I hear a new song on Slacker I love, I go to iTunes and buy it.

Spotify is great, just the client is terrible, simple & advance options just don't exist. Simple things like play counts and repeat songs - and more advance like genres and smart playlists, duplicate searching etc

rmwebs said:

Nope, once it's on Spotify it's there for good. Think of it as access to stream everything in the iTunes store without having to pay for individual songs - ever.

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This is not true at all. Songs do come and go. Labels have the right to pull their content down and this has happened many times before.

Also, songs disappear due to regional restrictions as well.

MacRumors said:

Eddy Cue has long been Apple's "master negotiator" for content deals, a role that he has reportedly filled with a calm yet firm demeanor that has made him very well respected in the business.

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Weren't Eddy's "masterful negotiating skills" responsible for apple colluding with several publishers thus managing to increase the prices of ebooks and hurt consumers worldwide because they wanted their guaranteed 30% cut off of each book sold? I wonder how "well respected in the business" someone should be when they have both the DOJ and the European Union authorities going after them... I would put that person down as a bit of a crook, but that's just my opinion.

I'm normally not the "Apple should buy this and that company" type (e.g. buying TomTom as some suggest here is ridiculous). But I wonder whether Apple should and could buy Spotify and just be done with it. A potential barrier might be that record companies probably have exit clauses to manage mergers and acquisitions.

My idea of an ideal world: iTunes with Spotify functionality built in.

MacFoodPoisoner said:

Weren't Eddy's "masterful negotiating skills" responsible for apple colluding with several publishers thus managing to increase the prices of ebooks and hurt consumers worldwide because they wanted their guaranteed 30% cut off of each book sold?

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In contrast to Amazon's attempt to lock ebook prices at $9.99 (which means selling at a loss in some cases) in order to establish a stranglehold on the market?

thenaes said:

This is not true at all. Songs do come and go. Labels have the right to pull their content down and this has happened many times before.

Also, songs disappear due to regional restrictions as well.

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this, this, this.

tl;dr: spotify is awesome in concept but kind of evil in practice.

spotify is plagued with issues people here don't seem to be acknowledging, not the least of which is that there are giant gaps in its music coverage--and I'm talking about popular music, here, not just obscure records for music nerds like myself. the music industry is rapidly adopting a model in which an artist's best-selling archive records are not available on streaming services, but their lesser archive records and any new releases are. also, some very popular artists are not available on spotify--do you like the beatles, zeppelin, metallica, or AC/DC? not on spotify.

the spotify mobile app is possibly the worst of any professionally-released app for iOS I've ever used. it's exceptionally buggy and requires me to do things like force quit it over and over or actually restart my iPhone to get it to work properly. it's counterintuitive and difficult to use, to say nothing of actually conforming to apple's UI guidelines.

then there's the ethical issue of spotify: their payments to artists for streams are laughably low, so much so that lady gaga famously made $162 last year in one month for over 1 million plays. that's not a typo.

but do I have a subscription? you bet. I listen to so much new music that I would go broke if I bought it all, and this saves much more time than downloading it from soulseek. they have a corner on the market (don't even get me started on rdio or any of their supposed "competitors") and until people stand up for improving the service, they will continue to be another facebook and turn a blind eye to their consumers.

I WAS the one said:

instead of wasting billions on court with samsumg why not buy pandora and that's it!???

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Yes of course, because Apple can't do both.

Maybe fix this first Eddy.

http://9to5mac.com/2012/12/05/nsfw-...-with-bug-displaying-escortpornography-sites/