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Apple Aiming to End iTunes Music Downloads in Two Years [Update: Apple Says 'Not True']

If consumers are confused between AM and iTMS it's because the Music app is so poorly designed they can't help but be confused. Plus the fact Apple had a free music streaming service and then they had a pay-only service.

Is this an Apple initiative in an effort to push AM? Or something the industry is prodding them to do in exchange for an sweetened ATV bundle deal? If this is to push AM I think it's a fail. If it's to curry favor w/ media companies for good video options on ATV it might be worth the trade off as there are other (as of now) ways to buy music. I don't think the music companies is going to go cold turkey on CD production. Heck, they just ramped up LPs again.

I don't buy much on iTunes b/c I prefer the higher sound quality of CDs, but I buy one hit wonders on it (or Amazon). First Apple effectively did away with pay once, play many times apps. Now same is happening w/ Music. Bleh. Now I need to ditch all those "discounted" iTMS gift cards I bought. Good thing lots of nieces and nephews have birthdays coming up. Clearance time.

Ugh. It's such a crappy day here weather-wise, and today's Apple news matches it. Need a dose of sunshine here please.
 
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soupcan said:
How to get people to torrent stuff: step 1.

Seriously, I'd like to OWN the music I pay for. I don't own anything with streaming.
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yes but you have to pay 10$ for an album, so 10 albums are 100$ and 100 albums are 1000$ and so on....with this you pay 10$ per month and you have unlimited albums every day for 10$/month
 
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Seems a bad idea. I want my music local.. not residing on some server somewhere. I'm assuming there will be a local copy on the phone..

Mobile Data is expensive, we can't keep on downloading music everytime we want to listen to something purchased from iTMS.

I'm personally not interested in a subscription either.
 
Wow, so the march toward making music totally ephemeral continues. Will people feel any kind of loyalty towards or have a stake in a favorite band without actually owning their music?
 
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JayJamesWaller said:
This figure wasn't for 2016, it was only a prediction from some randomer about what it might be in 2019. Calling BS on it too...
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You are right, I read it as 2016. Still, if it was 3.2 billion in 2012, what is it in 2016, 1 billion? 1.2 billion maybe? Still very low revenue to make it worth for them to keep it going.
 
djeeyore25 said:
I'm waiting to hear what Taylor Swift has to say about this.
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She just weighed in...
giphy.gif
 
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BeSweeet said:
Because 8GB and 16GB devices are here to stay forever, I imagine :D.
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Here's a huge misconception about Apple's iteration of "cloud" services. Let me share my story:

I use the cloud for everything:
Music = Apple Music
Photos = Google Photos
Documents = iWork

Realizing this, I decided to "test" getting a 16GB iPhone 6s Plus. I'm on a leasing program with T-Mobile that lets me trade in my phone whenever I want to get a new one (almost whenever I want :p ). I figured if 16GB wasn't enough for my needs, I'd return the phone and pay $100 down to get the 64GB version.

To my surprise I was out of space within a month. I was shooting a video while on vacation and I ran out of storage space. This confused me because I had a one and a half pages of apps, none of which were more than 300mb. I wrote it off as "This is what happens when you buy a 16GB phone."

One day I realized there was no way my phone was using that much storage space. I started to investigate and couldn't figure it out. I called Apple Support.

Within minutes, we were able to diagnose the problem.....Apple Music. Apple Music takes your phone's ENTIRE available storage. I had 7GB of Apple Music cache files. Not one megabyte could be traced back to Apple Music and there was no easy way to delete these files without the help of Apple technical support. The reason I purchased the 16GB iPhone was so that I could stream my music and photos without using local space. What a crock! The space comes through as "Other" in iTunes when providing storage information. On my iPhone? There was no way to tell. I was literally left guessing. Luckily, you can turn off "iCloud Music Library" and turn it back on to reset the cache. That's not a very elegant solution.

I have a few things that I take away from this....

#1 - Apple needs to do a better job telling its users what is taking up storage space on their phones. The current page that shows your usage is laughable. "Other" needs to be present, otherwise it's a mystery. In many cases the most space being utilized isn't listed in your usage page. What's the POINT of a usage page then? Idiocy.

#2 - Apple needs to let users limit the amount of cache Apple Music allows for streaming. There is no WAY I would ever let Apple Music take up 7GB of storage on a 16GB (12GB) device. That's lunacy.

I think it's shameful what Apple is doing. If I wasn't part of T-Mobile's program, I would be stuck with this 16GB brick forever. Luckily, I can trade-up to the new phone upon release to solve my storage woes. It could be worse having to reset my Apple Music cache every month, but I can survive until the new phone comes out....
 
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we'll see about that in 2020. if it happens, well i guess amazon, google & local CD stores will be quite happy.

as for me, i am a daily spotify user, but only because on the desktop it's free & without any ads... on the go, given my listening habits, it's far cheaper to buy a albums/songs. that's not even including the $30 a month i currently save by not needing a more expensive mobile data plan (that could change till 2020 though).
 
Yeah, but does Apple music let you listen to specific songs like you can with Spotify? Or is it like a random jukebox generator like Pandora? Cause if you can't listen to the exact song you want when you want on Apple Music, then it doesn't make sense to get rid of iTunes downloadable songs.
 
yg17 said:
Okay fine, I'll buy my music elsewhere. I have zero loyalty to iTunes.
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wolfshades said:
Oh go ahead and do it, Apple. Give me a reason to break away from the Apple ecosystem....
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Slix said:
my money would be shifted to other companies to buy my music, like Amazon or the physical CDs.
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Apple's been doing this since 2003. What makes you guys think Amazon or other digital music stores won't do the same thing?
 
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Ehhm... So, what about things that are not available on Apple Music? Prince, Adele's 25, the new Beyonce album? Apple is seriously considering losing this market?
 
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No need to get upset yet. Clearly, this decision will be based on how profitable music downloads are so if enough people spend enough money, they will stick around. The only reason they're considering this is because music downloads are already on the decline. There are always exceptions to the rule but if the majority switches to streaming then there won't be any incentive for them to keep downloads around for the minority.

In other words, people are gonna have to put their money where their mouth is.
 
Apple has become what it always despised about IBM...
They are the now the "big brother" they depicted in the mac advert.

Congrats apple, we just need the brave woman to rise up against you and free us from your tyranny
 
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The remarks in the "Top Rated Comments" are hilarious. So elitist! Reminds me of being around people that are just slightly too into "their thing" (yeah, yeah, I know your response will be "it's called passion you fool!).
 
dgalvan123 said:
So. . . how will we listen to our music when not connected to the internet?
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You can already download "your" music with AppleMusic - if you don't renew your subsription though you can't play them anymore.

--

What a stupid move!!!!!! I want to own my music, as others have mentioned already. I'm not on AppleMusic and don't plan to be, because I don't care about streaming. I guess I'll just buy more CDs (and vinyls!) :)
 
First of all, you people saying you want to "own" your music better realize that technically you are just licensed the music. You don't actually own any music unless you make it.

I travel frequently, and I don't really wanna pay money for wifi on a plane, so I'd rather have my music library local.
 
What about songs that are NOT on Apple Music, but they are available for purchase through iTunes, due to some stupid negotiation between the record labels, the artists and Apple? Hopefully they will fix this within the two years they plan on getting rid of the service then.

Also what about songs that are already on my account? Would they stay associated with my account?
 
the last album i bought was Pokemon Hits when i was like ... uh too long ago so no loss for me but i am happy to pay for Spotify on a student discount

MacDarcy said:
Yeah, but does Apple music let you listen to specific songs like you can with Spotify? Or is it like a random jukebox generator like Pandora? Cause if you can't listen to the exact song you want when you want on Apple Music, then it doesn't make sense to get rid of iTunes downloadable songs.
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have u been living under a rock? ;) yes of course u can listen to whatever whenever
 
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