Yep, if we could skip, the artist wouldn't get any money for an Iron and Wine song and they might starve. The labels are actually being compassionate by not allowing skipping
.
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Apple and Sony 'iRadio' Negotiations Stalling Over Skipped Songs
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Yep, if we could skip, the artist wouldn't get any money for an Iron and Wine song and they might starve. The labels are actually being compassionate by not allowing skipping
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They already do. I think the issue is that Apple doesn't adequately advertise the fact that artists don't need to have a publisher to upload to iTunes. Maybe they could add a means of uploading to iTunes directly from Logic (and FCPX), like they do from Xcode and iBooks Publisher, then more of the middle tier musicians - those serious but not yet signed - could have a means of easily selling on iTunes. They'd have to manage their own publicity, but they're probably doing that already anyways (if they're looking to get signed.)
RADIO?
This is 2013. We don't want a passive listening experience and to listen to whatever "is on". If I'm in the mood to listen to Blondie, then let me play whatever Blondie track I want whenever I want. That is how Spotify works and I love that model. We already have radio in the form of radio apps which play music from stations as well as Pandora. Pandora is frustrating because you have to listen to what it gives you and you can only skip so many times.
Apple is late to this game, and now they are going to just give us a glorified radio with a passive listening experience? FAIL.
This is 2013. We don't want a passive listening experience and to listen to whatever "is on". If I'm in the mood to listen to Blondie, then let me play whatever Blondie track I want whenever I want. That is how Spotify works and I love that model. We already have radio in the form of radio apps which play music from stations as well as Pandora. Pandora is frustrating because you have to listen to what it gives you and you can only skip so many times.
Apple is late to this game, and now they are going to just give us a glorified radio with a passive listening experience? FAIL.
Spotify isnt radio. It's essentially like iTunes. You have playlists, you can even play iTunes playlist. It has the added benefit of allowing you to play pretty much any music out there. There's no restrictions on how many times, or for how long or any nonsense like that. It's pretty much as perfect as that kind of service can get, and unless Apple can undercut it, theres no point in them trying.
Download it and try it - the free version is just as good, just with a 30 second advert after every few songs.
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Spotify is free. You arent forced to pay for it.
Where's your rational here? Also, why would Apple provide it for free? It'd kill their iTunes sales.
Unless the label has a setup that logs each track specifically, and it's author is paid specifically for that listening, then why not just apply a formula that charges by the weight of the data. If you spent the day skipping, but still sucked down 400 MB, they get their pay.
This is it. I have 13,000 songs on my iPod Classic. No skip limit, i can play a song 2-3 times in a row if I like and I can listen to it for months without hearing the same song. Nothing beats it.
Irrelevant
I wait until CDs have dropped in the price before I buy them, I never buy them a full price, thats a mugs game.
I have hundreds of CDs all legally bought, many for as low as $3. So on my iPhone I have 10G of music I actually like and better yet there is no cost to me for streaming it.
So a subscription service is as appealing to me as a Zune, and if I were to listen to streamed music, I would buy a $10 pocket radio and listen to a local radio station for free.
I wait until CDs have dropped in the price before I buy them, I never buy them a full price, thats a mugs game.
I have hundreds of CDs all legally bought, many for as low as $3. So on my iPhone I have 10G of music I actually like and better yet there is no cost to me for streaming it.
So a subscription service is as appealing to me as a Zune, and if I were to listen to streamed music, I would buy a $10 pocket radio and listen to a local radio station for free.
If you have been following Sony lately, than you should have figured out that since about 2009 they have only continued to improve their products and took drastic measures, including hiring a new CEO - a great CEO, in fact.
Their products are more focused on satisfying customers than ever before - and they are innovating. In fact, I'd argue that, currently, Sony is a more innovative and customer-focused company than Apple. And I really like Apple.
Most of those spending less than 40 dollars a year would be unlikely to subscribe in the first place.
Spotify isn't profitable, neither is Pandora, iTunes is. Apple is probably trying to lose as little money with iRadio hoping to increase the revenue for iTunes.
That's nice, but I think that Spotify beats it, though. Tens of millions of songs. You can save songs for offline usage. There is no skip limit, you can play as many songs in a row as you want and it's updated on a regular basis.
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Exactly, this. There is no reason for Apple to compete with companies like Spotify (even if their products are better), as it is more important for Apple to have little/less customers and high profits, than having lots of customers but (almost) no profits.
Google Play Music All Access Unlimited Skips
This article has got be wrong.
Google's New Music Radio feature has unlimited skips or you can even look at upcoming playlist in radio and swipe songs away you don't want to listen to.
If Google was able to license it I would seriously doubt this is what is holding off Apple signing a deal.
Apple has a much larger user base for music. Why would Sony sign it for Google and not Apple. It just doesn't make any sense.
I think people are just reaching for article hits and nobody but Apple and the music labels know what is holding up the agreement.
This article has got be wrong.
Google's New Music Radio feature has unlimited skips or you can even look at upcoming playlist in radio and swipe songs away you don't want to listen to.
If Google was able to license it I would seriously doubt this is what is holding off Apple signing a deal.
Apple has a much larger user base for music. Why would Sony sign it for Google and not Apple. It just doesn't make any sense.
I think people are just reaching for article hits and nobody but Apple and the music labels know what is holding up the agreement.
I listen to pandora all the time. The skip limit is annoying while you are building up your stations, but once you've gone through them for a while, they end up pretty solid and you don't need to skip. And, you can always change to a new station to avoid the skip limit (it is so many skips per station, not per user).
I don't care for spotify at all. The ads are awful, and if I'm going to spend $10 a month for music that I already know about, I'll just spend that $10 at iTunes or Amazon so that I can listen to it even when I stop subscribing.
Pandora has allowed me to find out about all sorts of new music and it's pretty cheap for when you pay for it annually. I'd be interested in a promotional subscription to Apple's thing when it's released (maybe they'll let you have a week or two trial to find out if it works well). If they have the artists I like from pandora and it does as good of a job as keeping me happy, I would consider switching. But, I got a month free from Spotify, and I ended up going back to pandora + iTunes even without the ads. Once it ran out, I just quit using it altogether. I got tired of really dumb commercials that remind me of why I quit watching TV.
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The two subscriptions are different. Apple's will do radio style, where they determine what plays next. This is different from the license that google and spotify signed. I have no idea why it would matter. It seems like the spotify style license would be more expensive than the radio one, since you can listen to the same song over and over and over and...
I don't care for spotify at all. The ads are awful, and if I'm going to spend $10 a month for music that I already know about, I'll just spend that $10 at iTunes or Amazon so that I can listen to it even when I stop subscribing.
Pandora has allowed me to find out about all sorts of new music and it's pretty cheap for when you pay for it annually. I'd be interested in a promotional subscription to Apple's thing when it's released (maybe they'll let you have a week or two trial to find out if it works well). If they have the artists I like from pandora and it does as good of a job as keeping me happy, I would consider switching. But, I got a month free from Spotify, and I ended up going back to pandora + iTunes even without the ads. Once it ran out, I just quit using it altogether. I got tired of really dumb commercials that remind me of why I quit watching TV.
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The two subscriptions are different. Apple's will do radio style, where they determine what plays next. This is different from the license that google and spotify signed. I have no idea why it would matter. It seems like the spotify style license would be more expensive than the radio one, since you can listen to the same song over and over and over and...
I think only on the mobile app, on the desktop app you can skip all you want if I remember right
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
You're a smart person. All these people just aching to stream music is not just going to pad Apple's pockets but are also going to pad the Music Studios pockets and most of all, the 4G/3G provider's pockets. The real winner in our sucker-like craze to want to stream everything is AT&T, Verizon, etc. They've fully suckered everyone into just accepting the idea of tiers while rolling out an "upgrade" that helps us burn through those tiers faster than ever. Then, they've motivated their partner (through the subsidy business) to focus their innovation energies on "innovation" after "innovation" that are heavily dependent on burning more data.
Think about it: what does iCloud, iMessage, iTunes Match, Maps, Siri, FaceTime and apparently iRadio all have in common? Can't do anything without data burn. Who benefits most from data burn?
And what's the rumored "next big thing"? Some kind of cable-killing video streaming service. If true, it's the mother of all data burning "innovations." Streaming video will rip through tier levels like nothing before it.
Make no mistake here: the big winners in Apple "innovation" is Apple's partners: AT&T, Verizon, etc. Apple wins too by keeping them happy (the fat subsidies keep coming).
We just pay for it... and long to do so. iRadio!!! Think about it. How important is radio to our lives these days? Are we so interested in iRadio because radio's time has come again... or because it increasingly looks like Apple thinks it's something important?
Again, sir1963, you're a smart one. You can load up your portable device with just the music you like, commercial-free, ripped at whatever quality you like and never pay a nickel in data burn or subscription fees to listen to it. The "stream everything", "I want everything in iCloud", etc crowd could learn something from you.
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Google's feature is call Radio. You pick an artist and they create an unlimited (to their songs and including your own) radio station that is created from the artist/song/album that you pick.
And nobody knows what Apple's iRadio is going to be. It's all speculation at this point.
And digital purchases are not owned.
If you can't legally sell it you don't own it.
Because the service is considered a hybrid, they had to draft a completely new type of deal and start from scratch.
Can anyone explain that "hybrid"?
Spotify and the new Google services have a Radio service where the songs are chosen by them, not by the users
When I'm up for listening to music, I prefer random music of a particular Genre. I don't want to know who the next artist / song is going to be. You may like Spotify but many other people prefer a Pandora (what you call passive / radio). I don't criticize the way you listen to music so don't criticize the way others listen to music. There are plenty of music services around and you should use the one that meets your needs (doesn't need to be Apple).
By hybrid, they mean they are a service not associated with Pandora, Google, or Spotify
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