Apple Announces 'Apple Music' With 'Beats 1' Live Radio Station, Launches June 30 for $9.99/Month

[milo]

How do I loan music to someone? Give them my AppleID? Same with selling.

Same thing with the death you speak of. Better get your lawyer to put your AppleID in your will so your kids can download your music.

We have no idea if owned digital music will play forever. Only as long as you have a working copy of iTunes and can see the files I guess.

iTunes store music has no DRM. To loan music you just give them a copy of the files. Same thing with passing them to your kids.

And digital music will play forever as long as there are devices that can play that format. And even if a format starts to go away in favor of a different one, iTunes music files can be converted to any other audio format. Once you've bought a song in iTunes, you never need to use iTunes again to listen to it if you don't want to.

 

[genshi]

I was referring to streaming music industry in general. It is a flawed and unsustainable ecosystem for artists.

A spotify revenue for artists goes like this: 70/30 where 70 goes to the record label, 30 to Spotify. Record label takes another huge cut (~30-40%) before it goes to the artist. With a platform like this, artists can in theory be their own record label and take a larger cut. Don't know if it will happen, but I have hope after seeing Eddy Cue introducing an "unsigned" artist on Connect.

We are still talking pennies here for unknown artists. What is interesting for me the most is the sharing feature, of which artists can cross germinate and be discovered. Or at the very least, share their own creation at a bigger, music-oriented platform.

I wish this was true... I am both an Artist and a Record Label. Right now, for every single song of mine that sells on the iTunes Music Store, I get 70 cents (with Apple getting 30 cents.) And for every single sale of a song that sells on iTunes, that same song streams on Spotify 20 to 50 times... and I have yet to see a single penny for any one of those streams in years. This is why Artists, big and small, hate Spotify. Great for the consumer, terrible for artists AND labels (at least my label) alike.

I'll be curious to see how Apple's new Music service changes the streaming side of things here... but I for one am excited for "Connect" as it will be a great way to promote my artists to a wider audience!

 

[manu chao]

Impressive that they're going to be supporting Android, doubt anyone expected that.

When they bought Beats, Apple announced that they would continue to support Android in the Beats streaming music service (which they did). It is not completely unexpected that the revamp of it would be supporting Android as well. They support Windows (desktop) as well via iTunes for Windows.

 

[Keebler]

Apple today announced Apple Music, an all-in-one app for discovering, listening to and sharing music. Apple Music is both a streaming music service and 24-hour live radio station, in addition to a platform for artists to share lyrics, backstage photos, videos or latest songs for fans to comment on and share through social media.

Apple Music's streaming music service enables users to search and stream millions of songs from iTunes, with human curated playlists from music experts for improved personalization over algorithmically created playlists. Apple Music will be available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC on June 30, with support for Apple TV and Android coming in the fall.

Apple's new 24-hour global radio station called Beats 1 will be broadcast live in over 100 countries, headlined by former BBC radio DJ Zane Lowe alongside other famous DJs from Los Angeles, New York and London such as Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga. Beats 1 will offer exclusive interviews, guest hosts and keep tabs on what is going on in the music world.

Apple Music Connect is the social platform built into Apple Music that allows users to connect with artists and share their favorite songs and albums through Facebook, Twitter, iMessage and email. Apple hopes that Apple Music Connect will help not only major artists, but ones that are indie or relatively unknown, more easily promote their music and engage with their fans.

Apple Music will be available on June 30 for iPhone and iPad on iOS 8.4 and Mac and PC through iTunes for $9.99 per month, with a three-month free trial and $14.99 per month family plan for up to six people available. Apple Music for Apple TV and Android will be available this fall. Beats 1 ad-supported stations can be listened to for free without a subscription.

Article Link: Apple Announces 'Apple Music' With 'Beats 1' Live Radio Station, Launches June 30 for $9.99/Month

So I had to leave before the presentation was done - can we still download and buy songs? I'm assuming we can as we don't need to be members?

Although the service looks alright, I like owning my music and arranging playlists as such.
I don't want to be streaming nonstop. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm not a fan of the idea lol

Thanks,
Keebler

 

[furi0usbee]

We have no idea if owned digital music will play forever. Only as long as you have a working copy of iTunes and can see the files I guess..

Yes we do. All your owned music right now without DRM will play forever, as long as the format exists and as long as software exists to play it. None of my iTunes music I bought has any DRM (I long ago removed all the DRM songs I had).

Accessing it via your iTunes account (ID) is a separate issue. Just put it on a hard drive.

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

Except they will still offer iTunes Match for the same price it always was, they even link to it from the Apple Music description page. Again, there HAS to be a difference between the two and all I can come up with is not being able to access your uploaded stuff if you stop paying for Music, even if you're be re downloaded it to your machine. But time will tell. Not even a release date,for it on the UK page yet, so it might never come anyway.

Okay, but does iTunes Match allow you to stream millions of songs you do not own? There's your $9.99 difference.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

The hate for this on here is pretty bizarre to me... as someone who listens to a lot of music, this already seems far better than Spotify, and it integrates my local library in a way that actually makes sense. Sign me up.

Tried Beats 14 days it has terrible UI, hard to find most music from search, no App yet to listen on your Mac but soon once it becomes Apple Music, the pricing is outrageous and iTunes Match customers feel ignored. As for iTunes Match customers why would we want to pay for a separate service when you can just purchase it makes no sense other than I get millions of music which is great but I still have to pay for another service? This should have been part of iTunes not a separate service, also what was the point of promoting iTunes Radio when it came out they never bothered to make any improvements it became like Ping and iTunes Match is becoming the same ignored badly.

 

[furi0usbee]

Steve Jobs said people want to own their music. Tim Cook things people want to rent it. A difference of opinion. I side with Steve on this one. As for a TV service, I could care less about renting that. I only watch 99% of stuff once, and the stuff I want to see again, I can simply buy. I wish I could rent iTunes tv shows and not just (some) movies.

 

[godrifle]

As a developer, I found myself asking "what the hell does this music announcement have to do with developing for Apple products?" Geez, they could have easily spent more time on the details of the other announcements.

 

[cliffster82]

YOU CAN SAVE FOR OFFLINE LISTENING!

I wonder how this works. I have not used paid options for Beats or Spotify. Is there a limit? Does it disappear after a time?

 

[Phil A.]

Steve Jobs said people want to own their music. Tim Cook things people want to rent it. A difference of opinion. I side with Steve on this one.

They're both right and they're both wrong - some people want to own their music and some people don't: All Apple are doing is catering for both types of people: The store isn't going anywhere and no-one has to subscribe to Apple Music if they don't want to

 

[TheAnimal]

They laughed because Jobs used similar language to introduce the iPhone.

The audience laughed when Irvine said that Apple Music is a 'revolutionary music service'. He is a terrible speaker by the way, I actually didn't understand what he was saying most of the time. Good thing Cue is still there.

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

I wonder how this works. I have not used paid options for Beats or Spotify. Is there a limit? Does it disappear after a time?

Only limit is storage space, and it doesn't disappear unless you cancel your subscription.

 

[Meyecul]

It says 'tens of millions of tracks in the apple music library' so yea it may not be every song, but it's most. Tens of millions is quite a few

10s of millions is definitely a nice big number, but not at all clear. There must be what near 50 million songs in the tunes store. So is 10s of millions 20 million?, 30 million?. If closer to the 20 millions that could be less then half of the full iTunes library. Would just be nice for a little more clarification from Apple given this a paid subscription service. The free trial will hopefully reveal a better picture.

 

[postpc]

Spotify has everything I need, and I don't buy into that curated stuff. I would probably check out the Beatles discography but I despise 'exclusive'. That aside I support Spotify as its a European company, Silicon Valley and Apple are big enough as it is as far as I'm concerned.

 

[beachdude42]

Tried Beats 14 days it has terrible UI, hard to find most music from search, no App yet to listen on your Mac but soon once it becomes Apple Music, the pricing is outrageous and iTunes Match customers feel ignored. As for iTunes Match customers why would we want to pay for a separate service when you can just purchase it makes no sense other than I get millions of music which is great but I still have to pay for another service? This should have been part of iTunes not a separate service, also what was the point of promoting iTunes Radio when it came out they never bothered to make any improvements it became like Ping and iTunes Match is becoming the same ignored badly.

Pretty sure this service basically makes iTunes Match unnecessary, all your music will be in the cloud with the monthly membership. And the interface isn't the Beats Music interface, it's redesigned and looks like it has more in common with iTunes on the desktop and the Music app on iPhone.

 

[GrumpyTrucker]

Okay, but does iTunes Match allow you to stream millions of songs you do not own? There's your $9.99 difference.

No,it doesn't. iTunes Match is $24.99 to ONLY access songs you already own. Apple Music is $9.99 for songs you already own AND millions of songs you don't? All I'm saying is there has to be a difference in the "owned music" part of that or who would ever go for iTunes Match again at $15 more expensive for a lesser service?

 

[Wreckus]

10s of millions is definitely a nice big number, but not at all clear. There must be what near 50 million songs in the tunes store. So is 10s of millions 20 million?, 30 million?. If closer to the latter, that could be less then half of the full iTunes library. Would just be nice for a little more clarification from Apple given this a paid subscription service. The free trial will hopefully reveal a better picture.

Is it possible they didn't give a number is because they still don't have all the record companies signed yet?

 

[alainsc]

I wish this was true... I am both an Artist and a Record Label. Right now, for every single song of mine that sells on the iTunes Music Store, I get 70 cents (with Apple getting 30 cents.) And for every single sale of a song that sells on iTunes, that same song streams on Spotify 20 to 50 times... and I have yet to see a single penny for any one of those streams in years. This is why Artists, big and small, hate Spotify. Great for the consumer, terrible for artists AND labels (at least my label) alike.

I'll be curious to see how Apple's new Music service changes the streaming side of things here... but I for one am excited for "Connect" as it will be a great way to promote my artists to a wider audience!

As of now, 50 play time on Spotify roughly equals to $0.006 x 50 = $0.3 USD. The thing about Spotify though, it's essentially hopeless for individual artists to be discovered. That's why I am more excited about the Connect feature.

 

[Subdiv]

The Apple Music presentation was definitely vague and confusing...and after all the years we have been subjected to the wretched program known as iTunes, my confidence is low for the success of this product. I had to chuckle at all the people in the audience who cheered for the inclusion of Android as a platform for it.

 

[ninephive]

This is my question.

Is there any advantage to having bought tons of music throughout the years? Maybe offline playing if they don't offer that in the streaming service?

Is there any advantage to having iTunes Match? Maybe to still upload content that isn't available in the Store (local bands, demos, etc.)?

Some of this was answered in Apple's website, but not all of it, so I'll rephrase the question:

Now that we know that all music will be available to be played offline, is there any advantage to people who have bought music in iTunes all these years over someone coming in that never has?

If person A (myself) has bought hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of music through iTunes over the years and person B has never spent a dime, now that both of us subscribe to Apple Music do I have anything more than he has?

Just curious.

 

[gbkrip]

As a developer, I found myself asking "what the hell does this music announcement have to do with developing for Apple products?" Geez, they could have easily spent more time on the details of the other announcements.

That's what the rest of the conference is for. This year you also have access to the 30 streamed sessions that are to follow. I think they keynote is their chance to update the public on things they are doing (especially with more people viewing the live streams)!

 

[thmsup]

Apple Music FAQ reads as follows:

"How does Apple Music know what songs are in my personal library?

With an Apple Music membership, your entire library lives in iCloud. We compare every track in your collection to the Apple Music library to see if we have a copy. If we do, you can automatically listen to it straight from the cloud. If you have music that’s not in our catalog, we upload those songs from iTunes on your Mac or PC. It’s all in iCloud, so it won’t take up any space on your devices."


So I guess I can cancel my iTunes Match subscriptions if I start using Apple Music? .... But instead of $25/y I would have to pay $120/y? Or I just stay with what I got right now - spotify (which is really awesome imho + iTunes Match for my audio books etc...)

 

[kyjaotkb]

No Music streaming app on Apple TV!!! Looking like either a hardware refresh is around the corner or they seriously shifted priorities...

 

[oneMadRssn]

More legit questions not answered on the FAQ page:
- Does this include DRM on the music?
- Does the regularly purchased iTunes music remain DRM-free?
- Does the iTunes Match match music remain DRM-free?