Even though these artists may not be available, it is still advantage to be able to merge your own music with what the streaming service has available. I already own The Beatles albums, so they will still be available to me via their matching process. However, I don't subscribe to these services to listen to a small handful of artists. As someone mentioned, they will have ~30 million songs available. The variety and deep libraries is the main reason I subscribe to streaming.
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Apple Announces 'Apple Music' With 'Beats 1' Live Radio Station, Launches June 30 for $9.99/Month
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Could happen. All of their solo stuff is on Beats. Garth and Tool are no way. Metallica is on Spotify but not Beats (Zep was the same way) but that could change.
Pretty much every artist that matters to 98% of American music consumers besides those few have their full discographies on Beats.
Totally agree, I think maybe they assumed everyone knew streaming was part of it, so they didn't focus on it? I don't know. But I had no idea streaming was part of the $9.99, I thought that was for the new radio station. If they want to compete with Spotify, they need to focus on the streaming part a lot more
As I mentioned early on in this thread. The iTunes library and apple music library are clearly not one in the same. There is a reason Apple was not very clear about this during the keynote and current press. Other news sites are starting to pick up on this.
In addition to whatever artists may be absent from the apple music library, there will likely be other restrictions such as very hot artists new album releases etc. not being avail for immediate stream at release. Think about it... 10 really big artists release new full length albums over a few month time period. There would be no reason for anyone to "buy" these albums or individual songs, if they can just be streamed and even saved for later play. There is no doubt plenty of fine print in this confusing topic.
In addition to whatever artists may be absent from the apple music library, there will likely be other restrictions such as very hot artists new album releases etc. not being avail for immediate stream at release. Think about it... 10 really big artists release new full length albums over a few month time period. There would be no reason for anyone to "buy" these albums or individual songs, if they can just be streamed and even saved for later play. There is no doubt plenty of fine print in this confusing topic.
I totally agree. Choosing to use a streaming service or not based on one or two artists not being available seems like a very odd way of looking at the world to me.
People tend to maximize tiny (in the larger scheme of things) issues like these, and it is often voiced in a way that makes it seem that the specific band/artist that is missing is one of their all-time favorites that they have to be able to listen to very often.
Which of course begs the obvious question to people that make a big deal about such things: Being a massive fan of a band that haven't released anything new or notable for 10, 20 or even 30-40 years you surely would have all their music already?
Most new albums go up on release date. Taylor Swift aside
Looking at Beats: A$ap Rocky's album (#1 billboard) is there
Taylor Swift's album (#2 billboard) isn't
We'll see on The Beatles, their music is available on iTunes radio. I'm sure The Beatles, and George Harrison's estate will get on board if not then , then in the future.
Haven't read the whole thread but there seems to be a fair amount of negativity.
Being based in the UK, and someone who listened to a lot of Zane Lowe on Radio 1, I was really glad to hear there would be an actual live radio station element. If you don't know him, he's an absolutely brilliant DJ. Sure, not everyone likes him, but there's no denying his sheer enthusiasm for music, huge knowledge of music, and ability to attract big guests for the station.
And Connect - a lot of people have dismissed it as another Ping, but I got the impression its a lot more than that. Not just a social media type thing, but enabling artists to upload content to Apple - Radio 1 in the UK has a thing called BBC Introducing which has been going for a few years now. Similar thing - unsigned artists can upload their stuff, and if they're lucky they'll get featured and promoted on the station. I guess a couple of the bigger successes have been Florence + The Machine and Ed Sheeran.
Zane Lowe wasn't the only person they headhunted from the BBC - they also took a few BBC Introducing people too, so I think this while concept is what they are trying to emulate with Connect, with a bit of Ping thrown in as well.
For me these are massive differentiating factors between Apple Music and Spotify, and really looking to getting Zane's show back again.
One thing I'm not sure of with the radio station though - has anyone picked up on whether or not shows will be available to listen again to after their initial broadcast?
Being based in the UK, and someone who listened to a lot of Zane Lowe on Radio 1, I was really glad to hear there would be an actual live radio station element. If you don't know him, he's an absolutely brilliant DJ. Sure, not everyone likes him, but there's no denying his sheer enthusiasm for music, huge knowledge of music, and ability to attract big guests for the station.
And Connect - a lot of people have dismissed it as another Ping, but I got the impression its a lot more than that. Not just a social media type thing, but enabling artists to upload content to Apple - Radio 1 in the UK has a thing called BBC Introducing which has been going for a few years now. Similar thing - unsigned artists can upload their stuff, and if they're lucky they'll get featured and promoted on the station. I guess a couple of the bigger successes have been Florence + The Machine and Ed Sheeran.
Zane Lowe wasn't the only person they headhunted from the BBC - they also took a few BBC Introducing people too, so I think this while concept is what they are trying to emulate with Connect, with a bit of Ping thrown in as well.
For me these are massive differentiating factors between Apple Music and Spotify, and really looking to getting Zane's show back again.
One thing I'm not sure of with the radio station though - has anyone picked up on whether or not shows will be available to listen again to after their initial broadcast?
I think people are just truly ignorant to what 10 a month gets you. It's a no brainier to just subscribe to this forever.
There is no need for innovation. You think they should innovate for innovation's sake?
Typical MacRumors negative comment with no understanding of what's going on. It's not $10 for a radio station. It's $10 for the equivalent of Spotify with some other stuff (including a radio station) thrown in.
If The Beatles etc. don't avail themselves of streaming then they are simply depriving themselves of the opportunity for their music to reach a new audience. Anyone who all ready cares has bought the catalog more than once. I have the whole shebang in stereo and mono on CD and ripped to lossless so it's of no consequence to me at all
If you think that those who don't see reality the way you do lack understanding, then maybe it's your understanding of understanding that is questionable.
Do Apple think people are going to ditch Twitter/Instagram for Connect instead? It's just one more thing people need to upload content to and so they probably won't and it'll just end up another underused bit of clutter
THIS.
Any artist that is 'new' to the listener (be it an established active artist, someone who's active career is over but with a strong back-catalogue or someone brand new) that does not have a presence on the large streaming services in the future will simply be passed by instead of being discovered by new listeners.
No price listed on Apple.com/uk for Music memberships, does that mean we'll be getting it "later" except like iTunes Radio it'll never make it over here?
Problem with the beatles is that the Beatles (remaining members and family) don't own any rights to their own music.
For the longest time, it was one of their management companies, then it got sold off. Michael Jackson actually owned the rights for a long time till he passed.
on his passing, the rights were acquired by Apple Corps (not our Apple, the tech company). And they've been extremely stingy and... anal? about who gets rights.
We know that Apple (tech company) got the rights from them to distribute them via purchase on iTunes, the question is, does that still apply for streaming? I'd imagine the deals are completely different. its not a sure thing that Beatles tunes will appear on Apple Music.
Okay, but I'm still not paying $10 a month for THAT, whatever you call it.
See, I gave Apple so much money since 1984, I don't care what others might think is right, and I still decide what I buy or not.
The fact that there is so much confusion around this HERE (I can't even imagine what the average Joe will think) just shows what a horrible job Apple did of explaining it. They spent 75% of their time talking about the radio station, 20% talking about Connect (which most have already written off as Ping 2.0), and 5% talking about streaming. They didn't mention any competitors or competitive advantages. They weren't specific about what was included (the difference between "Apple Music" and the iTunes store) - there's even conflicting information between the Beats FAQ (which says it includes everything in iTunes) and the Apple Music FAQ (which says it includes everything in the "Apple Music" library). Also, what is the deal with iTunes Match? Again, conflicting (or at the very least, extremely confusing) information on the Apple Music FAQ. And I still don't know exactly what Beats 1 is. Yes, it's a "global" radio station, but is it just one station playing one genre of music? Doesn't seem terribly exciting to me. Seems like they could have turned that into an XM competitor. Maybe that's their long-term goal. They didn't even mention the ability to store and play music "offline."
Their job was to SELL this service and I don't think they did a good job of it.
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Sure - that's entirely your right.
But $10 a month for unlimited streaming and ability to save stuff to your device for offline listening is an absolute bargain really, even if you only listen to a modest amount of music.
Beats 1 is a good addition to the overall service because unlike stations on Spotify, its actual live radio with proper DJs rather than a curated playlist. And you can listen to that for free if you like.
And if you do like curated playlists as a way of listening to a mix of stuff you know an similar stuff you maybe don't, based on genre / what's in your library / what you listen to, you can do that too.
And if new artists upload stuff like they do to BBC Introducing, and they get picked up on the radio shows, that's got to be a good thing too.
So all in all I'd say the overall its a pretty coherent package of music related stuff. For all the negativity (and I agree Iovine wasn't the best speaker, considering his stature in the the industry), but the hookline about all the ways you listen to music, all in one place was pretty much bang on.
As far as I can tell, in the new Apple Music app you will be able to:
1. Listen to stuff in your library, just as you have always done.
2. Be able to stream (and save offline) any music in their library. (Which may or may not be the exact same as the iTunes library. Given that its tens of millions of songs, this detail will be moot for most people, most of the time.)
3. Be able to listen to a live radio station 24/7. (I'd be interested to know if shows will be available to listen again to on demand after broadcast.)
4. Be able to listen to curated playlist stations based on genre / what you listen to / what's in your library.
5. Follow social streams posted by artists, a bit like Ping. But more significantly it will be a channel for unknown or unsigned artists to upload their music straight to Apple, a bit like BBC Introducing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010j8y5
My use of Spotify has grown over the last couple of years, from using the free version a little on my computer where I work, to using the premium version more, including when I am out and about on my phone (now that 4G data costs have come down quite a bit.)
Given that it sounds like Apple Music will be a more complete offering than Spotify, I am pretty much sold on it.
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So what happens to all of my iTunes credit? If I can stream everything, there is no point in me buying music anymore. I guess I can spend it on apps, but currently I have £60 credit.. thats a lot of apps!