Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Apple Music: 'We Worry About the Humanity Being Drained Out of Music'

Apple is part of the problem of "dehumanizing" music with the advent of digital music. I love the convenience of being able to pick-and-choose select songs from an artist or getting an out-of-print album, but there is certainly something loss by the lack of a physical product. iTunes LP was an interesting attempt to add a little extra to the album-buying experience, but it never seemed to gain much traction, sadly, and now Apple is retiring that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: toph2toast
one1 said:
Neither Apple or Spotify make music.

They sell it. So it's comical to hear them talk about it like they are holding the guitar. Neither will determine what I listen to. If you don't already know what you want to hear, then it probably doesn't matter which bot you get it from.
Click to expand...
The record labels don't make the actual music either but they have a huge influence over what music you and I like. I don't see how power players like Apple and Spotify aren't equally responsible as tastemakers and marketing machines.

Right now I would agree that one bot isn't much different than another but that will change once AI is truly used in music selection. Imagine saying that one of your friend's taste in music is no different from another. AI will supplant your friends' influence over your music choices one day in the near future.
 
edenwaith said:
Apple is part of the problem of "dehumanizing" music with the advent of digital music. I love the convenience of being able to pick-and-choose select songs from an artist or getting an out-of-print album, but there is certainly something loss by the lack of a physical product. iTunes LP was an interesting attempt to add a little extra to the album-buying experience, but it never seemed to gain much traction, sadly, and now Apple is retiring that.
Click to expand...
kinda us humans too, my friends don't listen to albums or even music anymore.
whereas i can't listen to a song, i need the entire album.
 
Tim can say that but Spotify is still much better in almost every way. I’ve been a long time Spotify Premium user and recently moved to Apple Music because my carrier offers Apple Music subscription. And I have to say that Spotify is way better. Better integration with platforms, better UI, better playslists. Daily mixes are something AM doesn’t even come close. They helped me discovering some great music in a variety of different music styles. And one thing that it pisses me off in AM is that it’s worse than Spotify on integration between Apple own iOS devices. I’m listening on my Mac and can’t roam to iPhone like on Spotify. Apple Music needs a revamp once and for all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: arkitect
Whatsit2u said:
Rather than worrying about the humanity, how about Apple focus on the sound quality? Tidal offers CD-quality streams, plus a growing number of MQA titles. Apple, as far as I know, doesn't even reveal the (relatively low) quality of its streams. Want more humanity? Give us better sound.
Click to expand...
Agreed on that but even in the day of Steve Jobs who was supposed to have been an audiophile, iTunes downloads were only 128 kbps at the time. Going forward, headphone listening will be bluetooth only as dictated by the elimination of jacks and ports on smartphones. I don't think that music quality has ever been on Apple's radar.
 
Dougie Jones said:
To get to the next trillion faster, Apple should buy Tesla, fix their "production hell" and merge them with their own self-driving vehicle program:)
Click to expand...

One should ask, "if Tesla is doing so well, why does it keep borrowing millions and millions of dollars"?
 
I’ve used both extensively and they’re both great. Settled on Apple Music eventually, but Spotify is an equally valid choice.
 
Humanity? Drained? This is some sci-fi talk. Apple music don’t have all the songs that i’ve been looking for.
 
  • Like
Reactions: apolloa
This is classic PR diversion tactic to cover up the fact that Apple’s music discovery/ machine learning is worse than Spotify.

I’m a former Apple Music subscriber (now Spotify subscriber).

I left (partly) because I felt that Apple didn’t have enough humans creating new playlists.

I got bored of seeing the same curated playlists in the genres that I liked (electronic & dance - hardly that obscure) with barely any new ones for months on end.

At least Spotify has playlists and brilliant music discovery that keeps me finding new favourite songs every month - I couldn’t say that for Apple.

Btw the other reason is that I quit is the iCloud music library match often replaced music that I owned with the wrong versions (different mixes or tracks that were part of mixes replacing complete tracks).

So my message for Cook would be to hire more humans, get better at music discovery and allow people to opt out of iCloud music library track replacemt on a track my track level. And to spend less time trash talking Spotify.
 
"Music inspires, it motivates. It's also the thing at night that helps quiet me. I think it's better than any medicine," Cook said.

Rumor has it Cook has "Money" by Pink Floyd on a constant loop. I hear it's the "cha-ching" sound in the song's opening he likes the most.

"We worry about the humanity being drained out..."

Yeah, this from a company that ruthlessly drives down their cost of commodity part like DRAMs, bullies, steals, or drives out of business any competitors, runs a Mafia-like "Made for iPhone" racket, pushes phone prices over the $1,000 mark, and sues the hell out of competitors that dare put out a rectangular phone with icons on it for "stealing their designs".

What a joke. Shut up, Apple - you're just a greedy, 1,000-lb. trillion-dollar capaitalistic gorilla. At least be honest about it and stop acting like you're the flagging, touchy-feely underdog from the early 90's.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mal Blackadder, Hank Carter, Cole Slaw and 5 others
Hypocritical. Bits-and-bytes? The company you are now CEO of started all of that with iTunes which started all of this “draining out the humanity of music” you are so worried about by having it so easily accessible on all of your devices. You can’t kill the behemoth that you created now. Too late for that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mal Blackadder
anyone remember spending $50 a week/month on CDs that are resting in our siblings house?
during that time, rock bands would want to record new music.
like i posted earlier, i cant find an album released in 2017 I'm interested in buying with downloading the songs.
im not doing that because the musicians do not get their fair share.
so both choices are corrupt.
 
Geez Tim, lighten up. If music were such a big deal you would offer a higher bit rate for greater quality and you would open the platform up more. I’ve never used Spotify. I still listen to Pandora and Sirius XM.

Apple Music is fine for digging up albums, just with it offered even better sound quality like a CD or dare I even say LP.
 
So, what is the human touch Apple has? Do they have professional disk jockey's creating their playlists? Huge numbers of people going through everyone's music listening habits and manually making suggestions? My guess is they use algorithms.

I've found Spotify's suggestions to be quite good. I've heard a lot of good old tunes I'd never heard before from long forgotten bands. My only gripe is it keeps pushing new crap on me. Not taking into account that I mainly listen to jazz and rock from the 70's and earlier. Occasionally some classical, musicals or opera.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fairuz
I have no idea what BS Tim Cook is spouting here. Spotify has user-created playlists being shared, and Apple Music doesn't. Apple Music is probably the least human music platform I've used, though the service is otherwise good.
[doublepost=1533677804][/doublepost]
velocityg4 said:
So, what is the human touch Apple has? Do they have professional disk jockey's creating their playlists? Huge numbers of people going through everyone's music listening habits and manually making suggestions? My guess is they use algorithms.

I've found Spotify's suggestions to be quite good. I've heard a lot of good old tunes I'd never heard before from long forgotten bands. My only gripe is it keeps pushing new crap on me. Not taking into account that I mainly listen to jazz and rock from the 70's and earlier. Occasionally some classical, musicals or opera.
Click to expand...
Also, the algorithms are based on human selections anyway.
 
Having both Apple Music and Spotify, to me aka IMO;

Apple Music may work perfectly, have great library, perfect integration; but lacks every and all sense of soul.

Spotify is a bit messier, the app is buggy/glitchy and battery wasteful; the most wonderful music curation and discovery service I've ever used.

Think about it, they cost about the same amount and one has a powerful backing. The only way Spotify can continue to exist is if they did something right.

Only other services I have tried are Pandora FYI.

Only other complaint is Apple Music still doesn't have all the music I like..
 
  • Like
Reactions: toph2toast
It's the only thing that Apple can think of that differentiates them from Spotify, so trust Apple's marketing to put a spin on it that they hope will appeal to the masses.
Hate to say it, but humans aren't better than machines at everything. I've got a hand-crafted mug from my daughter's 2nd grade that proves it ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back