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

Apple Music Connect Launches as Promotional Resource for Labels and Distributors

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster


Apple has launched Apple Music Connect, a new resource for labels, distributors, and partners to manage promotional assets, upload press photos, and help coordinate how artists' music and marketing materials are presented across the streaming service.

apple-music-connect-resource@2x.jpg

The new online hub includes a range of tools and services for music labels, including:
  • Promote: Creates promotional artwork and visual assets to support releases across Apple Music surfaces and external channels.
  • Apple Music Pitch: A way to submit detailed information about upcoming releases for editorial and playlist consideration.
  • Media Requests: A place for uploading and managing press photos and assets requested by Apple Music for editorial use.
  • Social Assets: Generates shareable templates for announcing placements, milestones, and releases on social platforms.
  • Console: A central dashboard to access and manage Apple Music Connect tools and permissions.
  • Marketing Tools: To generate affiliate links, badges, embeddable players, QR codes, and related promotional materials.
The new Apple Music Connect hub shouldn't be confused with the ill-fated Apple Music Connect social platform, which was shut down in 2018. The social engagement feature let artists directly share content with their fans, but it suffered the same fate as Ping, the company's previous social network for music removed from iTunes in October 2012.

Article Link: Apple Music Connect Launches as Promotional Resource for Labels and Distributors
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/18/apple-music-connect-launched-for-labels/
  • Wow
  • Like
Reactions: Z-4195 and xizdun
ch1ptune said:
Love how much attention Apple Music is getting these days. It's felt rather neglected for many years.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I’ve criticised it here a lot over the years.

Went back to it recently because of a promotion and was pleasantly surprised.

It’s hard to put my finger on it, but it just seemed a lot better than before.

The recommendations were better. As were the curated playlists.

Hopefully this will help make it feel a home for artists a little more, other than the radio shows (which are very good if you like that sort of thing - I don’t).

Spotify by contrast seems to be getting worse.

Lots of dross in the recommendations & famously tracks that they themselves have commissioned in the ‘moods’ playlists that that that they have.

Plus the push into audiobooks and podcasts is irritating. I don’t want these in a music app. But Spotify wants to a be an audio and video app.

Anyway. Happy that Apple Music is getting some love.

The music player on the Mac is still awful though. Let’s hope that gets some love sometime soon.
 
Was getting my hopes up thinking this would be like Spotify connect. Apple Music no doubt has the best music catalogue with lossless music but is seriously hampered by Airplay 2 capabilities and only a handful of devices that can play music independently without relying on airplay. Airplay 3 with proper lossless support for Apple music or even better something like Spotify connect would make it the best music streaming service out there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: swrobel, livmatus, Marco Klobas and 3 others
darngooddesign said:
How is that different from the lossless high res they already have?
Click to expand...

AirPlay? It doesn't reach 192 kHz. The only way to get Apple Music lossless hi-res currently is via a USB connection – possibly through iOS/iPadOS since macOS doesn't switch automatically the sample rate unless a third party workaround is implemented.
 
Marco Klobas said:
Man, for a second I thought Apple finally introduced a lossless hi-res protocol à la Qobuz Connect. 😳
Click to expand...
What are you talking about? There is no “lossless hi-res” over Bluetooth.

Bluetooth cannot even deal with the bitrate of a CD-quality lossless file, it wont be able to deal with anything significantly “bigger” than that.
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: hjkuldbrot
Mother Nature said:
What are you talking about? There is no “lossless hi-res” over Bluetooth.

Bluetooth cannot even deal with the bitrate of a CD-quality lossless file, it wont be able to deal with anything significantly “bigger” than that.
Click to expand...
"Qobuz Connect is a feature allowing users to directly control high-resolution audio streaming (up to 24-bit/192 kHz) on compatible Hi-Fi devices, streamers, and speakers directly from the Qobuz app. It bypasses Bluetooth limitations for higher quality via Wi-Fi/Ethernet, acting as a remote control for the hardware. "
 
MrRom92 said:
This doesn’t seem to do anything when I log in. Another non-feature advertised by Apple?
Click to expand...
Same, just a blank page.

Ultimately, I'd like to see Apple give the power to upload animated album artwork to the artists. I understand there are strict requirements for that...but let's level the playing field here Apple. If you want to give artists the tools to get noticed, that'd be a huge draw.
 
ThankYouRob said:
Same, just a blank page.

Ultimately, I'd like to see Apple give the power to upload animated album artwork to the artists. I understand there are strict requirements for that...but let's level the playing field here Apple. If you want to give artists the tools to get noticed, that'd be a huge draw.
Click to expand...

that would be a nice option! There’s always some favoritism on Apple Music with major label artists or nice features like that which are never exposed to average/smaller labels
 
  • Like
Reactions: ThankYouRob
Marco Klobas said:
I didn't mention Bluetooth. I'm referring to the possibility to send an unaltered audio stream to a receiver through a network protocol.
Click to expand...
Yes, Apple should be applauded for Apple Music’s fair pricing, their massive true hi-res library, and including Hi-Res in the basic plan. But as it stands they make it way too convoluted to actually access that hi-res audio in any practical way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marco Klobas and djdl
bgk98 said:
Was getting my hopes up thinking this would be like Spotify connect. Apple Music no doubt has the best music catalogue with lossless music but is seriously hampered by Airplay 2 capabilities and only a handful of devices that can play music independently without relying on airplay. Airplay 3 with proper lossless support for Apple music or even better something like Spotify connect would make it the best music streaming service out there.
Click to expand...
this ... seeing the title I also had hopes that the glitchy playback and chaotic music control when moving from device to device would be solved, but no

Spotify Connect is still superior in this regard
 
In principle this seems like something that could be good - one of the only things of value lost in abandoning Meta products has been no longer having access to musicians social media pages where they make announcements. It would be nice for artists to manage their artist page as a sort of condensed social media hub.
 
Is it too much to hope that this might hint at the possibility that the Apple Music Artists app might get a little attention too?? In addition to being generally lackluster feature-wise, it just straight up doesn't work for days at a time with no news or acknowledgment from Apple.
 
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