Apple Music Now Has 60 Million Paid Subscribers

[SteveW928]

Last I checked, the iTunes Store still had music that wasn't on Apple Music. So I take Eddy Cue's claim that Apple Music is superior, like just about everything else the man has said and done, as being totally bunk.

That's a problem with any subscription service (same for Netflix, etc.). Stuff comes and goes, depending on where you live and what arrangements Apple makes with various license holders. Maybe my tastes in music are odd, but it seems too often when I go looking for something, it isn't there. Or, maybe the album is, but a particular track is missing. I guess I've decided I'd just rather get what I want... and can listen to one of a zillion internet radio stations if I just want a mix of 'stuff.'

 

[tonyr6]

I tried all music services Spotify, YT Music and I always keep coming back to Apple Music because they have the most songs. The other services have glaring holes in there library.

 

[ipedro]

They still have to pay royalties to record labels.

“Revenue” isn’t profit. I don’t know what their net is but $600 Million recurring monthly revenue is a hell of a return on their initial investment.

 

[Akrapovic]

How's radio?

90% of the time I'm listening to music, I'm listening to radio. I like well-curated stations that play good music and don't veer off into weirdsville after a while. Spotify and Pandora both do this; you're listening to classic rock and enjoying it and suddenly hip hop.

Unfortunately, I cannot comment on radio. WiFi at work is too poor to stream music on so I'm limited to whatever I've downloaded.

The Spotify Discovery playlisted tended to be quite good, as was the New Release playlist. Those are updated weekly. As far as I know (and I'd like to be wrong), Apple Music doesn't appear to have a Discovery style playlist. It does have a New Music playlist that's also updated weekly, but I've not found as much nice stuff on that as Spotify. Apple Music "For You" tab has my Favourites Playlist, a Chill Playlist (which I've never used) and a New Music playlist. I'd like a Discovery one, and more of these sort of playlists.

But it is improving. It no longer makes ridiculously obvious suggestions for me. It used to say things like "You liked the Black Keys. Perhaps you'd like this album, by the Black Keys?".
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I tried all music services Spotify, YT Music and I always keep coming back to Apple Music because they have the most songs. The other services have glaring holes in there library.

I think for edge cases, Spotify can still beat Apple Music for weird stuff. Like you, I find that most of my stuff is on Apple Music and I'm happy. But my kids like some video game and youtube stars who are now musicians (some of it is kinda fun, but not my thing), and Spotify is much better for that. So I'm forced to have a Spotify family account for them and Apple Music for me.

 

[justperry]

How's radio?

90% of the time I'm listening to music, I'm listening to radio. I like well-curated stations that play good music and don't veer off into weirdsville after a while. Spotify and Pandora both do this; you're listening to classic rock and enjoying it and suddenly hip hop.

Agree 100%
Why pay for Music when you're able to listen to it for free, there are so many stations out there, especially on the internet.

 

[Rogifan]

Corrected, thanks. Still a bargain. The Beats hardware division alone is worth at least $1B. Apple has already made its investment back in the first few years.

Apple didn’t need Beats to stand up a streaming music service. Heck most of the Beats staff are gone. Legacy iTunes staff are running things.

 

[BlueShirt11]

I just wish they did better playlist composition like Spotify. The built in radio will just play the same 12 songs over and over if you just seed it with one. Listening to albums or artists is great but they could do with better automation.

 

[JBGoode]

Agree 100%
Why pay for Music when you're able to listen to it for free, there are so many stations out there, especially on the internet.

Because you can't listen to a specific song or album with radio. Why would I sit there and listen to randomly generated songs when I can listen to exactly what I want to listen to? Radio is fine for background noise, but paying 10 bucks a month to listen to exactly what I want to hear when I want to hear it is well worth the minimal cost.

 

[Akrapovic]

Agree 100%
Why pay for Music when you're able to listen to it for free, there are so many stations out there, especially on the internet.

I've setup running and mood playlists. Running to a radio station would be pretty terrible, especially with ads, DJs and varying tempo songs.

 

[tonyr6]

I just wish they did better playlist composition like Spotify. The built in radio will just play the same 12 songs over and over if you just seed it with one. Listening to albums or artists is great but they could do with better automation.

Apple Music is best for listening to albums and Spotify is best for playlist stations. The playlist stations on AM are terrible but I listen to full albums all the time so that is why I prefer AM.

 

[Prabas]

Even though I want to use Apple Music instead of Spotify, I just can't. I like Apple's synced lyrics, music quality (AAC codec is better), I like some of Beats 1 radio shows that I can listen on-demand, but the 3 most important things are missing from Apple Music:

* Spotify Connect is too damn good, AirPlay doesn't come even close.

* Endless Daily Mixes, you click play and you're set.

* Crossfade on all devices. I just can't stand the silence between songs, it's so distracting and annoying.

I subscribe to both at the moment and I've noticed that because of the three things that I've mentioned above, I barely open Apple Music anymore. Various playlists take like 4-5 taps to start listening to music, the UI (For me, Browse, etc.) is slow, it takes a second or two to load something, same thing with search. With Spotify search is instant and you can start listening to various playlists within 2 taps.

Give me proper handoff (which works with Sonos speakers), endless playlists, crossfade option on iOS and I'll move to Apple Music the minute it gets all those things.

P.S. Yes, I've sent feedback to Apple, more than once.

 

[Carlanga]

Wonder if those subs include people who are , like me, "free" subs included with Verizon Beyond Unlimited or Above Unlimited service.

im pretty sure they are, also like me that got an extra month free w stack social

 

[Mutepointer]

Truly amazing actually

You jesting?

 

[bobtem]

“the company is continually working on perfecting the platform...”

Well if it was perfect, then you wouldn’t need to improve it.

But semantics aside, the UI is quite bad, and the features still need a lot of work. Example, the now playing bar at the bottom is so indistinguishable from the rest of interface, I still have trouble seeing it down there, even though I know that’s where it is. And for features, the user-created Radio stations still repeat like a mofo. Why can’t it continually dig deep into the library and serve up new songs and severely limit repetition?

Overall, the Ui has had 20 years of “perfecting” but it’s further now than its ever been.

 

[JGIGS]

A little off topic do any beta users of the new Mac OS know if they removed smart playlist from the new music app? That would make me sad.

 

[lunarworks]

That $3B acquisition of Beats is now looking like a bargain huh?

$600M per year in recurring revenue in the music streaming business and Beats’ hardware division is worth $1B on its own.

That would be $600M per month, wouldn't it?

 

[posguy99]

Still not worth subscribing to, as Apple intentionally cripples it unless you allow iCloud Music Library. And certainly am not going to do that.

You've gotta figure a lot of these are the result of VZW giving the service away. Wonder if someone has a metric for how many people signed-up through VZW, and then have never used it?

 

[PlayUltimate]

We're one of them, family plan. It works fine, although my wife uses Pandora more.

Why isn't there an annualized family plan like there is for individuals?

 

[Rohirm]

Apple should fix the music player in iOS. The basic usability has decreased. These are what mainly bugs me:

-When you select some song, you can't easily see the song list of the full album (remember when you did see those by just tapping the cover?)
-You can't go to the artists "home directory" from the song you are currently playing to see the other albums. You have to browse from the start.. Artist -> Albums ... that's slow! (Unless you just have browsed and it hasn't forgot what you did)
-When I have searched some album and started listening it in my car and next time I go to my car the phone has forgot the steps I took to find the album. It only shows the song I played last time. So, again I have to browse and search the album from the beginning

No matter where I have searched some song or started to play it, it should be easy to see the other songs from that album and to see other albums of the artist!

 

[4jasontv]

Because you can't listen to a specific song or album with radio. Why would I sit there and listen to randomly generated songs when I can listen to exactly what I want to listen to? Radio is fine for background noise, but paying 10 bucks a month to listen to exactly what I want to hear when I want to hear it is well worth the minimal cost.

Radio is a great way to add noise, but I wouldn’t pay to have specific noise. I would pay $10 a month to have a say in what is playing on other people’s phones if they opt to use a speaker and not headphones.

 

[SteveW928]

But semantics aside, the UI is quite bad, and the features still need a lot of work.
...
Overall, the Ui has had 20 years of “perfecting” but it’s further now than its ever been.

The UIs unfortunately, IMO, have done a bit more going backwards in the last several years than advancing at Apple. They still haven't fully recovered from the iOS7 mess, even. Just text and images on white might look OK visually, but it doesn't make a great UI.

 

[now i see it]

they're more than happy to gloat about the number of A-Music subscribers, but when it comes to how many iPhones sold? Crickets

 

[smirking]

Wonder if those subs include people who are , like me, "free" subs included with Verizon Beyond Unlimited or Above Unlimited service.

I'd assume it would. I'm pretty sure you're not really free. Verizon is surely paying a discounted rate to Apple to offer that to you.

 

[citysnaps]

Because you can't listen to a specific song or album with radio. Why would I sit there and listen to randomly generated songs when I can listen to exactly what I want to listen to? Radio is fine for background noise, but paying 10 bucks a month to listen to exactly what I want to hear when I want to hear it is well worth the minimal cost.

It's even better than that. The $99 Apple Music annual subscription works out to $8.25 per month.

If you fund it with discounted iTunes gift cards from Costco (at $94 for a $100 card), that drops to $7.83 per month.

Occasionally Costco offers iTunes cards at $85 for a $100 card, yielding an Apple Music cost of $7.08 per month. A bargain...

 

[MKevin3]

Apple Music has 60 million paid subscribers
He also said that Beats 1, Apple's radio station, has "tens of millions of listeners."

Sounds like at least 20 million based on wording otherwise it would be "millions" for under 10 million? Does that really mean than at least 1/3 or all Apple Music listen to Beats 1? Seems like a high number.