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Good for them, I'm not one of them. I prefer to own my music.

You can have the best of both worlds. AM is fantastic for finding new songs/artists and I've been purchasing songs/albums that I discovered through the "for you" feature. For music lovers, it doesn't get any better than the combination of AM, iTunes Match and iTunes.
 
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Like most I'm unhappy with Apple's music app. Harder to use. So unintuitive.

Personally, I subscribe to Spotify for my son, but I do not think the app is all that great either.

It's sad Apple does not immediately fix their music app. Streaming music is hard for me to get exited as I don't own it and pay on a subscription model is not ideal. But this looks to be the wave of the future, i.e. Netflix

In my humble opinion Apple is often too proud to admit their failings and fix something. I would think fixing the app would be "easy" and a priority.

I don't see what's so hard for you? Launch the app, use the search window, find a song and press play. Damn, is that really so hard? If it's really too hard to use Apple Music then you shouldn't be using computers at all. Over the many years, the most non-techie people running Windows certainly handled that system with all it's issues and non-intuitiveness, and Windows 10 isn't really much easier.
 
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Subscribers means paid. That means 10 million are paying for Apple Music up from 6.5 in October. And 20 million pay for Spotify. Whatever your thoughts that's a very solid accomplishment for only being around for half a year. At this rate they'll surpass Spotify before the end of this year. It's only gonna get better. Apple Music was very glitchy in the beginning and while not perfect it's much better now. Not to mention Spotify isn't exactly easy to use either. Offering all this to users is very complex for any company to do. Both services have their strengths and weaknesses.
Considering Apple has a user base of 800 million iPhone users, 10 million is a surprisingly low number, which actually indicates that Apple Music is a poor product.
 
Is this the part where I tell you that you never own your music? You own the rights to listen to it the same way whether you're legally streaming it or legally purchasing it.
Except once you buy a song or an album you can listen to it whenever you want. Once you stop paying the monthly subscription fee you can no longer listen to that music.

Considering Apple has a user base of 800 million iPhone users, 10 million is a surprisingly low number, which actually indicates that Apple Music is a poor product.

Is it a poor product or do people just not want to pay $10 a month to use it (or a bit of both)?
 
Considering Apple has a user base of 800 million iPhone users, 10 million is a surprisingly low number, which actually indicates that Apple Music is a poor product.
I dunno... 20 million for Spotify isn't that much better.

Maybe paid streaming music in general isn't a big market?

Consider all the devices that have access to paid streaming music services: Desktop and laptop PCs, Macs, Android phones, iPhones, Android tablets, iPads, etc.

Nearly every person with an internet-connected device can stream music.

So what would that be... a couple billion people?

Yet only 30 million pay for on-demand music streaming?
 
Except once you buy a song or an album you can listen to it whenever you want. Once you stop paying the monthly subscription fee you can no longer listen to that music.

True, but it's still bound by a licence. In most countries (including mine), you can't legally transfer ownership, share or format shift content you buy in digital format. Heck, most countries still don't let you rip music from disks.
 
I dunno... 20 million for Spotify isn't that much better.

Maybe paid streaming music in general isn't a big market?

Consider all the devices that have access to paid streaming music services: Desktop and laptop PCs, Macs, Android phones, iPhones, Android tablets, iPads, etc.

Nearly every person with an internet-connected device can stream music.

So what would that be... a couple billion people?

Yet only 30 million pay for on-demand music streaming?
You don't understand. Apple Music come pre-installed on 800 million users with iOS update. For a userbase of 800 million, 10 million subscribers is paltry.
 
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Yet only 30 million pay for on-demand music streaming?

Well put. 30 million people (plus a few more maybe for Google) is a drop in the ocean. I'm an oddity amongst my friends and family in that I pay for a subscription service and a family one at that. Most people I know either buy disks, stream on YouTube or look for torrents.
 
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Considering Apple has a user base of 800 million iPhone users, 10 million is a surprisingly low number, which actually indicates that Apple Music is a poor product.
I have to disagree. The number would be significantly higher if it was a free service. When you charge $120 a year for music many will take a hard look before buying. A better tell maybe how many subscribers of other music services are lost to Apple. Additionally it appears the paid music services are slow to mature with more growth coming as consumers find their value. Apple does have a good base to leverage, to your point.
 
I dunno... 20 million for Spotify isn't that much better.

Maybe paid streaming music in general isn't a big market?

Consider all the devices that have access to paid streaming music services: Desktop and laptop PCs, Macs, Android phones, iPhones, Android tablets, iPads, etc.

Nearly every person with an internet-connected device can stream music.

So what would that be... a couple billion people?

Yet only 30 million pay for on-demand music streaming?

For many years I've used YouTube for playing music, now YouTube+VEVO+ some YT playlists, etc. It is data-hungry solution but on a PC where YouTube can be played in the background it's no problem.

When it comes to the mobile department, people handled music on mobile phones way before Spotify/Apple Music so I guess they just do it the old way. Some people buy and download and some people download without any paying ;)
 
You don't understand. Apple Music come pre-installed on 800 million users with iOS update. For a userbase of 800 million, 10 million subscribers is paltry.
It's a $10 a month paid service. Completely optional.

Simply being pre-installed doesn't make people want to pay.

But 10 million people paying for Apple Music in only 5 months is pretty good, though.

It took Spotify 8 years to reach 20 million paid subscribers.
 
Just because they made 10 million users doesn't mean it's any good. That's just the power of default music app, which the first thing any iOS user will see is "Try Apple Music for free".

If Spotify was part of default music app, it would have 100 million users by now.

While Spotify has 75 million users, only 20 million are paying.

In other words, in terms of PAID music streaming services, Apple Music is catching up to Spotify pretty quickly, in terms of ALL music streaming services however, Apple Music still has a long ways to go.
 
It took Spotify 8 years to reach 20 million paid subscribers.
Well duh! Spotify is not pre-installed on 800 million devices. Therefore many people are not even aware of Spotify's existence.

The power of default apps is immense. You do know that Internet Explorer was the most popular browser in the world despite being the slowest and least secure? That's the power of default and it doesn't mean that Apple Music is any good
 
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I don't see what's so hard for you? Launch the app, use the search window, find a song and press play. Damn, is that really so hard? If it's really too hard to use Apple Music then you shouldn't be using computers at all. Over the many years, the most non-techie people running Windows certainly handled that system with all it's issues and non-intuitiveness, and Windows 10 isn't really much easier.
Jeez. The app is terrible. It's not hard but why did they screw up the app? Do you think it's better now?

I'm happy you like the app but please don't insult my tech knowledge or skills. I like many expect Apple apps to be user friendly, which has nothing to do my abilities. Remember, Apple promotes and emphasizes how great the Apple experience is.
 
Well duh! Spotify is not pre-installed on 800 million devices. Therefore many people are not even aware of Spotify's existence.

The power of default apps is immense. You do know that Internet Explorer was the most popular browser in the world despite being the slowest and least secure? That's the power of default and it doesn't mean that Apple Music is any good

Apple Music is pre-installed my my wife's iPhone and my mom's iPhone, but neither of them are aware of its existence either; just like Spotify. They use what they know. For my wife, it's Pandora. For my mom, it's the songs she has in "my music."

And then there is my grandparents who aren't even aware there's a music app on their iPhones.
 
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I'll use the 'Free Trial" right after I set a reminder on my calendar to un-subscribe in 90 days.
Not that Apple doesn't provide a worthy service, I just can't imagine paying for music.
Besides, I don't listen to all that much anymore.
 
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Yeah, same here. Have zero plans to ever switch from Spotify. I would have considered it if Beats was not an acquisition. I don't support rap, rappers or any group that incites race or hate to achieve "success".

Apple lost me as a music customer because of that acquisition. And I'm quite aware that they don't care. This is a mutual feeling.

Well then don't switch. I've always found it funny when people who "don't care" always go to posts to comment and tell everyone they don't care. I don't care about Android or Windows but I don't go to those forums and tell them I don't care about the products. Interesting.
 
Well duh! Spotify is not pre-installed on 800 million devices. Therefore many people are not even aware of Spotify's existence.

The power of default apps is immense. You do know that Internet Explorer was the most popular browser in the world despite being the slowest and least secure? That's the power of default and it doesn't mean that Apple Music is any good
Just cool it, man. You've been trying to paint the narrative that Apple has failed with streaming music... even though this news is pretty positive.

You don't get to decide whether 10 million out of 800 million in 5 months is a success or not.

But feel free to keep telling us it isn't ;)
 
I had Spotify for about a year or two and then Apple Music launched. Signed up for the trial and didn't use either service much. Decided to keep Apple Music and ditch Spotify for a couple of reasons.

  1. I grew very tired of the black and green color scheme.
  2. Being able to say "Hey Siri - play whatever song I want/album/genre" is excellent!
  3. Integration
Apple has some work to do on the service/interface for sure but it's a decent start and I am happy with it. I listen to music every so often but not enough to be hard core. I also enjoy having any song I want at my finger tips at any time. I also was never big on music purchasing either. Just casual all around.

You wrote exactly what I was about to say. I was pretty much indifferent, but liked the integration with Apple Music.
 
People keep talking about this 800m figure. How many of those people are running the latest iOS version anyway? And do Apple really have 800m iPhones in use or that they have sold 800m iPhones since 2007?

Also, Spotify has been available for years on pretty much all platforms. Apple Music has only just come out on android so there's plenty of room left for growth and this is over 4-5 months (I'm sure it came out in September?)

Finally. I think this will end up helping Spotify if anything. As more people get used to paying for music will probably have to drop the free part of their service and offer the same 3 month the subscribe deal as Apple.

If their is no free way to get music I'm sure spotify will get charged less for the music they carry which will help them out financially. Also people will end up having to pay for music because labels will say to Spotify, if Apple can grow users so can you (spotifys position has always been that there was no way to grow the market without the free section of their product).

Netflix isn't free, Hbo either, I see no reason in the next five years that music will be free for streaming anywhere either. People forget that mobile devices are easier to secure content on and people will start to have to pay because their will be no other way.

Spotify will be far more sustainable as a totally paying service than what they have now. I'm sure is coming. They can't avoid it.
 
Both Spotify and Apple Music have kind of a crappy interface. The old iPhone music interface was great, I wish they would return to something more like it but with streaming features (no, I don't know exactly what it would look like, but that isn't my job). Of the streaming services that are out there now, I like Amazon Prime music's interface the best but the selection is total crap.
 
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