Apple Shares New Apple Music Ads: 'All the Artists You Love and Are About to Love. All in One Place.'

[Small White Car]

My guess is the record companies are dictating it and Eddy Cue doesn't have the power to tell them to piss off.

Doubt it. I suspect that Apple would hate to say they have x million iTunes customers and y million Apple Music subscribers when they can instead brag that they have (x+y) "Music Users."

I think that bragging about that extra big number is the sole motivation for the decision to merge it all.

As far as having separate apps for different functions, that's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard.

So if Netflix came up with some plan to scan your ripped DVD files and merge those files with your Netflix account and then it turned out that Netflix didn't understand the difference between your extended-cut DVDs and their theatrical-cut files and started messing up your files since it doesn't know they were different... you'd sign up for that?

 

[JimmyHook]

Spotify's UI is a mess

 

[JimmyHook]

I actually really liked "Apple Music" as a streaming service. I was introduced to new artists, not through Discovery but through Beats1. The problem, for me, is the integration with iCloud Music Library which thoroughly effed up my library and I had to nuke it and start over. It's great in theory but implementation was very very poor. I just wish they would address it and try to make it better.

They did. It's fixed with the last update

 

[MH01]

Sorry, Apple. Not until you make it a separate app. I was incredibly suspicious of combining my own music with this service even before Jim Dalrymple's troubles. That story certainly didn't help matters.

There's not a single good reason for the two to be merged.

That is a very good point. I have to admit that I hate the Apple Music app, the UI and usability are quite horrible in my opinion. Two separate apps would be ideal, cause even with the three trial, I am not using it.

 

[69Mustang]

What would make it revolutionary for her?

Your guess would be just as good as mine. I think she looked at Apple's marketing of the service and thought it would be something more than what it is; a simple music service. Whatever she thought it was, it wasn't something she was willing to pay for with her own money. Teens become interested and disinterested in things all the time. At one point her friends were all about AM, now they're not. Same thing with the Apple Watch. When it intro'd, she had to have one (until I said she'd have to put up half the cash). Now that only one of her friends followed through with getting one, it's not that crucial. She took her AW money and got Beats wireless cans like the rest of her crew. Not my thing, but it was her money.

 

[KALLT]

I find it hard to even compare the services beyond the apps. Spotify and Apple Music seem to have identical catalogues, both have tons of playlists whether made by ‘experts’ or not and both have automatically generated playlists based on minimal input (e.g. ‘Radio’). I don’t know how anyone can even distinguish them based on content at this point, if not by a meticulous comparison. To be perfectly honest, I am actually disappointed with the number of playlists available on Apple Music. I was looking for some relaxing music for study and Spotify has lots of them. On Apple Music I only found a few and they are fairly short as well.

Aside from that, I find it utterly bizarre that there are people who don’t see the current problems with iTunes. Either they just use iTunes superficially or have a very high tolerance of inconsistencies and bugs. iTunes is infuriating and it pains me to no end that there are people who think it is fine or downplay the problems it has. iTunes gives OS X and Apple Music a bad name.

At first, yes, the service wasn't perfect, now it's 99% perfect, didn't take too much time...

Your expectations must have been very low to begin with if Apple Music is now 99% perfect. That doesn’t leave much room for improvements.

Spotify's UI is a mess

Like what? Spotify actually looks a lot like iTunes used to look in terms of structure. A sidebar as the dominant menu and submenus for your playlists, your favourite artists, songs and albums, radio, top lists. The only thing I dislike about Spotify is how clumsy it looks. Spotify doesn’t use so many drill-down levels as iTunes now. It is pretty straightforward to use.

 

[ErikGrim]

It's hilarious to hear people say Apple Music is "complicated". I wonder how many paint chips they ate as children. It's just a few tabs and a couple of menus.

Not sure that it is overly complicated, but the UI sure could use some work.

 

[Millah]

Sorry, Apple. Not until you make it a separate app. I was incredibly suspicious of combining my own music with this service even before Jim Dalrymple's troubles. That story certainly didn't help matters.

There's not a single good reason for the two to be merged.

Actually, having my personal library completely integrated with a streaming service is the main appeal to Apple Music for me. I've had no issues with my library and Apple Music. But I don't have iTunes Match.

Don't fault the vision, fault the execution. Apple bit off more than they could chew for a 1.0 launch, and didn't polish each individual aspect. Should have slowed down and scaled back the vision for a 1.0 release, staggered the release. But you gotta at least respect their ambition and what they're trying to accomplish.

My single biggest disappointment is the UI and navigation structure. It's a mess. Troubling that all those brilliant human interface teams they have inside Apple looked at Apple Music as acceptable. Even before Apple Music, the Music app in iOS has been a disgusting mess on the iPad since iOS 7

 

[KALLT]

Actually, having my personal library completely integrated with a streaming service is the main appeal to Apple Music for me. I've had no issues with my library and Apple Music. But I don't have iTunes Match.

I always see this being mentioned, but do people know that Spotify on OS X shows your iTunes music as well? It actually behaves a lot like Apple Music in that way. The biggest difference is that Spotify doesn’t upload your songs if it doesn’t have them.

 

[Small White Car]

Actually, having my personal library completely integrated with a streaming service is the main appeal to Apple Music for me.

Really? That's the selling point for me.

Can either of you explain why?

If you want to listen to a song you previously bought from iTunes, why wouldn't you just open up Apple music and listen to it on there now? If a movie is on Netflix I'm sure as heck not dragging out my old DVD to watch it. What's the appeal of going back to dig up your old AAC file when the streaming service is right there?

I don't get that at all.

 

[Nevaborn]

The internet warriors all in full force again. Its a new service with a lot of backing that will grow.

 

[verpeiler]

I'd love to use Apple music since it perfectly fits in my music library... but the user experience and the UI are still cumbersome. Sometimes songs just won't play or it takes up to 10 seconds to start. The "for you" playliste are often way too short.

Still using spotify till it gets better.

 

[Zedcars]

God, the left-hand pattern that Kygo is playing is what you learn when you're 5. Sorry, I don't see/hear anything inspiring, uplifting, or original in that short snippet - and you would think they would have chosen their best to promote themselves, as well as Apple Music.

The problem with these ads, and all the ads so far produced by Apple is they don't tell people what Apple Music is. Most people know Apple sells music through its online store. But, if it wasn't for Taylor Swift, I don't anyone but techies would know it's a streaming service with a free trial and $10/mo thereafter. "An Apple Music ad? Huh, yeah I know they sell music. So what?"

If you go into the new iOS app without knowing what awaits you a lot of people may be utterly confused - especially not very tech savvy people.

On the plus side, I am enjoying having the ability to stream almost anything I want. I'm still unsure whether I will continue when my free trial ends. I'm slowly going through a list of "1001 albums to listen to before you die" and so far, after about 20 albums, only 1 isn't there (and it isn't on Spotify either).

 

[0970373]

They did. It's fixed with the last update

Well, there were numerous issues so what exactly did they fix? Was the DRM issue fixed? Was the duplicates issue fixed? Was the forced use of the iCloud Music Library fixed? I'm not trying to be snarky, I legitimately would like to know if these issues were fixed.

 

[iMcLovin]

I have not met one feature in Apple music that I would miss if I used spotify or any other streaming service. I wanna pull my hair out when I use Apple Music. The only place were it actually make good recommendations is when you open the album you are playing and hit related, which took you to itunes store instead of Apple Music...Now in the latest they just removed it. For you hasnt given me a single album I like apart from those that are in my Music library all ready and searching through apple music to discover new music is cumbersome. I see this as a race between spotify and apple music. If spotify bring a decent family plan that can compete with apple I switch back to spotify. If apple fixes the UI I stick with apple. Race has begun!

 

[Deasnutz]

this ad read like a conversation with the worst hipster possible.

 

[iRockMan1]

Can either of you explain why?

If you want to listen to a song you previously bought from iTunes, why wouldn't you just open up Apple music and listen to it on there now? If a movie is on Netflix I'm sure as heck not dragging out my old DVD to watch it. What's the appeal of going back to dig up your old AAC file when the streaming service is right there?

I don't get that at all.

Not everything available for purchase on iTunes is available on Apple Music, nor is everything in my library available on either iTunes or Apple Music. Additionally, I don't want to have to search for something just to play it; it's much easier to sift through what I have in my own library. Also, I have plenty of lossless quality audio locally.

It's also a little weird to describe listening to music on your computer as "digging up" files. This isn't some high effort ordeal.

 

[Dbolander]

It has never been more clear what Apple has lost with the ending of their creative partnership with Chiat Day.

Apple's former ability to clearly and memorably communicate through advertisement is replaced with forgettable mediocrity. Can Phil not see this?

I won't eulogize the loss of Steve too much, I get it, he's gone. But is there seriously no one with sway at Apple to get ads (among other things) back to a good place?

 

[thenffc]

Apple Music is awful. It’s their worst software release since the original Apple Maps, I can't believe the media aren't all over this like they were with maps.

Sometimes my own music copied to my phone is there, other times its not, music/playlist by apple I've made available offline will be there somedays but then it will disappear.

It's buggy, it’s hit and miss if it will let you make a playlist, sometimes it does, then for no reason it will say I have to change something in settings to allow me make one, I spent 30 mins making a playlist once only to find it had added only one track to it, I tried to add a track to a playlist I made the day before, it gave me this settings error I finally gave up and signed back up to Spotify and I'm sorry I ever left it.

 

[bpeeps]

Apple Music is a BLOODY NIGHTMARE. The content might be very fulfilling but usability-wise it's is an absolute ludicrous joke. iTunes UI makes you wanna hang yourself. I wasn't able to get a single playlist downloaded for offline listening because "Looks like this is no longer available". No number of resetting, logging out and in, restarting changes anything. I resubscribed to Spotify Premium within 10 or so days.

Someone's got opinions.

 

[Fzang]

Can either of you explain why?

If you want to listen to a song you previously bought from iTunes, why wouldn't you just open up Apple music and listen to it on there now? If a movie is on Netflix I'm sure as heck not dragging out my old DVD to watch it. What's the appeal of going back to dig up your old AAC file when the streaming service is right there?

I don't get that at all.

It's a transitioning phase.

"I want everything as CDs and vinyls. I paid for it, so I want to be able to hold it with my own hands."

"Okay, they can go on my hard drive. I can always burn a CD if I need to."

"This hard drive thing is really cool, but I sure as hell ain't using the cloud. Imagine WWIII and all the servers gone. How then am I going to listen to Dire Straits: Best Of?"

"Okay, it's all in the cloud now and I have access to much more music than I've ever had before for a bargain price. But Dire Straits: Best Of is missing due to a licensing deal, and none of the other 10 billion tracks will satisfy me the same way."

 

[szw-mapple fan]

It will destroy Spotify because Spotify is in a bad way financially first (Apple doesn't even need to make money directly from this, it's merely a bonus), Apple controls the platform where most Spotify paying customers reside and on that platform it can integrate tightly with it and all devices in the ecosystem.

Right now, this is still tentative, but within a year or two, this integration will make Spotify look like a bad deal on IOS. That's why Spotify was rumored to have Lobbied the FCC and EU to look into Apple.


Spotify's free offering is in jeopardy because its not making money for either Spotify or the labels or the artists.
Why would major artists risk losing most of their sales to a "free" offering? Swift is just the start, premium content will migrate to the paying side. Premium content being any artist that has any clout to demand more money from their music.

I agree with most of your points. That being said, companies that are strapped for cash are usually better at leapfrogging over competitors in general. Apple music is a side project for Apple. They don't care about making money on it that much, which means that they won't feel the pressure of making their service better as much as Spotify. Apple services in general felt more polished and innovative when it used to be the runner up to micorsoft.

 

[diipii]

Apple today released a series of three Apple Music ads focused on how the service helps users discover artists. The first ad is a 60-second spot highlighting a number of artists and sharing Apple's motivation for creating Apple Music, ending with the tagline "All the artists you love and are about to love. All in one place."

Two other ads are artist-focused 30-second spots, with one featuring James Bay and the second featuring Kygo.

As with the longer general "Discovery" spot, the artist ads are shot in black and white and end with the new tagline, but the artist ads include no spoken content, focusing only on the artists' work and then briefly overlaying a representation of their Apple Music pages with the Connect feature highlighted.

The new ads come two weeks after Apple began an Apple Music ad campaign in a number of public spaces around the world, including billboards, signage at bus shelters and subway stations, and more.

Article Link: Apple Shares New Apple Music Ads: 'All the Artists You Love and Are About to Love. All in One Place.'

If we want "new artists" we all know where to go and how to find them. Apple trying to shroud corporate greed in the guise of altruism is laughable. Just stick to making the best computers you possibly can and leave the rest to us. We already know Apple's real attitude to artists and royalties.

 

[noveneerhere]

Spotify's UI is a mess

Yes, drag-and-drop is not simple at all? And having one app for just music and specifically just streaming music is really complicated. *being sarcastic

 

[Fzang]

Spotify's UI is a mess

Okay, I'll play.