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Apple Targeting 100 Million Subscribers for Streaming Music Service
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For me it's the integration into the OS, that regular apps don't have. In particular Siri.
I'm in the US and EVERYONE knows Spotify. Not everyone uses it, but it's easily the most popular streaming service. What country are you in that no one knows Spotify?
And there are countless examples of dominant companies releasing products/services that are "good enough" and made next to no market impact (Google+, Apple's Ping and Maps, Windows Phone).
Things do NOT work that way here.
What happens is that Apple releases maps, it's buggy at first. Then gets better. Right now it's very good. Therefore, people like me use it.
It's just that people aren't allowed to say they like an Apple product or they're labeled as fanboys and their opinion is derided. It's really ridiculous. Google Maps 'must' be the choice for maps, or they're 'wrong'.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
What will define "sign up 100 million"? If 100 million take the free trial, won't Apple be able to spin that as signing up 100 million? At the price of free, it shouldn't be hard to get even those most UNinterested in this offering to give it a try. They'll count in the sign-up tally even if they sign up just to try it once and never use it again.
In my own case, I tried using iTunes Radio a couple of times when it rolled out. I've barely ever used it since and it is still free streaming music. Nevertheless, I probably count as an iTunes Radio user.
Apple should be able to spin compete market dominance within hours when comparing numbers of users vs. Spotify, etc... especially if it is embedded in iOS 9 as rumored. Again much like Maps immediately overtaking Google Maps in iOS when it rolled out (embedded as default), this should be no different. PR will spin that success. Media coverage will fuel those fires. The 800 million number will probably grow because people want to also try to new music "revolution" for free.
But again, the key will be can Apple convert freebies into paying subscribers? When 90-day trials are winding down, will 100 million want to start being billed for the service? Lots of media services (Sirius/XM, HBO, Showtime, etc) regularly offer free trial periods in hopes that subscribers will choose to keep the service. Some will. Many don't. We'll see what happens here.
It depends on what social group you're part of. I'm here in the United States. NOBODY I know uses Spotify. Some (maybe 1 in 10 has even HEARD of it). People around here listen to Pandora or the radio. That's it.
Put Spotify numbers into context....
How many Apple Watches do you see out there? The number of people who own Apple Watches isn't much less than the number of Spotify paid members.
Maybe in YOUR social circles, Spotify is used all the time, but not in most social circles.
I have not been a fan of anything music-related from Apple since the 2013 redesign of their Music app and introduction of iTunes Radio. Last year's groan inducing on-stage spectacle between Tim Cook and Bono just added salt to the wound.
Apple's Music app is so horribly bad that it made me flee to Spotify, and later to Beats Music when Apple bought the company. I'm very happy with the service and their app's UI.
So as I await today's reveal of their newly revamped music service, the key is not whether Apple can convert freebies into paying subscribers, but whether they can retain existing, paying Beats customers or lose them to Spotify and others.
Apple's Music app is so horribly bad that it made me flee to Spotify, and later to Beats Music when Apple bought the company. I'm very happy with the service and their app's UI.
So as I await today's reveal of their newly revamped music service, the key is not whether Apple can convert freebies into paying subscribers, but whether they can retain existing, paying Beats customers or lose them to Spotify and others.
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we are on an Apple message board posting about Apple products.... Obviously everyone here loves Apple or we wouldn't be obsessively posting about their everyone move. But some people are OK with criticizing Apple and discussing how they could improve.
I can't even say I've done that because I don't live in either of the two countries where it's available.
Honestly to me that says they aren't very interesting in paying for streaming music or music in general if they've never heard of Spotify.
I dunno... My friends are late 20s/early 30s. It would be bizarre to me to meet someone my age that had never heard of Spotify.
This is my experience too. Not many know of Spotify but they do know Pandora.
Still don't get releasing this at WWDC. New hardware make some sense at WWDC as it expands or creates a new developer market base. Not sure what a music service does to help developers. I'm sure they will provide some API for being able to access it from their apps, but don't really see that expanding the market base.
Apple has been working on this service for a long time. When has Apple ever disappointed when they have spent so much time and money working on any product or service?
They are hiring great people to be part of this service and help curate content. Exclusives, perfect integration with all your Apple devices, knowledge from your iTunes libraries, playlists and purchases to make recommendations.
I also expect Apple Music will have far more content than any of the other streaming services. I'm thinking we'll all be disappointed far less when searching for a song, album or artist and get greeted with no results. I'm sure Apple has been working so long on these deals because they want to fill as many possible gaps in their service as possible. This alone is where the likes of Spotify fall far short of customer expectations.
This is just the obvious stuff. I'm very sure Apple will have a lot more to say and announce later today that will blow all of us away. It's just very exciting right now imagining all the possibilities.
Feel free to call me out on this later if Apple announces a bunch of me too stuff that brings nothing new to the table.
I won't hesitate to admit I'm disappointed if that is the case.Apple is usually good at predicting sales volumes (with the glaring exception of the Apple Watch). This number seems awfully high, however. I am not sure I believe this to be real, but in just a few hours we will see if what they present is compelling enough to justify numbers like that.
Spotify's issue with me is not allowing me to play radio versions only. And Apple music's issue is pricing as I have to pay for 3 people I wont pay 30.00 a month in music streaming. As others said there are other options out there and truthfully I don't mind paying something. I just don't feel like paying that much for a shared service. The beats music AT&T plan was great but I am not on AT&T.
I'm not even convinced by the competition, I'm yet to be persuaded that renting music makes any sense.
I'm with you on the sentiment. I'm not sure whether it's the issue of renting music or just that I don't have the time to listen to much anymore. I'll occasionally use iTunes radio on my rMBP, but that's a weekly thing at best. I get that I'm moving outside the curve for the typical demographic of those streaming / listening to music on their phone and I understand my kids all use several different streaming music apps, so it's clearly an age-gap thing.
Unlike my kids, I grew up listening to the radio (I still prefer live local radio to XM because of the localization that traditional radio offers), buying records (then tapes, then cd's, then and now digital downloads). Getting the latest record / tape / cd was something worth saving up for. I don't think the current / younger generation feel the same way about music to the same degree that my generation or the one before my generation did (think 1960's era). Sure, there are some big stars moving still significant numbers of cd's and downloads, but it's not the same, in my opinion as it once was.
None of my kids, even the couple that have jobs and could effectively afford to pay a monthly fee for streaming, will join a Beats / Apple fee based program (unless I paid for it).
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
People are allowed to say whatever they want around here. For every "fanboy" tag, there's the reverse "troll" and "hater" tags.
And that is how things work around here. Apple could pretty much decide to get into anything new and whatever is already there will see a shift in local sentiment to the negative.
I didn't reference anything about the evolution of Maps... just the observation that Google Maps on iOS was King until Apple decided to embed their new Maps app and make it default. Then it became King QUICKLY. That has nothing to do with whether Maps was bad or is now good, nor whether people like it. It was the default app so it quickly leaped above Google Maps on iOS. Spotify will quickly be overtaken as well, not necessarily because whatever Apple rolls out today is better but because it is (rumored to become) the default streaming music app in iOS 9. Microsoft did the same with IE when Netscape was the King. It "just works" when a big player wants to bite into a contributing players market share.
At $10/mo., I'm not in the market. iTunes Radio currently gives me free, add-supported, music. Sure, I can't pick the songs, but I'm not a connoisseur. I don't need that kind of functionality. Give this to me for $1-$2/mo. and I might be more interested.
This. I quite liked the idea of iTunes Radio, except I got fed up of waiting for it to be released in the UK and looked elsewhere. TBH, if iTunes Match is anything to go by, it's probably for the best that it wasn't seen anywhere else.