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Surely iTunes Beats will be the final nail in the coffin for the iTunes Music Store unless I'm missing something or they've got something up their sleeve to revamp the music store like a jump from 256 to lossless downloads.
 
What's the difference between this and iTunes Radio? Isn't it exactly the same, with the only difference being that iTunes Radio is free if you put up with ads?

Radio is a way for users to discover new music that matches their tastes. This service does not let users choose the specific songs they want to listen to, but rather finds songs that are "musically similar" to their favorites. This is free service with ads (or ads-free if you have Match sub).

Beats listeners can choose the songs they want to play, when they want to play them. This service is better suited to stream and share music that users already know and love. This is paid service without ads.

At the end of the day, both will point you to Apple Store, where you can purchase the song to "own" it.

Or not.

And then there is also Match, alongside iClouds, gives you high quality, fully meta-tagged, songs that you already owned in your library. This is also subscribe-based. (I heard they are going to merge Match and Beats subscription into one).

I see no reason why all of these services can't work together. More options = happier customer, no?
 
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I get the feeling here Apple is using Beast as a form of "well, we need to expand our iTunes Store already" with its limited section...

Rather than adding a new service and merging with iTunes, wouldn't it be just simpler to expand the iTunes selection available ?

Any song ? ha,,, i'd like to see that...

They all say the same to get users in... but u just know it doesn't work like that..
 
If they integrate a streaming service into iTunes, they should also keep the classic Store where you purchase songs to actually own on your computer, but upgrade the quality to lossless.
 
It's the equivalent of bloat ware that we used to get on early computers. Loads on non-value added content, in this case Apple getting us to stop buying songs and to just subscribe to streaming. Glad I get free Rhapsody streaming, that includes rap if one wants it, with my T-Mobile service with no ads.
 
Huh, I wonder how this works with iTunes Match (Yes I realize it says it will continue to exist).
Exactly, I wonder who would still get iTunes Match if they can get the same thing (all music available for streaming) by getting Beats, when Beats gives the streaming of not just the music on your computer but also the rest of the Beats catalogue.

(I agree, Beats might not have all music a user might have but for most users it probably will have essentially everything and for the few it doesn't have, keeping them 'physically' on all devices should not be a big problem.)
 
Why would you need to merge Apple IDs? You should only have one. Why did you make another one? I don't see people having multiple Facebook accounts unless they too many friends.
1) The iTunes music store didn't roll out globally in all countries at the same time. It took many, many years to have it in the list of countries it is now in. Lot's of people got an AppleID from another country because theirs didn't offer the iTunes Store yet. Later, the store became available in their country and they added an AppleID for their country.

2) A similar things applied and still applies in regard to what content is available in different countries. At the beginning it was movies and TV shows that took a much longer time to roll out around the world than the music did. Thus to get movies or TV shows you needed to get an AppleID in another country.

3) And even if your 'local' iTMS has all categories, there is a lot of individual items that are only available in some countries, particularly for movies and TV shows but also music.

4) Finally, people move from one country to another. If they don't want to deal with gift cards and don't keep a credit card from their initial country, they have to get a new AppleID in their new country.

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Radio is a way for users to discover new music that matches their tastes. This service does not let users choose the specific songs they want to listen to, but rather finds songs that are "musically similar" to their favorites. This is free service with ads (or ads-free if you have Match sub).

Beats listeners can choose the songs they want to play, when they want to play them. This service is better suited to stream and share music that users already know and love. This is paid service without ads.
I don't know about Beats but Spotify is both a streaming on-demand as well as create-automatic playlists product. I don't see a reason to keep these two functions as separate products.
 
Radio is a way for users to discover new music that matches their tastes. This service does not let users choose the specific songs they want to listen to, but rather finds songs that are "musically similar" to their favorites. This is free service with ads (or ads-free if you have Match sub).

Beats listeners can choose the songs they want to play, when they want to play them. This service is better suited to stream and share music that users already know and love. This is paid service without ads.

At the end of the day, both will point you to Apple Store, where you can purchase the song to "own" it.

Or not.

And then there is also Match, alongside iClouds, gives you high quality, fully meta-tagged, songs that you already owned in your library. This is also subscribe-based. (I heard they are going to merge Match and Beats subscription into one).

I see no reason why all of these services can't work together. More options = happier customer, no?

Yeah that does make sense, I just wish it all came to other countries quickly (not like iTunes Radio!)
 
They should rename it to just "Music". That way both the OS X and iOS are consistent. Right now there is one red music icon called Music, and one red music icon called iTunes. Make a desktop app for each type of content in iTunes like it's done in iOS, and access the store through the apps. Remove the iTunes store app on iOS because it's redundant.

If they change a name, it should be the iPhone app. iTunes is a pretty powerful brand name.
 
The industry (labels) really need to let them price the service at $4.99 ($60 a year) knowing that's what most top consumers are spending not only Itunes but also when the industry was at its' peak in 1999.

or they should at least give you the discounted price of $60 if you commit for a whole a year.

I definitely think there would be a huge substantial increase in subscribers at that price.
 
If Apple’s going to integrate Beats with iTunes In The Cloud/Match, then they need to SERIOUSLY strengthen Match’s infuriatingly bad matching algorithm… and allow uses to fix mismatches. Right now, my Beatles collection is a mess thanks to Match confusing mono versions (which they don’t sell) with stereo versions (which they do sell.) There are hundreds more examples like this in my collection.
 
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