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Apple's New Streaming Music Service and Revamped iTunes Radio to Debut Next Week

Michael Scrip said:
I'm sure many other Spotify users will too. It's a good service.

But Spotify only has 60 million users (and of those... only 15 million who actually pay for the service)

So perhaps Apple is targeting the 500+ million people who have never used any streaming service at all. The market for new streaming customers is ripe for the picking.

You're not alone... there are lots of people saying "I'm not gonna switch"

Well maybe this announcement isn't about you :)
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I pay spotify the $10/mo. I just think their service is better than pandora, iTunes Radio and other derivatives. If Apple can wow me then maybe I'll rethink but what I am reading, isn't yet convincing me. Yet.
 
Smith288 said:
I pay spotify the $10/mo. I just think their service is better than pandora, iTunes Radio and other derivatives.
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That's because Spotify is a different type of service than Pandora and iTunes Radio.

One is an on-demand service... the others are streaming radio. Big difference.

Now if we are to believe the rumors... Apple will be creating a Spotify-like on-demand service. We'll find out next week. :)

But my point was... streaming in general doesn't seem to have a lot of traction compared to other forms of music consumption.

Everyone talks about Spotify... including many people here like yourself.

But 60 million users? That's nothing!

There are billions of people who like music. I guess they are still listening to CDs and downloaded music?

There are plenty of people who have never tried a streaming service. And there are more of them than there are people who currently subscribe to something.

That's why I was saying Apple might have a chance to get some Apple users into streaming music by offering a service. If it's built-in to every iPhone and advertised on TV... some people might sign up for it.
 
Michael Scrip said:
That's because Spotify is a different type of service than Pandora and iTunes Radio.

One is an on-demand service... the others are streaming radio. Big difference.

Now if we are to believe the rumors... Apple will be creating a Spotify-like on-demand service. We'll find out next week. :)

But my point was... streaming in general doesn't seem to have a lot of traction compared to other forms of music consumption.

Everyone talks about Spotify... including many people here like yourself.

But 60 million users? That's nothing!

There are billions of people who like music. I guess they are still listening to CDs and downloaded music?

There are plenty of people who have never tried a streaming service. And there are more of them than there are people who currently subscribe to something.

That's why I was saying Apple might have a chance to get some Apple users into streaming music by offering a service. If it's built-in to every iPhone and advertised on TV... some people might sign up for it.
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Yap, totally agree with that
 
Mackinjosh said:
The audio quality is fine. And the single ad plays for 15 seconds every 5 or 6 songs. I'll take that hardship for free. There's also no ads if you know how to install adblocker on your browser.
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Oh yeah, it's so easy to install "ad blocker" when using the Spotify App, especially for PS4. :rolleyes:
 
It would have been good to have free for few moths, but just do what Spotify do... populate with audio ads in-between.... I wouldn't mind that.

Its such a deal breaker to please users
 
I live in Spain and I doubt that i would subscribe for a cloud service by Apple for a while. Even the mail service doesn't runs as well as gmail, for example. Sending/receiving emails are slow, sync of calendars, contacts, etc, is slow too. I was a iTunes match subscriber for 2 years and i finally gave up cause of the bad service. I don't know if Apple has a datacenter or something in Europe, but they need it to offer a good service to europeans.
 
Foxer said:
Pardon my ignorance on this whole streaming radio thing. In what way are any of these services different than the existing iTunes radio? I've never used Spotify or Pandora or any of these since I prefer to "curate" my own music, so who is attracted to these plans? It seems to me like the 21st century version of a radio station.
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Well, first you need to know that iTunes Radio is existing in the US and Canada, but nowhere else. So for a lot of people it will make a difference.

But I'm also interested, at least what the rumors tell us, if a coexistence of iTunes Radio and one or even two streaming services (if they keep Beats) will actually work. Too many services in parallel will annoy or confuse users.
 
The clincher for me will be the difference in catalogues. If this itunes version gives you access to their catalogue including those excluding themselves from spotify (beatles, ac/dc) and new releases then i'm in.
 
Mike MA said:
Well, first you need to know that iTunes Radio is existing in the US and Canada, but nowhere else. So for a lot of people it will make a difference
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And Australia!

Mind you, I don't actually use it - I pay for Spotify so I can just create a playlist and listen to the songs in that order and uninterrupted by ads.

When I first tried it (it may be better now) iTunes Radio seemed not to do a good job of selecting "similar" music starting from a few seed songs - it basically just gave me other songs by the same bands, rather than similar songs by different bands.
 
GFR50 said:
And Australia!

Mind you, I don't actually use it - I pay for Spotify so I can just create a playlist and listen to the songs in that order and uninterrupted by ads.

When I first tried it (it may be better now) iTunes Radio seemed not to do a good job of selecting "similar" music starting from a few seed songs - it basically just gave me other songs by the same bands, rather than similar songs by different bands.
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That's one of the complaints I have of iTunes Radio. Besides music selection (whether you tune it for Hits or Discovery) it always seems to play the same tracks again and again. Even if you mark as Don't play this again, it still repeats. Drives me insane.
 
image.jpg
Received an email from Elagato about their new Eve products and I found this fine print on their web page.

Bit early???
 
There are three things which need to happen in order for me to sign up. The first thing is it needs to integrate my existing iTunes library into the service. The second thing is I need the ability to download and listen to Albums as I can on literally any other music service that I pay for. The last thing is the ability to listen on my Sonos system.
 
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Has anyone listened to Mixradio's new app for IOS, I had mixradio and it was a great service for Windows Phone and its still very good for IOS,it's free, Ad supported but you hear very few ads, try it out
 
GFR50 said:
And Australia!

When I first tried it (it may be better now) iTunes Radio seemed not to do a good job of selecting "similar" music starting from a few seed songs - it basically just gave me other songs by the same bands, rather than similar songs by different bands.
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Interesting to hear. Especially when assuming that Apple in some way reused the genius mix routines as they most of the time did match for me...
 
Michael Scrip said:
I thought this "new" Apple streaming service was to be more like Spotify where you can choose the songs you want to hear?

Apple already has a radio service... iTunes Radio.
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It is, iTunes Radio is just part of the service. If Apple get's all the Studio's signatures their whole iTunes store will be available to stream. I imagine The Beatles will also be apart of this deal, making Apple's service the only service to stream The Beatles catalog.
 
Scarpad said:
Has anyone listened to Mixradio's new app for IOS, I had mixradio and it was a great service for Windows Phone and its still very good for IOS,it's free, Ad supported but you hear very few ads, try it out
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Mixradio is great, you can download mixes for offline playing for free.
 
JPIndustrie said:
If the service offering is on full feature parity with Spotify (downloadable/offline playlists, last fm scrobbling, etc) and there is nearly the same amount of artists/content then I will very much switch over as the integration with iOS should be a lot better. Apple is usually good at anticipating what customers want especially since Spotify/Beats/Tidal has had such a head start.

They've already convinced me to spend $10/month on music, please Apple give me a reason to use the 'Music' app - I haven't since 2011.
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I imagine once Apple gets all the signatures their complete iTunes store will be available for streaming. This would include The Beatles, who are not available on any other platform or service.
New reports are saying a 3 month free trial, videos, the radio service. I wouldn't be surprised that iTunes Match some how fits in this as well.
 
avanpelt said:
From what I've been told, no modern artist that's signed to a record label has made a ton of money strictly off music sales (physical media, paid downloads, or streaming). They make the vast majority of their money when people go to a concert and buy merchandise.
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Blame that on the record contracts they've all signed. It has nothing to do with the streaming services. They pay the record label. It's just the same old story of record label Vs the artist that has gone on for years. Forget "Tidal" who wants to pay $20 when the record companies are still going to whore out the artist to $10 a month services.
 
cambookpro said:
Apple are quite late to this party. I'll stick with my £4.99/month Spotify subscription unless Apple's version is significantly better. Spotify, on the whole, is very good: I especially like their app on the PS4 which means I can listen to music whilst playing games.
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LOL..Apple always arrives late and then defines the market. Don't underestimate Apple's power and their already 500 million + credit cards on file. I imagine Touch ID will factor in after the 3 month trial ends.
 
ggibson913 said:
There are three things which need to happen in order for me to sign up. The first thing is it needs to integrate my existing iTunes library into the service. The second thing is I need the ability to download and listen to Albums as I can on literally any other music service that I pay for. The last thing is the ability to listen on my Sonos system.
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I expect all of those options day one on release.
 
Chris Coyle said:
LOL..Apple always arrives late and then defines the market. Don't underestimate Apple's power and their already 500 million + credit cards on file. I imagine Touch ID will factor in after the 3 month trial ends.
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That may happen, but unlike how MP3 players were in 2001, tablets in 2010 and smartphones in 2007, there is a very viable, very mature offering already.
 
cambookpro said:
That may happen, but unlike how MP3 players were in 2001, tablets in 2010 and smartphones in 2007, there is a very viable, very mature offering already.
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Yeah but only 60 million + users stream, this is for the other 450+ million yet to bite. The market is wide open and Apple is going to eat their lunch.
 
$10 a month is far too much for potentially unlimited access to the iTunes library? Really?

Ok then.
 
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