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That article is terribly wrong. Others like Spotify stream in 320kbps but it's MP3. Apple streams in AAC 256kbps (MP4). The older MP3 format requires a higher bitrate because it is a lower quality format. The newer AAC MP4 format Apple uses is higher quality even at 256 kbps.

Also should point out that Google Play and Amazon also stream at the old format, lower quality 320kbps MP3. But no one seems to point that out when comparing to iTunes which streams at the superior 256kbps AAC MP4 format.
 
Yeah, I kinda meant that as well...I actually haven't thrown anything out....yet. The biggest question I have will be with volume. iTunes radio has the lowest volume of any radio service I have ever used. It is so soft it is bearly loud enough to listen to on the highway in my truck. Spotify is way louder.

Volume? Must be one loud truck you got :)
Seriously, check the settings on your iPhone/iPod. How are you connected ? Bluetooth, hardwire ?
Might be an impedance mismatch between your device and the audio-in on your truck.
For me, iTunes Radio (or anything of my iPhone) is plenty loud in my car.
 
There are many models that work for the subscription service. Maybe you subscribe for a month and listen to 500 songs and find 50 you like. From songs you love, create genius playlists from within the Apple Music library to find music you don't know or don't remember. Then you download the 50 and enjoy them and your existing collection for a few months, canceling your subscription. Six months later you subscribe for another month, etc.
 
Has anyone actually confirmed whether it is truly the entire iTunes catalog that is available for streaming? Or some subset of it?

For example, can you stream Beatles? AC/DC? Taylor Swift?

Beats Music FAQ.png


Found from Beats Music FAQ.
 
Except typically if you aren't a subscriber, those temporary downloads won't play. But yes, endless exploration of music is the goal; after all, who here wouldn't have killed to have have unlimited access to the stacks of records/CDs at their local Tower/HMV/(music store) for a flat fee back in the day? To be able to pick out any album, play to your heart's content, then grab another new one when you get bored?

The Japanese had it right with their CD rental shops back in the day; for about a buck, you could rent any CD that they had for a few nights which was long enough to take it home, rip it, and return it.

There are many models that work for the subscription service. Maybe you subscribe for a month and listen to 500 songs and find 50 you like. From songs you love, create genius playlists from within the Apple Music library to find music you don't know or don't remember. Then you download the 50 and enjoy them and your existing collection for a few months, canceling your subscription. Six months later you subscribe for another month, etc.
 
$120 for what?

No word on:

Streaming Quality
iTunes Match compatibility
Skipping Songs
Offline listening
Personal Playlists
Select What I Want When I Want

Beats Radio is just mystifying?!
Every Internet Radio station is Global and highly curated!!!
I regularly listen to BBC Radio 1 for Pete Tong Essential Mix
along with Intergalatic FM from Netherlands
KFAT from California (it's off the air, just replays old broadcast from the 70s/80s)
The above are all FREE, besides the (data) I pay for while listening in my car.

Spotify still wins at the moment.
Actually pretty much all those questions have been answered. Go check out the apple web page about the service.
 
Except typically if you aren't a subscriber, those temporary downloads won't play. But yes, endless exploration of music is the goal; after all, who here wouldn't have killed to have have unlimited access to the stacks of records/CDs at their local Tower/HMV/(music store) for a flat fee back in the day? To be able to pick out any album, play to your heart's content, then grab another new one when you get bored?

The Japanese had it right with their CD rental shops back in the day; for about a buck, you could rent any CD that they had for a few nights which was long enough to take it home, rip it, and return it.
Sorry, I wasn't clear: certainly you have to pay for the 50 downloads after you terminate the service. But the idea is that for one month you got to listen to unlimited music for the very meager cost of $9.99 while you seek out new music to buy.
 
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I really like the app and the service as a whole. but man that presentation was really sloppy. Frighteningly so....

More like, they screwed the pooch with the presentation. I believe Craig was the only one who did a good job of it. The others were sloppy and goofy. Iovine made me cringe with his voice and less than polished presentation. For a music exec that he is, I expected him to dress his age and sharply.

Cue was a slob and I would've banned him from doing keynotes in the future. Not only that, the intro video before Cook came on stage was pointless. I think Apple was filling things in out of fear and that they're using humor to set the tone which I think was the wrong message. Really juvenile of them.
 
Anybody seen how this streamed music is setup to authenticate? Is FairPlay back for this? Obviously, if we can download and play music we don't own offline, it must have some kind of authentication system to it. It's either checking when you try to play a non-owned song to verify you have an active subscription or maybe it's on some kind of timer authentication reset whenever you login as a subscriber, granting access to song playback for some (short) period of time since it last verified that you are an active subscriber.

Either way though, it seems DRM is back in some form. Any details?
 
Nobody is asking them about people like me, who listen to majority of music in car, who want to discover new music while listening in car, but whose cellular carrier's data caps make it impossible to enjoy a music streaming service. Downloading albums ahead of time while on Wifi is not an option. There are not any public WiFi that I can stream from while driving to/from my destinations. Heck when I go out during the week, the majority of places I go don't have free Wifi, the Wifi cannot support streaming, or the Wifi is on a business network and streaming services are blocked.

Apple Music is just going to make it harder for me to get to the music I own. Depending on how they implement these changes in the iOS Music App, I could be pushed to using another service. I'd miss iTunes Match, but not enough to deal with having to dig deep into the app just for the content I own.
Your question is more confusing than the presentation was.
 
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Well, goodness.

Just watched the keynote. It focused the mind. Here are my thoughts:

Craig Federighi was brilliant. He should be CEO of Apple. He's a superb presenter and everyone loves him. He comes across as passionate about everything he presents. If all this keynote had been him, it would have been excellent. We remember Steve Jobs so much as a presenter without peer. Federighi is his natural successor. A very different presenter to Jobs, but exuding the crucial ingredient: passion.

Tim Cook should either return to COO or become a politician. The three videos were clearly his personal input and checked all the boxes for inclusiveness and diversity garbage. They were also vacuous and nauseating. Cook has lost his purpose. He is the voice of authority behind everything, but never seems to have a stake in Apple. I never get the feeling that he really gets passionate about anything, apart from the iPad.

The Apple Watch is being siloed by Apple in readiness for its impending failure. Its segment felt boxed in and separate from the rest of the keynote, and not in a good way. Kevin Lynch is the most unsuitable voice of it. He is as far from fashionable as you could possibly imagine, for what Apple describes as its most personal product yet. I note that the Apple Watch got no significant mention or enthusiasm from anyone else on stage, even Tim Cook.

Apple Music. Jimmy Iovine's presentation was the most sustained marketing verbiage diarrhoea I have ever come across outside comedy. That said, the family plan is remarkably good value at $2.50 per month per person. On the other hand, it shows what poor value the single person subscription is, which costs 300% more. I don't think the service will be a success.

Generally, I like a lot of iOS 9 and OS X.11. Shift key and lower-case keyboard notwithstanding, this is the Apple I love. Apple Watch and Apple Music are the dark side, and are the wrong direction for Apple.
 
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every service has the same price... this feels like illegal price fixing.

the music industry is still a mafia

Well, they all seemed to have adopted the minimum price dictacted by the music labels. Apple tries to differenciate by additional features like the biggest music library, human playlists, live radio stations, maximum integration and that social media stuff. Besides the latter you seem to get some premium for your money in comparison. That said, I don't even know up until now how much we will be charged over here...
 
So it seems that joining Apple Music and continuing to pay for iTunes Match would be pretty redundant except for the small number of songs I have that aren't in the iTunes store. Do I have that right?
 
Anybody seen how this streamed music is setup to authenticate? Is FairPlay back for this? Obviously, if we can download and play music we don't own offline, it must have some kind of authentication system to it. It's either checking when you try to play a non-owned song to verify you have an active subscription or maybe it's on some kind of timer authentication reset whenever you login as a subscriber, granting access to song playback for some (short) period of time since it last verified that you are an active subscriber.

Either way though, it seems DRM is back in some form. Any details?

This just seems like looking for a non existent issue.

With music you bought DRM was a issue because, if you bought it, you might reasonably expect to be able to do what you liked with it.

But with streaming, you don't own the music, so it is reasonable to have some DRM (or variant of) for the system to know if you are currently subscribing or not.
 
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UK pricing????

.. Given that unlike hardware there is no import duties, transport costs or tax issues, then a straight currency transfer is appropriate, Apple..? Yes?

$9.99 = £6.49 today. So can you confirm this as pricing? And that you won't do the mercenary thing of $->£ and charging £9.99.....
 

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Volume? Must be one loud truck you got :)
Seriously, check the settings on your iPhone/iPod. How are you connected ? Bluetooth, hardwire ?
Might be an impedance mismatch between your device and the audio-in on your truck.
For me, iTunes Radio (or anything of my iPhone) is plenty loud in my car.

Been to Hell and back trying to figure it out but I am pretty sure it's on apples end. Both my Wife's iPhone 6 and my 6+ exhibit the same behavior over lightning to usb hard wire, bluetooth and airplay. Sound check is off and there is no volume limit set in settings. iTunes radio is the only app that exhibits this behavior. I ask you to compare Spotify and iTunes radio and tell me you don't notice a difference. Googling seems to turn up many people with the same issue.
 
If Apple streams at 256k AAC, then that will sound much better than 320k MP3
 
Slick production yesterday with no personality. Every time Tim talks I cringe and think of old times. Seems like just more catch up.

Tim actually wasn't too bad yesterday. There were 4 worse speakers... we all know who they are. In any case, too long an event with too little substance. Along with the Apple Music "one more thing" should've been an updated iPod touch with 128GB+ , but that's never gonna happen now.
 
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There are many models that work for the subscription service. Maybe you subscribe for a month and listen to 500 songs and find 50 you like. From songs you love, create genius playlists from within the Apple Music library to find music you don't know or don't remember. Then you download the 50 and enjoy them and your existing collection for a few months, canceling your subscription. Six months later you subscribe for another month, etc.

That's a very good point. I hadn't thought of the subscription like that.

If you've got a month with lots of time free, you can pay your $10 and wade through the store wishlisting all the tracks you want to buy, then cancel the sub. Would be the most efficient way to use it. Thing is, I generally find that 90 second previews are sufficient.
 
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Well, goodness.

Just watched the keynote. It focused the mind. Here are my thoughts:

Craig Federighi was brilliant. He should be CEO of Apple. He's a superb presenter and everyone loves him. He comes across as passionate about everything he presents. If all this keynote had been him, it would have been excellent. We remember Steve Jobs so much as a presenter without peer. Federighi is his natural successor. A very different presenter to Jobs, but exuding the crucial ingredient: passion.

Tim Cook should either return to COO or become a politician. The three videos were clearly his personal input and checked all the boxes for inclusiveness and diversity b.ullshit. They were also vacuous and nauseating. Cook has lost his purpose. He is the voice of authority behind everything, but never seems to have a stake in Apple. I never get the feeling that he really gets passionate about anything, apart from the iPad.

The Apple Watch is being siloed by Apple in readiness for its impending failure. Its segment felt boxed in and separate from the rest of the keynote, and not in a good way. Kevin Lynch is the most unsuitable voice of it. He is as far from fashionable as you could possibly imagine, for what Apple describes as its most personal product yet. I note that the Apple Watch got no significant mention or enthusiasm from anyone else on stage, even Tim Cook.

Apple Music. Jimmy Iovine's presentation was the most sustained bullshi.t marketing verbiage I have ever come across outside comedy. That said, the family plan is remarkably good value at $2.50 per month per person. On the other hand, it shows what poor value the single person subscription is, which costs 300% more. I don't think the service will be a success.

Generally, I like a lot of iOS 9 and OS X.11. Shift key and lower-case keyboard notwithstanding, this is the Apple I love. Apple Watch and Apple Music are the dark side, and are the wrong direction for Apple.

Bravo!! Excellent evaluation. I completely agree with this wholeheartedly. The Mac OS and iOS were excellent segments but everything else went downhill due to lack of proper direction.
 
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