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Eddy Cue 'Thrilled With the Numbers' as Apple Music Hits 11 Million Users

How about fixing the iTunes update for people with large libraries that when adding, editing or changing anything in Artist mode gives the spinning beach ball of death for over a minute?

Pretty big following on that forum support thread.
 
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Signed up for the trial, played around for 10 minutes - found it totally confusing and not even close to the Spotify experience - cancelled the subscription 20 minutes later - still I count as a subscriber, because the subscription is valid for the whole 3 months.
So now I have to live without Taylor Swift, but I think I will get over it.
 
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Ahonen said:
Yeah it must be 11 million rap and hip hop fans. Because that is about 70% of what is played on Beats 1.
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Currently they play UK Drum&Bass. I think Beats1 is the only good thing in Apple Music. But it's true that in US primetime they play mainly US mainstream rap. Good for me that i live in different time-zone 😀
 
mrobbo said:
I couldn't even see out the three month trial period. Signed back up to Spotify last night. Tired of wrestling with that UI and having my music getting messed up across computers. Too many issues. Playlists are poor compared to Spotify at the moment and it really offers nothing to set it apart. Maybe i'll try again in 6 months time.
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The UI suits me better than Spotify's does and I have had none of the problems some people have reported. My problem with it is that in my country there are too many songs that are greyed out due to licensing issues (confirmed this with Apple Support) while Spotify has those songs as playable (e.g. Joan Jett's catalogue). If they don't turn up, I will cancel and just keep Spotify.
 
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Ballis said:
I love Apple Music. Especially the "for you" section.
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I click For You daily for the comedy value. Today it offered me "Britney Spears: Deep Cuts", "Best R&B Songs of the 90s, vol. 3" and "Stuyvesant Ave Block Party – Do the right thing and party in the Brooklyn streets". Yesterday I had "Hip-hop/R&B Hits: 1989" and "Hip-hop/R&B Hits: 1987". In the words of Giorgio Moroder, party never ends. I just wish that party noticed I've been hearting everything but R&B.

For people, who have problems with "For You" and have a Spotify subscription, check out "Discover Weekly", it's amazing.
 
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i'll stick with apple music. but only because i like to have all of my music in ONE collection.

i'm a bit surprised that these numbers are so low. there are so many iOS devices out there in the wild and it's still free...
 
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I really wanted to love Apple Music. But it's just too buggy. Wrecked my iTunes library several times, the UI is just awful and the recommendation system is too dumb to realise 100% of its recommendations are things already in my library.

I have an Airport Express, my third one. All my music is in iTunes. I've had iPods. I use an iPhone and have 30GB+ of music synced. Apple Music was everything I wanted in a streaming music service but they just didn't get the execution right.

So yeah I'm sure I'm included in that 11 Million since I signed up to try it during the free 3 Month trial. But after just a few weeks I no longer use it, at all. I cancelled the renewal to make sure it won't bill me in September.

Maybe in a few years Apple will get this service right, I know they will work on it. But right now, it's just not good enough in my opinion and I'm their biggest proponent, they didn't need to do much to win me over, just make it work properly and they couldn't even do that.
 
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I'm certainly NOT thrilled with Apple's numbers or lack thereof. increasing OS bugs & too frequent revisions, hw lockdowns, feature-itis, etc.

They only brag about numbers when they think some new product or service is a success and are silent when it isn't, eg. Apple Watch.

The last time I was actually excited about an Apple product, Steve introduced the iPhone 4.
Too many duds and slight incremental product improvements lately. The 10% correction is just the beginning.

As for Apple Music, they should've just bought Spotify and not one of the worst headphone makers.
 
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Richardgm said:
A lot in this thread are blaming Cue... Except it's Craig Federighi who is in charge of the software.
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Eddy Cue is in charge of "Internet Software and Services"

Apple Music is exactly that.

He's also in charge of the iTunes Store, App Store, iBooks Store, Apple Pay, Siri, Maps, iAd and iCloud.

Eddy Cue was also on Twitter after the whole Taylor Swift thing.

It seems like Eddy Cue is the Apple Music guy.... not Craig.

Would you agree?
 
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Pelea said:
for all of you saying "yeah wait till the 3 months are up", you're forgetting how easy it is to get someone addicted to a service. the average guy, after 3 months, will be too used to apple music and will most likely continue using it as it's become part of his daily usage.. that's why I'm not using my free trial at all as i don't want this to happen to me.
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If, and only if, the product is good and people actually stay on the service for 3 months.
Which right now, isn't the case for a lot of people.
 
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I lost interest in Apple Music and don't use it anymore, it's not pleasant to use because of the annoying UI, and discovering new music sucks, the entire thing along with Beats one radio seems to be designed for "popular" music with little to no regard for every other genre/foreign/niche in the world.

But the biggest issue is that there is no 'free' option like Spotify. This is important because: if I take the time to make a playlist as I do with Spotify of albums and songs I like, and I decide to stop paying premium, on Spotify I can still access and listen to it with some limitations. But on Apple music I can't.

Spotify is the true innovator and winner, streaming music services have existed for a long time, the true innovation is free service, and Apple has completely missed the boat. I guess we'll have to wait until the 3-month period is up for Apple to realize its mistake.
 
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aleksander said:
11 million Apple Music free trial users / 800 million iTunes account holders = ~1.4%

Spotify has 75 million users of which 20 million pay.

Nothing to brag about Eddy.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify

Actually it kind of is. It took Spotify 2 years to get 2.5m paid subscribers, so even if 90% cancel their AM subs before the free trial ends they're still on track to beat Spotify by a long shot.

Granted, Apple have the iTunes install base already, so they'd have to match Spotify's 20m paid subs (Which has taken them 7 years to gather) within six months in order to gain "impressive" status in my books, and I think that's perfectly achievable.
 
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The interface is too confusing. If you have Apple Music, why doesn't the iTunes Store let you play the full version of songs that are in the Apple Music catalog?

"New" is the equivalent of the iTunes Store front page. But they're not exactly the same. The iTunes Store front page I find better for navigating the catalog. I find the New section a bit clumsy.

I have the free trial. The only benefit I've found so far is that they have the full Radiohead catalog. But they don't have any more Swedish music than Spotify does.

Their suggestions are not good for me. It's hard to remember the set up but they only asked me a couple of questions. I think they're basing the suggestions off of previous purchases I made, which in my case is not what I'm looking for.

I find Spotify's Discover Weekly shows me a lot more that interests me. The interface is much easier to understand, as well.

Will definitely be canceling before the trial is up. It's just too confusing, twice as expensive as the student version of Spotify, and has no web interface (which is helpful when my Mac breaks down and I have to send it in for repairs and stream from my ChromeBook).

I still remember showing someone how to use iTunes in 2001. It was so, so easy and intuitive. Now you start dragging a song and a Playlist side bar flies out at you and then just as quickly disappears—the interface is a disaster. I wouldn't know where to begin explaining iTunes to someone now. I think the first thing I would say is, "None of this makes any sense, but I'll show you how to use it anyway. You just are going to have to remember a lot of stuff." Back in 2001 it just made sense.
 
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aleksander said:
11 million Apple Music free trial users / 800 million iTunes account holders = ~1.4%

Spotify has 75 million users of which 20 million pay.

Nothing to brag about Eddy.
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Was he bragging? The man merely said he was thrilled.

Spotify has been running for 7 years. Apple Music 1 month. It's crazy comparing numbers, especially as Apple Music is still in it's free trial period. Better comparisons can be made once people have to pony up.

And it's all good having 800m iTunes accounts on file. How many are active? I remember when Twitter was approaching 1 billion accounts, they reported only about 250 million were active. Throwing out percentages as you have is almost worthless as we don't have enough data.

trife said:
Meh, guess I'm the odd man out so far. .
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Only on MacRumors. It probably means the 'regular' user is enjoying it too.

I too really like Apple Music - particularly Siri integration and For You. I'm still on the fence about subscribing as I currently use the Spotify free tier and don't mind the ads too much. I usually sign up for a month if I'm going on holiday or having a party where I don't want any ads.
 
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tentales said:
I'm certainly NOT thrilled with Apple's numbers or lack thereof. increasing OS bugs & too frequent revisions, hw lockdowns, feature-itis, etc.

They only brag about numbers when they think some new product or service is a success and are silent when it isn't, eg. Apple Watch.

The last time I was actually excited about an Apple product, Steve introduced the iPhone 4.
Too many duds and slight incremental product improvements lately. The 10% correction is just the beginning.

As for Apple Music, they should've just bought Spotify and not one of the worst headphone makers.
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Thank God they didn't buy Spotify! Spotify works and is easy to understand! Can you imagine what they would have done to it? I used to get upset at Apple for not updating its software. Be careful what you wish for (iWork, iMovie, Yosemite). Until Apple gets its act together, it seems to only be able to make anything it touches worse.
 
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Seriously, Spotify sucks. I don't understand the love of Spotify. I abhor is social features. I don't want to 'Follow' Playlists to discover music. I don't care what anyone is listening to. I really appreciate Apple Music and its 'For You' section. Gets my selection of music perfectly.

I hope to God Apple never adds social features to Apple Music. The day it does, I'm canceling. I bugs me that FaceBook and Twitter and baked into iOS. Makes me often want to go to Android.
 
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