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

[rodpascoe]

A lot of people are comparing Apple Music to Spotifty in terms of figures but the interesting figure will be the number of both companies in 6 months time.

Saying Spotify has X number of subscribers and Apple has Y is not as interesting as what the X was before and after.

It's a bit like in politic elections - the swing is very important. I think someone mentioned 2.5 million subscribers previously, if 1 million of them move to Apple for example then it could put Spotify out of business and then the rest move to Apple too.

The whole situation is a lot more complicated than it looks.

 

[navaira]

It's not a sale though when it's for FREE. Imagine a business, say, BMW, whose car you already own, give you a call and say "would you like to try out our latest car for free for 90 days?" Do you think 5% people agreeing to do so would be "amazeballs"?

When 5% of users start PAYING for Apple Music, now, that will be impressive.

 

[Popeye206]

I must admit, I have not tried Apple Music yet. However, I would think the Cloud Services like this have to be very important for Apple to provide an amazing experience. I'm sure they have the talent to do this.

Give it some time... systems like Apple Music is very complex I'm sure, so I'm guessing their backlog is pretty full with bugs and feature requests to implement.

Apple has the user base and the content to make this very successful over time.

 

[ani4ani]

Why

A LOT of people are forgetting that Apple Music has only been out for FIVE weeks and while Spotify are its main competitor, has been out since 2008.

Let's not compare yet shall we?

why not? Apple have had more than 7 years to see what works and what doesn't and they still cannot get it right. This is another "maps" moment for me. The software and UI is a mess.

 

[ani4ani]

Why

A LOT of people are forgetting that Apple Music has only been out for FIVE weeks and while Spotify are its main competitor, has been out since 2008.

Let's not compare yet shall we?

why not? Apple have had more than 7 years to see what works and what doesn't and they still cannot get it right. This is another "maps" moment for me. The software and UI is a mess.

 

[Pagemakers]

Eh? That would be incredibly impressive?

It seems many people on here have never run a business and have very high expectations.

A sale of a product to 5% of your previous/existing customer base would be amazeballs in any business product launch.

I've run a business for 30 years and if I offered something as much-hyped as Apple Music to my customers and only 5-10% of them could be bothered to accept my very generous offer I'd be disappointed.

Once the free phase is over subscriptions will slow massively.

 

[ani4ani]

Eh? That would be incredibly impressive?

It seems many people on here have never run a business and have very high expectations.

A sale of a product to 5% of your previous/existing customer base would be amazeballs in any business product launch.

I do run my own business and I can tell you 5% sales from your own established customer base would be an absolute disaster; clearly you don't!

 

[Jax44]

I've run a business for 30 years and if I offered something as much-hyped as Apple Music to my customers and only 5-10% of them could be bothered to accept my very generous offer I'd be disappointed.

Once the free phase is over subscriptions will slow massively.

I don't think the free phase is ever over for people who click on "subscribe to Apple Music" for the first time .

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Meh, guess I'm the odd man out so far. I love Apple Music and will definitely be keeping my family subscription after the free trial.

Important detail that you left off from your post: have you used Spotify?

If yes, then you are correct, you're the odd man out. Everyone else who used Spotify previously thinks it's better.

If no, then you belong to the group that concerns me. You're like someone who used IE 6 when Firefox was available, because it was convenient and you'd never had a good internet browsing experience so you just assumed that the bugs were an inherent part of browsing the web. Or you're like someone who uses Windows - you assume the crap that Windows gives you is an inherent part of using a computer.

Your group concerns me because if Apple Music is preloaded with OS X and iOS, people who have never used Spotify might mistake it for the greatest music service ever, and so the actual greatest music service ever might have to shut down.

 

[djcerla]

In my experience, nothing beats Apple Music. Could it be better/less buggy? Hell yes. But I keep discovering interesting new music, much more than with Spotify. Loving B1.

Music is just better, and music is more important than UI despite what someone may think.

 

[peterdevries]

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.

The service has been up for only a few weeks. 11 million users is impressive. But I do think we need to look in a year before anyone can say it is a success.

 

[MacrumoursUser]

5 weeks later I'm still experiencing same issues. Nothing has changed and when that trials end there will be barely few people left using it. I won't thats for sure.

 

[273888]

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.

I actually decided against Spotify because I thought their suggested or "For You" playlists weren't as good as Apple Music's. I also had trouble connecting to Spotify, and the application was laggy on my phone and computer. But to everyone their own!

 

[Tech198]

This is how Apple can fudge the numbers....

Since u are unable to cancel a free trial or even close your iTunes account, Apple can say anything. The fact they can say "active itunes users" i believe is just a myth.

11 million sounds like a lot although i'm impressed at content is on Apple music at launch, the fact these are two separate catalogs, which why why music on the store, may not always be available on Apple music, hinders this..

Not impossible. but i would want to see from other sources. i guess.if u never use Spotify as an alternative, or any other streaming service, then u'r not in the discovering new music.

 

[VulchR]

Well let me see. I am not one of the 11 million users of the new service. Why? I can get internet radio for free, I prefer not to pay a monthly fee for a service that I might use only intermittently, and I prefer to make my own mixes of music I have purchased.

I wish Apple had spent more time, money, and effort fixing iTunes, developing OS X, and providing better algorithms for helping look for music I like (perhaps this has happened to some degree with the purchase of Beats, but it shoudl have been the main focus).

 

[Jmausmuc]

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.



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.

What a joke. You Cant be serious. Spotify stated when nobody knew about streaming or cared. They were a small startup company with no publicity or money. Apple on the other hand is the worlds biggest company and launched to a media fanfare.
Comparing these two is nothing but comical.

I almost certain they are not thrilled about the 11m subscribers just as they are not thrilled about apple watch sales. If you really buy their reason for not releasing sales numbers for the watch, I wont be able to help you.

 

[Jmausmuc]

Eh? That would be incredibly impressive?

It seems many people on here have never run a business and have very high expectations.

A sale of a product to 5% of your previous/existing customer base would be amazeballs in any business product launch.

Not when its free bro

 

[Rogifan]

Here's something I wish Apple Music had. I wish the player bar at the bottom either had forward and back arrows or like Spotify allowed you to swipe left and right to play next and previous tracks. Right now you have to tap the bar to make it full screen in order to get the forward and back arrows.

 

[Rogifan]

A lot in this thread are blaming Cue... Except it's Craig Federighi who is in charge of the software.

Craig isn't in charge of iTunes software, Eddy is. Craig is only in charge of iOS and OS X system software and native apps like mail, calendar, contacts etc.

 

[Rogifan]

So they reveal the number of subscribers of Apple Music, but don't reveal the number of Apple Watches sold. Do you need any further proof that the Apple Watch has been a big flop by Apple's own high standards?

But they said last year they weren't going to release Watch figures. So what your suggesting is Cook knew before the Watch launched it was going to flop.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

The uninformed investors will love this news, until the free trials expire.

Who would those be? AAPL has been tanking ever since it's smash earnings report a couple weeks ago because "uninformed investors" read between the lines and saw iPhone growth slowing down in the next year.

Investors especially are not fooled by 11m users of a trial service. Certainly some % of those will drop off. What % is the big question.

However, Apple going public with the # of trial users, thereby setting a benchmark for AM's percieved success when the inital trial period ends for these 11m, is curious given that Apple won't release Apple Watch numbers. It's another example of how Apple does release sales or user #s when it's more or less positive. So why won't Apple release AW#s if they are please with sales? What is Fitbit or Pebble going to do with positive numbers? Make an even better smartwatch?

But they said last year they weren't going to release Watch figures. So what your suggesting is Cook knew before the Watch launched it was going to flop.

It's called "fence sitting," or "hedging one's bet." Things look down then "hey I told you I wan't going to say anything," If it's good, "we are so exciting about the phenomenal sales we just couldn't keep it to ourselves."

Seriously, what is your motivation to give a company such blind trust?

 

[Rogifan]

Who would those be? AAPL has been tanking ever since it's smash earnings report a couple weeks ago because "uninformed investors" read between the lines and saw iPhone growth slowing down in the next year.

Investors especially are not fooled by 11m users of a trial service. Certainly some % of those will drop off. What % is the big question.

However, Apple going public with the # of trial users, thereby setting a benchmark for AM's percieved success when the inital trial period ends for these 11m, is curious given that Apple won't release Apple Watch numbers. It's another example of how Apple does release sales or user #s when it's more or less positive. So why won't Apple release AW#s if they are please with sales? What is Fitbit or Pebble going to do with positive numbers? Make an even better smartwatch?

Again last October Cook said they wouldn't be releasing Watch data. So if they're not releasing figures because they're bad then that would mean Cook expected them to be bad last October. That's ridiculous. Apple hasn't released sales figures on the new MacBook either. So I guess that means it's a flop too?

 

[Mums]

Yeah it must be 11 million rap and hip hop fans. Because that is about 70% of what is played on Beats 1.

Yes and rap and hip-hop are now passé. A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory was the last really good album.

 

[Rogifan]

I almost certain they are not thrilled about the 11m subscribers just as they are not thrilled about apple watch sales. If you really buy their reason for not releasing sales numbers for the watch, I wont be able to help you.

So you think last October Tim Cook expected Watch to be a flop? Because that's when he said Apple wasn't going to report any data on it. Apple isn't releasing sales figures for the Watch because they're bad yet they are for Apple Music even though they're bad too? Huh? That makes no sense.

 

[thekeyring]

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.

So Apple has 11 million members of which an unknown amount will pay. After one month. Spotify have ~7x the user base but has been going for 108x the time.

Oh yeah, Apple should worry.