Jimmy Iovine on the Future of Apple Music: 'We're Building the Right Hybrid'

[MH01]

Have to give him credit. Turned cheap junk headphones into a want item, and a huge profit, at least the current versions of the headphones are much better.

 

[Bacillus]

Have to give him credit. Turned cheap junk headphones into a want item, and a huge profit, at least the current versions of the headphones are much better.

Then let him start his bachelors'.

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

Don't worry... if they keep "improving" the Music app in that way, by extrapolation, I predict the App will only have a Play/Pause Button left in iOS 13. Playlists can be conveniently accessed by hard/long pressing that button (which will work 1 out of 5 times on non-3D touch devices) followed by a triple-level context menu for more structured user experience.

The iOS music app is great.

I always liked sarcasm.

 

[russofris]

I'm sorry, but I fired up iTunes 12.5.1 and was confronted with a 'radio' service that I'm being asked to pay for, a loss of all my artist art (replaced with what looks like an old 3D movie of a microphone without the 3d glasses), and a bleak lack of album-art matching colors for items in my collection.

This is the farthest I've ever been from a positive music experience with Apple.

Jimmy, I just want you to organize my music in a visually appealing manner. I will 'never' pay for music. Not a cent, ever. If you really want my money, you need to be sitting on a barstool outside of a venue or partner with (or replace) Ticketmaster.

 

[Topperdog1973]

I mean no offense to my musician brothers and sisters, but musicians should not be the people designing an fee-for-service streaming platform and client application, nor deciding which general direction the business should go in.

Engineers, designers, and experienced product managers should do that. And then everyone down to the lowliest computer science intern should be required to use the product they are working on. I don't doubt Iovine's team's chops in the music industry, but their product so far is not impressive. It feels like they are trying to guide the engineers and designers, but something is lost in translation, and we get this vomit of an app. I can forgive the ugly UI alone, I can forgive the bloat of features alone, I can forgive the inconsistent experience. But all of them combined...

It's like putting Anthony Bourdain in charge of designing a consumer toaster oven. Sure the guy is a good cook, knows more about food than 99.9% of the population, and can probably run several very successful restaurants at once. But while toaster ovens are in the same general food category, I am not sure Anthony Bourdain knows what it takes to engineer and implement a mass-market consumer product.

Likewise, musicians and music executives should not be driving this Apple product.

The overpaid and underperforming Iovine has a garbage product. It makes me laugh listening to him, Tim Cook, or any of these other dolts spewing preconceived dribble out their mouths when they answer a question. Apple Music is awful. Apple Maps is awful. Apple cloud services are the worst in the industry. Apple computers are outdated. What is the theme here- Tim Cook has somewhat driven Apple into an abyss of products that are half **s and a coding environment that really is pathetic. I don't trust Apple at all anymore. The people Cook has surrounded himself with are doing more harm for the company than anything.

 

[JungleNYC]

I love Apple Music because of its integration with my catalog, but wow does it suck at the kind of music I like (indie rock). It way way way over-indexes on pop, hiphop, and electronic stuff. Thank god for Hypemachine.

 

[Abazigal]

The overpaid and underperforming Iovine has a garbage product. It makes me laugh listening to him, Tim Cook, or any of these other dolts spewing preconceived dribble out their mouths when they answer a question. Apple Music is awful. Apple Maps is awful. Apple cloud services are the worst in the industry. Apple computers are outdated. What is the theme here- Tim Cook has somewhat driven Apple into an abyss of products that are half **s and a coding environment that really is pathetic. I don't trust Apple at all anymore. The people Cook has surrounded himself with are doing more harm for the company than anything.

I can only say that my experience has been the direct opposite of yours.

I use Apple Maps exclusively and it more than suffices in getting me to where I need to go. I don't even bother keeping google maps on my phone as a backup anymore.

I am cool with Apple Music, and it has more of the music that I prefer listening to anyways (at least compared to Spotify at the time of switching).

Don't really have any gripes about iCloud. Paying $1 a month for the expanded storage, and iCloud Photo Library is pretty handy due to its tight knit integration with the Apple ecosystem.

I agree Macs haven't been updated in a while, but my iMac and MBA are still going strong, and I don't feel the urge to upgrade anytime soon. Also mainly because I am increasingly spending more time on my iPad compared to my Macs.

The iPad Pro and Apple Pencil have been a godsend in my work as a teacher.

It's a great time for me to be in the Apple ecosystem.

 

[dotnet]

I love Apple Music because of its integration with my catalog, but wow does it suck at the kind of music I like (indie rock). It way way way over-indexes on pop, hiphop, and electronic stuff. Thank god for Hypemachine.

If you don't like what it selects for you you've got to tell it. Likewise, if it happens upon something you love, tell it. If you keep at it the suggestions will quickly improve.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'd like to hear someone at Apple say that the "forward" (>) and "back" (<) navigation controls in iTunes will actually work properly. I'd like for them to say that searching for "Beatles" in "All Apple Music" and clicking "See All" to the right of "Songs" will result in a list that makes sense...not 24 or 34 songs.

I'd rather hear Iovine tell stories about his music business experiences.

 

[Substance90]

Right. Please separate this into a separate app though. Mobile itunes is cluttered enough anyway.

 

[0958400]

Hybrid? My butt! What you're building is a algorithm-driven (and potentially money-driven) hit-machine that does not allow to look left or right, while users who have acquired music by themselves (or even rated it for ten years) are being left outside, because they want monthly revenues from subscriptions, thus taking away money from the customers, taking money away from less-successful musicians whilst helping only high-rated musicians.
This is a monopoly-driven attempt. This is not good, this is what Apple is becoming: Google.