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Sony Music CEO Confirms 'Apple Music' Unveiling at WWDC

I wonder if this is the end of "iTunes". Ideally, it would be split into:

Apple Music: Music streaming and purchases
AppleTV Store: Movies and TV
App Store: iOS and OSX Apps purchase and management

The Music app on iOS and OS X would have a store and streaming tabs built in.

A new AppleTV app for iOS and OS X would allow you to manage all your TV and movie purchases. A tab would allow you to explore the Movies and TV store. Eventually this is where you'll subscribe to TV channels once Apple has the deals in place.

The iOS and OS X App Store would bring all of your purchases from both platforms into one place and allow you to manage them like you do in iTunes today.
 
Benjamin Frost said:
And therein lies the rub.

Most people simply won't pay for radio, even ad-free and curated. There's too much free competition.

I predict that this streaming service will appeal to children, as they lap up music; they haven't heard much. For the rest of us, it will struggle.
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Wow, condescending much? I'm not a child, neither are my friends, but a lot of us use streaming services, paid for at that, via spotify, etc.
 
Gameboy70 said:
The appeal of downloading versus streaming music is largely a function of age.

The older you are, the more likely your music collection has matured to the point where you're rarely acquiring new music, in which case $120 a year seems egregiously expensive.

The younger you are, the more likely it is that your musical tastes and knowledge are still evolving, so there's a higher premium on discovering new music than on revisiting old favorites indefinitely. Paying $120 a year for access to millions of titles is a steal compared to building a library one paid download at a time (e.g., 8-10 albums per year). Being able to follow other listeners with tastes you respect (not just paid curators, but normal music fans) and learn about new music is a huge feature of streaming services that you can't get from media stores.
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If you spend $120 a year on streaming, you're throwing money away. If you spent that on downloads, you could buy 24 albums in your own time to listen to forever. If you paid for streaming only, after twenty years, you would have spent $2,400, probably more, as it is likely to increase in price. You then have a good idea of what music you like.

You decide you don't want to spend $120 a year to listen to more bad new music. What do you do? You have no music. You could have built a library of 480 albums worth of tracks, but you have nothing but twenty years of regrets.

If only you hadn't been suckered into that subscription model...
 
I can't believe these execs who can't seem to help themselves and spill the beans and ruin Apple's "surprise". If Steve was still around he'd call them, reach through the phone and rip their livers out.
 
Benjamin Frost said:
If you spend $120 a year on streaming, you're throwing money away. If you spent that on downloads, you could buy 24 albums in your own time to listen to forever. If you paid for streaming only, after twenty years, you would have spent $2,400, probably more, as it is likely to increase in price. You then have a good idea of what music you like.

You decide you don't want to spend $120 a year to listen to more bad new music. What do you do? You have no music. You could have built a library of 480 albums worth of tracks, but you have nothing but twenty years of regrets.

If only you hadn't been suckered into that subscription model...
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Or, if you spent it all on albums, you might have 200 albums of crap, you'd never want to listen to again....

There's pros and cons to both. Each has their own preference. Neither is wrong or right. Better to have options though, than being forced to do one or the other... Why do people seem to want to restrict peoples options to what they decide is best?
 
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inhalexhale1 said:
If all they announce tomorrow is stability for OSX and iOS, that would be AWESOME. Just tune what we already have..
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Yeah Right! Then this forum will be full of angry posts shouting, "WWDC WAS A WASTE OF TIME". You may appreciate just software stability updates but for a developer conference that won't fly.
 
HenryDJP said:
Yeah Right! Then this forum will be full of angry posts shouting, "WWDC WAS A WASTE OF TIME". You may appreciate just software stability updates but for a developer conference that won't fly.
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That's the problem with this forum these days. Full of children throwing temper tantrums, wanting new shiny toys. I'd prefer stability and improvements on the current features, rather than more features and things not working right. I want improvements to Siri, transit integration, etc. Apple Music is another improvement, rather than new feature. These are improvements we need, rather than umpteen new random things like the phone flashing up random colours if someone calls, or depth of field changes for selfies....
 
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Keirasplace said:
I'm guessing you don't have a lot of contact with "creators" to say such a thing... I do and that's ehem, total Bull. New artist got real well known in the past through radio, word of mouth, shows, even clips they put out for free themselves. They don't need the $1 per month from people streaming ten of thousands of their songs and maybe, if they're lucky gain a few fans outside their home city.

To make money from touring you need big venues, money to set up the tout, and a significant fan base. All current streaming service don't give you that kind of money and not that much exposure, so your still stuck doing shows in your home city with even less money from selling your music than before.

Its better for listeners, but not artists.
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So better then that no one discovers them? I'm not following your logic. We don't live in the past where things worked differently. And even if we did, the kinds of artists that would benefit from discovery through streaming wouldn't be getting airtime on the radio anyway.

If someone wasn't going to buy a certain album or even know about a certain artists then how does removing streaming from the mix help that artist?

I'm discovering new artists all the time now through spotify and so if anyone I now know and like comes to town I'm FAR more likely to buy a ticket and go see them. Maybe buy some swag at the show.

Or I could just not know about them at all because they're clinging to an old and dying model. Really not sure how that's better for anyone.
 
stumpapi said:
OK, I don't have a streaming subscription. Old school maybe, if I understand it correctly, let's say I buy a song for $1.29. I can listen to it all year and never pay anything more or say an album for $12 same use. But if I stream and I want to listen to that song or album again next month I must pay $9.99 next month and every following month. I have nothing if I cancel my subscription.

I do understand the advantage of finding and listening to as much music as I want with a subscription but I honestly don't go through my day listening continuously.

It is clear from these forums that users have strong opinions each way sometimes being rather rude to fellow members with different opinions. But I wonder if someone might share how they actually use a streaming service and the reasons they made that choice? I'm actually thinking I will give the trial a chance. But I am still not sure about all this when I look at the math but I do also see advantages and thus am still going back and forth.

So sometimes it might be best to listen to the thinking of others and learn from it.
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You aren't locked into one or the other. It's $10 a month, not a ton of money if music is a primary medium of entertainment for you. I love having Spotify - if I hear a song or someone recommends something, I can just look it up and play it instantly. If I like it I can explore an entire artists catalog right away. If I really like it, I can still pay $10 for an album, at the end of the day. $10/month is just the cost of a single album, and it gives me unlimited access to pretty much any song I could ever want on every device in my home (computers, iPad, iPhone, Sonos, etc.) I especially like it in my car since I don't have to pay for Sirius or use any radio service, since there are millions of songs and playlists at my fingertips. Years ago, I was a music collector and definitely skeptical of the model, but it won me over pretty quickly once I gave it a try. I don't miss the idea of "owning" all my music, and while I do still buy music on occasion, it's much more rare than it used to be. And while there is criticism of the revenue model for artists, it basically eliminates the desire to pirate anything, which is also a win for the industry as a whole.
 
This is the last bit I needed to finally decide I'm skipping the keynote tomorrow, because my time is precious and I don't have the slightest interest in streaming music, nor in non-autonomous watches, nor in TV subscription, nor in any of the subjects addressed these months. I'll just read the abstract later just in case they do any real announcement (read: any Mac release) and better invest my time doing useful stuff.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that any statement made by Apple regarding their position about Vulkan would also interest me.
 
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Will this basically just be Spotify in the guise of Apple? I like the idea since I love Spotify and use it on all my Mac devices. Would make things a bit easier.
 
Apple will have to unveil something very innovative for me to cancel my Spotify subscription. Spotify for me works perfectly on iPhone, iPad, and Mac and I'm hooked!
 
queshy said:
Apple will have to unveil something very innovative for me to cancel my Spotify subscription. Spotify for me works perfectly on iPhone, iPad, and Mac and I'm hooked!
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Natively part of iOS and better integrated on the Mac, also more music than Spotify. Those are a couple of easy to guess points.
 
alireza76 said:
This Apple Employee has confirmed it too on his Instagram account
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So is Apple Music not launching until iOS 9 then?

EDIT: Sorry, just saw the post that 9 to 5 mac is reporting 8.4 on June 26th. Never mind!
 
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ipedro said:
I wonder if this is the end of "iTunes". Ideally, it would be split into:

Apple Music: Music streaming and purchases
AppleTV Store: Movies and TV
App Store: iOS and OSX Apps purchase and management
Click to expand...

I surely hope it doesn't mean the end of iTunes. I like having one program to manage my media content. Killing iTunes would be a bad move by Apple
 
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PBF said:
The only thing that may keep me away from switching to Apple Music completely is the possible lack of Last.fm integration. I'm an avid Last.fm user and I like racking up my play count whenever I use Spotify.
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Oh great point...didn't even think about this. Yeah, I definitely want to keep my plays history updated. I've got years of data on Last.fm.
 
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Who cares about Apple Music? I have Spotify. Free. If i don't want the ads I upgrade to Premium. Apple will probably not be cheaper than Spotify (free), according to their intentions to kill free streaming.

I buy Apple for their combonation of hardware and software, excepting the watch (too thick, too less battery life) and Apple TV (ugly, old software without apps).
 
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J. Jizzle said:
I surely hope it doesn't mean the end of iTunes. I like having one program to manage my media content. Killing iTunes would be a bad move by Apple
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me too. I think it would be a big mistake if they did kill off the iTunes brand. Its one of the big Apple things and its great to have everything in one place.

I think iTunes Radio is going to be killed off and Apple Music will replace that
 
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shandyman said:
Or, if you spent it all on albums, you might have 200 albums of crap, you'd never want to listen to again....

There's pros and cons to both. Each has their own preference. Neither is wrong or right. Better to have options though, than being forced to do one or the other... Why do people seem to want to restrict peoples options to what they decide is best?
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If streaming music services start having exclusives though, doesn't that limit your options?? All this drama about what artists are going to be on a service seem a bit limiting to me. I just buy what I want, period. I don't really care what service or label or brand they are with. When I can, I'd much rather pay the artists direct. Many bands I see have CDs for sale at their shows - yes CDs!! Still better quality and a built-in back up that I can rip and listen to with no monthly fees.
 
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Thares said:
Who cares about Apple Music? I have Spotify. Free. If i don't want the ads I upgrade to Premium. Apple will probably not be cheaper than Spotify (free), according to their intentions to kill free streaming.

I buy Apple for their combonation of hardware and software, excepting the watch (too thick, too less battery life) and Apple TV (ugly, old software without apps).
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A lot of people do. Apple will have a free version too, as well as the subscription of $9.99 a month, like Spotify. Just coz you ain't interested, don't mean no one else will be....

Also, I like the Apple TV, does a good job and can only improve.
 
skellener said:
If streaming music services start having exclusives though, doesn't that limit your options?? All this drama about what artists are going to be on a service seem a bit limiting to me. I just buy what I want, period. I don't really care what service or label or brand they are with. When I can, I'd much rather pay the artists direct. Many bands I see have CDs for sale at their shows - yes CDs!! Still better quality and a built-in back up that I can rip and listen to with no monthly fees.
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Spotify is already a bit limited as they don't have as many artists that Apple do. Personally, I mix both options and look forward to swapping my Spotify subscription to Apple Music, so I'm using one app for all my music.

As I said, streaming works for some people, not others, just the same as buying CDs/downloads work for some not others. My argument is against those that are acting like no one should have the ability to use a streaming service, because they don't see the point.

You even quoted my post saying this and you ignored it and went on an random tangent that's not even connected to what you quoted.
 
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