Tidal Offering Free 12-Day Trial Starting on Christmas, Including High Fidelity Tier

[MacRumors]

Tidal today announced that starting on Christmas Day anyone will be able to try out its music-streaming service for free for a period of 12 days. This free trial will include the company's $19.99/month High Fidelity tier that includes lossless sound quality, and it does not require a credit card for you to start so all you will need is an email address (via The Verge).

Tidal's new Apple TV app​

To celebrate its free trial, Tidal will release exclusive content every day of the 12 day trial. The content will range from four new original shows to interviews, music videos, and documentaries on Rapsody and Trombone Shorty. Additionally, free trial users will have a chance to win concert tickets, but to which specific show was not mentioned.

Tidal has been in the news recently for its reportedly dire financial state, with the company believed to have enough capital to last only another six months. In the wake of that news, Tidal launched a new app for Apple TV and Android TV devices so users can listen to music and watch videos on a larger screen. With the new free trial, more users will have a chance to check out the service's features and potentially bump up its "stalled" user growth.

Article Link: Tidal Offering Free 12-Day Trial Starting on Christmas, Including High Fidelity Tier

 

[pete2106]

Spotify are offering 3 months for £1. Made it pretty easy to choose between it and Apple Music.

 

[jrlcopy]

Tidal is just horrible, only use for it is hip hop, but if your tastes shift even 1% away from that they have no idea what you're looking for, playlists are bad, app is disorganized. It looks like a poor spotify clone. I had it with the 6 month sprint promotion, but halfway in ended up starting to pay for Spotify just because of how bad it was.

 

[dannyyankou]

Spotify are offering 3 months for £1. Made it pretty easy to choose between it and Apple Music.

Isn’t Apple Music free for 3 months?

 

[redneckitengineer]

Ya I’ll stick to Apple Music. Much better selection.

 

[kalafalas]

Man Spotify needs to release its hi-fi tier already so tidal can die

 

[Plutonius]

I have no interest in another music service even if the trial is free.

 

[ShadowYYZ]

Tidal user here. Love it, what’s with all the hate? Switched to HIFI from Apple Music and not looked back “ if tidal gets shut down” I’d go back to Apple Music

 

[redneckitengineer]

Tidal user here. Love it, what’s with all the hate? Switched to HIFI from Apple Music and not looked back “ if tidal gets shut down” I’d go back to Apple Music

Because it’s collection is smaller, it’s almost gone bankrupt a few times already, HiFi streaming isn’t great unless you’ve got unlimited data, and it’s algorithm to learn what you like is horrible unless your all about hip hop.

 

[ke-iron]

Man Spotify needs to release its hi-fi tier already so tidal can die

You mean Apple needs to, so Spotify and tidal can both kick it. Apple will win in the long run anyway since they’re the only one that’s actually making a profit

 

[dannyyankou]

Because it’s collection is smaller, it’s almost gone bankrupt a few times already, HiFi streaming isn’t great unless you’ve got unlimited data, and it’s algorithm to learn what you like is horrible unless your all about hip hop.

And hifi streaming doesn’t mean anything if you’re using apple earbuds or beats by dre
[doublepost=1513961679][/doublepost]

You mean Apple needs to, so Spotify and tidal can both kick it. Apple will win in the long run anyway since they’re the only one that’s actually making a profit

Apple brought native flac playback to the files app in iOS 11, it’s only a matter of time.

 

[roncron]

Hey TIDAL haters, you’ll be better off if TIDAL survives. The fewer streaming services there are, the more monopoly power the remaining ones will wield, which could mean higher subscription prices, worse customer service, or lower royalties for the artists and record labels.

Before 9/11/2001, there were around 10 or so major airlines, plus some minor ones. Since then, many airlines have either been acquired by other airlines or went bankrupt. Now there are around 4 major airlines, plus some minor ones. The lack of competition is why service has gotten so awful and why they can nickel-dime us for everything.

We don’t want that to happen in the music steaming industry. Competition is good for consumers, even if there are some brands you don’t like.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Tidal user here. Love it, what’s with all the hate? Switched to HIFI from Apple Music and not looked back “ if tidal gets shut down” I’d go back to Apple Music

While you'll get different answers than this, I suspect about 80% of the hate is that it's not branded Apple Tidal. If Apple had purchased Tidal instead of Beats, this crowd would be gushing about the highest quality music files vs. the crappy-sounding Beats, etc.

This crowd used to LOVE Spotify and Pandora until Apple joined the party and then both of them seemed to become hated/awful too.

Basically, post a thread about ANY competitor with anything from Apple and it's all terrible. Apple's unreleased HomePod speaker has already been crowned finest speaker on the planet by people that haven't even heard one yet and the various other comparable speakers from entities that are even FOCUSED solely in the speaker business are all increasingly being demoted to crap. I've even seen one guy comparing a $349 Homepod to a $40,000 speaker claiming at least parity of sound.

Hop back to threads BEFORE Apple announced Homepod and there's a good amount of us liking the competitor offerings now fading into crap... like we liked google maps so much before there was an Apple maps... and on and on.

I doubt there's any genuine OBJECTIVE hate for Tidal here. The game seems to be: if anything is brought up that is in any way viewed as a competitor for Apple, that anything must be bad, ridiculed, beat down, etc... whether we've objectively even given it a try ourselves. It's just bad because it's not Apple's version.

Then, let Apple adopt/acquire, etc the very same thing previously ridiculed & beat down and it can become "shut up and take my money" and/or the reason to upgrade. For example, hop back to when Apple spun 4" phones as "perfect" and we relentlessly bashed phablet-sized phones. Let Apple acquire Tidal and/or adopt the higher quality audio files that Tidal offers within Apple music and we'll gush at the greatness of it as if we never found a fault before it was Apple... or endorsed by Apple.

 

[Makayla]

I think Tidal's rollout rubbed many people the wrong way. I also hear fans say it botched many new albums except for Beyoncé and Jayz who are the majority owners or something like that. The music selection is targeting the urban market but the price is a bit too high for anyone. Lossless is great but not that many people are true audiophiles.

But I think the bottom line is people just don't want to pay for multiple stream services and the one with the least collection loses.

 

[78Bandit]

I'm thinking Tidal is looking for another infusion of cash or an outright sale and they are going to count all these trial accounts as customers in touting their customer base at December 31 to potential suitors. The timing is a little coincidental in that the trial accounts will be expiring in the first week of January.

Why not a month or 90 days like Spotify and Apple?

Why not a week? I think I can answer that one. A week would have expired December 31 and they wouldn't have been allowed to count them as customers at the end of the year. They need the extra few days so they can inflate their customer count, but since they will pay royalties on the songs played they want to keep it as short as possible to avoid any additional expenses.

It looks like Tidal is getting desperate to bail out before they become worthless.

 

[FelixDerKater]

Competition is good, but this isn’t a competitive product.

 

[baine]

You mean Apple needs to, so Spotify and tidal can both kick it. Apple will win in the long run anyway since they’re the only one that’s actually making a profit

lol

 

[tonyr6]

Tidal is just horrible, only use for it is hip hop, but if your tastes shift even 1% away from that they have no idea what you're looking for, playlists are bad, app is disorganized. It looks like a poor spotify clone. I had it with the 6 month sprint promotion, but halfway in ended up starting to pay for Spotify just because of how bad it was.

I agree. I have it for three months, used it twice and cancelled. They have the music but they push there hip hop garbage even if you hate it. I search for Richard Marx for example and I get explicit profane rap results first and Richard Marx album results buried on the bottom.

 

[78Bandit]

I search for Richard Marx...

jk, I've got his greatest hits album.

 

[redneckitengineer]

Hey TIDAL haters, you’ll be better off if TIDAL survives. The fewer streaming services there are, the more monopoly power the remaining ones will wield, which could mean higher subscription prices, worse customer service, or lower royalties for the artists and record labels.

Before 9/11/2001, there were around 10 or so major airlines, plus some minor ones. Since then, many airlines have either been acquired by other airlines or went bankrupt. Now there are around 4 major airlines, plus some minor ones. The lack of competition is why service has gotten so awful and why they can nickel-dime us for everything.

We don’t want that to happen in the music steaming industry. Competition is good for consumers, even if there are some brands you don’t like.

I’ll be honest, I was always one to pirate music until streaming got cheap enough it was better than hassle of virus laden BitTorrent and Usenet. If this whole price goes back up thing happens... its back to terrestrial FM radio and pirating music. I’m the person to adjust my habits before succumbing to price increases. Gas prices annoy me, so I bought an electric car. Cable TV prices annoyed me, so I cut the cord and subscribed to DirecTVNow at 1/3 the bill.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Tidal is just horrible, only use for it is hip hop, but if your tastes shift even 1% away from that they have no idea what you're looking for, playlists are bad, app is disorganized. It looks like a poor spotify clone. I had it with the 6 month sprint promotion, but halfway in ended up starting to pay for Spotify just because of how bad it was.

Ya I’ll stick to Apple Music. Much better selection.

I'm curious if the Tidal App has been redesigned? Their service offerings or moves the last few days seems to be changing for the better. Seems to be.

The Apple Music App is also poorly designed:
I cannot search for songs locally by entering text, I must use enertial scrolling (that gets old very fast)
Repeat/Repeat1, Shuffle (in itself hard to know it's enabled)
Library > Genres > shows me huge icons for each artist with tracks within the genre, why not just list the artists name to be then drilled into all their tracks?! Again this forcing of enertial scrolling which wastes a LOT of time!!

Spotify's Settings is poorly disorganized as well and the best part:
You cannot change your credit card number (from say Australia to Canada) to maintain your playlist and save tracks! Remove your credit card so goes your playlist!
^ That alone prompts me to stay away.

Playlist ... I thought this is something YOU create 1st and foremost before wanting someone unknown create one for you. Try it you maybe suprised what you can do with Playlists - including the titles themselves and how they fit together, not just the track mood selection .

Tidal user here. Love it, what’s with all the hate? Switched to HIFI from Apple Music and not looked back “ if tidal gets shut down” I’d go back to Apple Music

Unsure also about all the hate. I think it's because it's owned by someone NOT part of the 'cliq' or typical well to do crowd. Plus it's Hip-Hop and well that shouldn't get any focus ... BUT the dance moves, popular culture clothing & kicks, commercials all popularizing Hip-Hop. Nobody hates on a service just for what it offers and chooses to offer specifically if it doesn't hurt anyone. You just choose another service that suits your needs; no need to get one's nickers in a bunch so to say. lol.

 

[star_nerdy]

Hey TIDAL haters, you’ll be better off if TIDAL survives. The fewer streaming services there are, the more monopoly power the remaining ones will wield, which could mean higher subscription prices, worse customer service, or lower royalties for the artists and record labels.

Before 9/11/2001, there were around 10 or so major airlines, plus some minor ones. Since then, many airlines have either been acquired by other airlines or went bankrupt. Now there are around 4 major airlines, plus some minor ones. The lack of competition is why service has gotten so awful and why they can nickel-dime us for everything.

We don’t want that to happen in the music steaming industry. Competition is good for consumers, even if there are some brands you don’t like.

More options doesn’t mean better quality and cheaper prices.

Airlines nickel and dime everyone because Americans weight more today than they did 20 years ago on average.

https://www.google.com/amp/abcnews....ican-men-15-pounds-20-years/story?id=41100782

More weight means more fuel. More fuel means higher prices.

But they can’t charge much more because pay has not changed significantly in the last 20 years. So instead of charging more for fares, they try to get more fares and less luggage on flights.

The last thing we need in the music industry is more choice. 2-3 good options is better than 20 terrible ones. That’s how you end up with 180 channels and nothing good to watch, so you go to an aggregator like Netflix.


The issue is if the 2-3 good options price fix. If they price fix, then we need to break them apart. But more options doesn’t not mean better quality. More options is just more options.

 

[jozeppy26]

People saying they'll stick with Apple Music or Spotify probably enjoy their crappy mid-fidelity music from mono bluetooth sound docks like the Echo or Sonos. lmfao. There's absolutely no comparison between sound quality if you have an actual stereo setup. Period. Tidal has innovated far beyond Apple Music's Spotifiy-wannabe service with their MQA streaming support and hardware passthrough options. Listen, I'm a pretty big Apple fanboy, using the entire ecosystem almost exclusively. But their streaming service doesn't touch Tidal. Also that lighting to headphone adaptor that comes with the iPhone sounds like complete crap with a serious pair of cans.
[doublepost=1513993179][/doublepost]

While you'll get different answers than this, I suspect about 80% of the hate is that it's not branded Apple Tidal. If Apple had purchased Tidal instead of Beats, this crowd would be gushing about the highest quality music files vs. the crappy-sounding Beats, etc.

This crowd used to LOVE Spotify and Pandora until Apple joined the party and then both of them seemed to become hated/awful too.

Basically, post a thread about ANY competitor with anything from Apple and it's all terrible. Apple's unreleased HomePod speaker has already been crowned finest speaker on the planet by people that haven't even heard one yet and the various other comparable speakers from entities that are even FOCUSED solely in the speaker business are all increasingly being demoted to crap. I've even seen one guy comparing a $349 Homepod to a $40,000 speaker claiming at least parity of sound.

Hop back to threads BEFORE Apple announced Homepod and there's a good amount of us liking the competitor offerings now fading into crap... like we liked google maps so much before there was an Apple maps... and on and on.

I doubt there's any genuine OBJECTIVE hate for Tidal here. The game seems to be: if anything is brought up that is in any way viewed as a competitor for Apple, that anything must be bad, ridiculed, beat down, etc... whether we've objectively even given it a try ourselves. It's just bad because it's not Apple's version.

Then, let Apple adopt/acquire, etc the very same thing previously ridiculed & beat down and it can become "shut up and take my money" and/or the reason to upgrade. For example, hop back to when Apple spun 4" phones as "perfect" and we relentlessly bashed phablet-sized phones. Let Apple acquire Tidal and/or adopt the higher quality audio files that Tidal offers within Apple music and we'll gush at the greatness of it as if we never found a fault before it was Apple... or endorsed by Apple.

The Apple HomePod is crap. Absolute crap. It could sound amazing but it'll always be crap...bc it's a mono speaker with no soundstage. What a freaking joke. I'm not an idiot Apple; I'm not reverting to pre 1950s sound.
[doublepost=1513993427][/doublepost]

I have no interest in another music service even if the trial is free.

You also apparently have no interest in actual music since it sounds like you prefer mid-fidelity crap.
[doublepost=1513993525][/doublepost]

Tidal is just horrible, only use for it is hip hop, but if your tastes shift even 1% away from that they have no idea what you're looking for, playlists are bad, app is disorganized. It looks like a poor spotify clone. I had it with the 6 month sprint promotion, but halfway in ended up starting to pay for Spotify just because of how bad it was.

They have a playlist dedicated to the Grateful Dead and one dedicated to Jerry Garcia. It was super easy to find.
[doublepost=1513993591][/doublepost]

Man Spotify needs to release its hi-fi tier already so tidal can die

That would surely do it, but unfortunately there hasn't been a word since they trial tested this. Also I doubt they'd offer higher fidelity files like Tidal does with their Masters content.

 

[roncron]

Complaint 1: TIDAL's collection is smaller than Spotify and others. True, but the collection is still huge and it has almost everything I search for.

Complaint 2: TIDAL is only good if you like hip hop. TIDAL is good for me and I'm not a big hip hop fan. I like jazz, rock, alternative, classic, '60s Motown, and some modern R&B. TIDAL has many 1000s of great albums in these genres and I can always find stuff I love.

I subscribe to TIDAL because of the higher quality audio and because people I know in the music business have told me that TIDAL pays them more than the big guys.

If you find an album on a streaming service that you love, please consider buying the CD to support the artist, if you can afford it.

 

[Plutonius]

You also apparently have no interest in actual music since it sounds like you prefer mid-fidelity crap.

With hearing like that, it sounds like you would make a great sonar operator .

The rest of us mortals have normal mundane hearing.