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The Problems Apple Music Needs To Fix Before Launch
journovampire writes: In less than two weeks, Apple Music arrives for consumers, but it still has some serious problems. Many in the industry are predicting the biggest digital music launch in history, but Apple hasn't even achieved its primary stated goal of de-fragmenting the music market. To illustrate, the article points out that Apple Music catalog is currently missing the current most popular artist (Adele), the most popular artist of the past decade (Taylor Swift), and the most popular artist of all time (The Beatles). The company is also promising a three-month free trial period. Great for customers, but not great for musicians, who won't see a dime from that trial, regardless of how much their music is being played. Apple has likely made you-scratch-my-back deals with the major publishers, but indies have no bargaining power. They've been hesitant to jump on board, and that only decreases the selection. Add to that the complications by DRM, Apple Connect, and the new service flat out not working on some music devices (competitors to Apple, now that they own Beats), and you have a recipe for yet another troubled streaming site.
Give these "artists" free advertising!
Shag em
the current most popular artist (Adele)
[citation needed]
Add to that the complications by DRM.
what DRM? You stream the music through the iTunes app. If you want to buy a song or album you download it as a DRM-free mp3. I don't see the complication.
Apple Connect,
for the non-fanbois, apple connect is a social media network specifically for music and tied to apple music. Remains to be seen if it can take off considering it is not facebook/twitter.
and the new service flat out not working on some music devices
. It works on any apple device. it may also work on some androids, I don't know. check if your device supports it before you do the free trial. if your device doesn't support it, then use a different service (spotify, Pandora) that does support it. no big dea.
"Apple has likely made you-scratch-my-back deals with the major publishers, but indies have no bargaining power."
You are just speculating.
Zune!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You can measure the quality of any streaming music service by typing the word "motown" into the search box.
Does Motown immediately start playing? A+
Is there a list of Motown playlists? A
Does something else happen? Fail.
I'm a 2000 man.
.... while many more will keep getting all the music they want for free, as they have done for the last 20 years. The world music market was worth 34 billions in 1999, now it's barely 15 bln. Have fun.
Apple Music catalog is currently missing [...] the most popular artist of all time (The Beatles)
That seems odd. Any reasons? (Must keep straight face, must keep straight face, ...)
Really, who needs Apple? I just watched a tear down of Beats Solo headphones and its no surprise they are made of crap. I think the parts costs were estimated at around $16 for a retail of $199. This is no doubt the biggest scam in music reproduction. I'm sure Dr. Dre is laughing all the way to the bank. Apple on the other hand should be embarrassed at not only buying such a racket POS as Beats but it will allow it to tarnish its name. Apple doesn't exactly make oodles of cash by doing what Beats did with headphones. At least Apple throws in some actual good engineering and design in its products. Apple's music service won't be anything really different then a Spotify other then a bit of old nostalgia social interaction with music artist sorta like Apple tried with Ping. In other words, unless your married to Apple with all Apple devices and praise the very ground tim Cook and Jony Ives walk on. You will be just fine using other music services.
I want to control how my files go digital and what encoding and what DRM and devices to use. That's why I still buy CDs and rip them for my own use.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
These all sound like terrible first-world problems. If only Apple could find a genius somewhere to help them. But where? Think think think... Maybe they need to think differently. They need to take a break and head to the bar...
Are you sure?
You scratch my back and Ill scratch yours
Those aren't problems for *Apple*. They're "problems" for a very small segment of the consumer market and for indie publishers.
The revenue Apple would earn from getting those indie publishers on board is *paltry*, so I really don't think they give a damn about them.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The solution from indies is pretty easy - wait three months after it's launched, so that most people are outside of the trial period.
I read the article and I am not at all convinced against Apple music. After all during free trial, who cares if I miss few artists. It is not that all of sudden all my other way of listening going to disappear. None of the problems mentioned in the article are bottleneck.
I don't use any paid streaming service as of now, but I am considering either Spotify and Apple music. But my decision will not have any bearings to whatever nonsense is there in the article.
Add to that the complications by DRM, Apple Connect, and the new service flat out not working on some music devices (competitors to Apple, now that they own Beats), and you have a recipe for yet another troubled streaming site.
So, what? Android devices and Windows are not competitors to Apple?
Both ecosystems have been explicitly mentioned as supported by Apple during the launch announcement, so I'm curious what "competitors" are going to be "flat out not working"
We'll ignore the equally false DRM (there isn't any per se - it's a streaming service with a download feature for offline listening that links to the DRM-free store if you want to buy the songs outright.
Imagine looking through music this not already played on the radio 50 times per day per song. Now THAT is an awesome feature.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
.....yet another streaming music service! Way to go Apple, now you are thinking with gas!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I can find Beatles on iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/the-beatles/id136975
A prime example of FUD, I'm adding it Wikipedia
The biggest problem they are going to have is customer interest. There are already many steaming music services out there. They don't just have to convince people to try their service. They have to convince people to switch from a service they are already using.
The article is roasting Apple for a lot of things no one but the music industry really cares about, with the exception of getting big acts like Adele and Taylor Swift signed on.
Their music sucks ass, so the lack of it would improve things.
A few overplayed artists aren't on Apple, nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Also you can't even get good version of, say "The Beatles" on cd since the record companies made them fatal victims of the loudness war after stealing their music.
The problem with Apple gear is that it isn't compatible with Apple gear, let alone anyone else's. Once you buy into the Apple eco-system, you're screwed. Here are a couple of stories.
One friend had a MacBook which was 4 years old. She purchased a new Airport Extreme, Apple's home router. The only way to manage the Airport Extreme is with Apple's Airport Utility. The version of Mac OS X had an older version of Airport Utility that wasn't compatible with the router. Furthermore she couldn't upgrade the version of Mac OS X on her laptop to the current rev because it was 4 years old. In order to install the Airport Extreme, she had to borrow a new iPad.
Every other home router on the planet is managed through a web browser interface. There's NOTHING about the Airport Utility that you couldn't do with a browser interface, but noooo... It's an Apple product so you HAVE to use their app to manage it, and if you don't have a current Apple platform to do it from, you're screwed.
Another friend purchased a new iPhone 6 and found that iTunes wouldn't work for him with his laptop. Again, he had to upgrade Mac OS X. His laptop was new enough that it could go up to the current rev of OS X, so he got his iTunes working. But then his ProTools wouldn't work with the new OS X. Three years of studio recordings were lost.
Apple stuff is not only not compatible with other platforms, it's not compatible with itself. Anyone who buys into the Apple eco-system is going to run up against this kind of problem.
The problems in this article apply to any streaming service. It's what happens when a new technology collides with the writhing mass of overwrought little Hollywood egos that is the entertainment business.
Look at the example of television. Though in the old days we complained about having to sit through commercials, the sponsored broadcast model was one that everyone understood and was able to use nationwide without much thought. When cable came along, you had to pick out service tiers, but it brought TV to all those places where it had never seen seen before.
Enter streaming. For broadcast networks which have always used the sponsored-by-commercials model, this could have been a chance to use the reach of the Internet to provide "infinity" broadcast range to each over-air network. Networks began to make shows available on streaming after each air date, and it looked as though we were on our way to TV utopia. Miss a show and you can see it online; for sponsors, their reach is now vastly expanded both in space (programs becoming visible outside of city antenna range) and time (vacationers are watching your commercials after they get back to town and stream their favorites). As a bonus, Internet streaming gives broadcasters viewer metrics that make the old Neilsen diaries look like cave wall drawings.
But no service model is so simple and beautiful that Hollywood can't screw it up. Some shows can't be streamed because a TV "Adele" considers her ego worth trashing the service model for. Other shows disappear after a few episodes, so if you're away for a month you will never see them at all. Industry middlemen, the medallion cabdrivers of the business, want to flimflam double and triple sets of fees out of users, which is why a lot of over-the-air content hides behind those miserable "verify your cable provider" interfaces online. The result: we, the users, are sticking to our torrents until the mess clears up. If Apple wants to make music as simple and accessible to all by subscription as Netflix DVDs are for the movie business, it will have to strongarm Hollywood in the same way Netflix did, by becoming a default standard means of access that nobody will mess with.
Really? You criticise them for it not being a success before they've even launched the damn thing? No other company gets berated for not achieving its goals for a product pre-launch. This is just another of those bizarre articles that holds Apple to not just an unattainable standard, but a standard that doesn't even make sense.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Apple's real problem is that they need to fix the bloated mess that they call iTunes (and the Podcast app).
Apple has likely made you-scratch-my-back deals
This is not, in fact, an actual saying in English; care to try again? :p
Making stupid fucking smilie and winkie faces, etc. aren't part of any language; at least not used by those with a mental age over 14.
Yet you can't make a comment without them.
Who's the retard here?
The problem with Apple gear is that it isn't compatible with Apple gear
You have already failed in several ways from the outset.
1) Apple Music is not "gear". it's a service.
2) Apple Music will be available for Android, not just "Apple Gear".
3) The Airport case you bring up is annoying but pretty unique, mostly Apple Gear works fine with other Apple Gear (including iTunes supporting the very oldest iPods still).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They need to make it work with network streaming devices (Sonos, Bluesound, etc.), not just computers and phones, and have an option for lossless.
Without them, it's dead to me.