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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.
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.