Apple Music Was Always Going To Win (gizmodo.com)

Apple Music is about to overtake Spotify as the most popular streaming music service in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend. Gizmodo: [...] Here's where the inevitability comes into play. Because all Apple devices come preloaded with Apple Music, countless consumers start using Apple Music without knowing any better. It's effectively become the streaming music analogue of Microsoft pushing people to surf the web with Internet Explorer. The big difference is that people eventually have to pay for Apple Music, which is the same price as Spotify. As many suspected when it launched three years ago, Apple Music was bound to succeed simply because Apple is big enough and rich enough to will it so. Think about it this way: Spotify gained traction quickly after its 2011 launch, largely because music enthusiasts had seen its streaming model succeed globally and wanted to try this neat new thing. After all, there wasn't anything quite like it at the time, and Americans love to feel innovative.

But eventually, Spotify would cease to feel special and new. As the years passed, practically every major tech company launched its own music streaming service. And then, in 2015, Apple unveiled Apple Music in 2015 -- which was really just a rebranded version of Beats Music. Because Apple could preload the service on iPhones, Watches, and Macs, the company could effectively tap into a new revenue stream without actually inventing anything.

Comments

Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party. Quick, someone tell Microsoft so they can try this with IE, I mean Edge.

Re: Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party

[Anonymous Coward]

It does - on the other hand, it's an app made by Apple, which means there's probably a pretty significant proportion of the android crowd giving it 1* reviews for no reason other than it being made by Apple.

Re: Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party

[alvinrod]

May also be Apple keeping iOS design metaphors so that while it may be functionally just as good, it doesn't feel like a native Android app which makes using it a little jarring.

Itunes just sucks

[Archfeld]

It doesn't matter that it came from apple, or Atari or whomever. Not using apple hardware ensured I never got wrapped up in that nightmare that is iTunes.

Re:Itunes just sucks

[Uberbah]

Then how do you know it's a nightmare. Going off of some anecdote that dates back to the Bush Administration?

Re:Itunes just sucks

[MachineShedFred]

iTunes was the most useable at version 9. When they added this ridiculous interface we see today where even on the "large screen" iPhone 7+ / 8+ it can show all of four albums at a time instead of 10+ in a list with scaled album art and ABSOLUTELY NO LANDSCAPE FUNCTIONALITY WHATSOEVER, it's been downhill ever since.

Remember CoverFlow? Bring that back for if someone cares about the album art. Otherwise, just give us a damn list like the iPod has had since 2001 - it's more efficient and just works better.