Apple Music has finally been revealed at the latest Worldwide Developers conference.
The new service lets subscribers stream any song from the iTunes catalog. Apple Music will also feature curated playlists and radio stations. Users will also be able to ask Siri to play songs based on artist, year, and more.
Apple isn’t just trying to compete with Spotify, they’re also going after BBC Radio…
Apple Music will include a new live radio service called Beats 1.
The name is incredibly similar to “BBC Radio 1”. Unsurprising, since Apple poached Zane Lowe from the BBC.
Lowe will run Beats 1 from Los Angeles. Ebro Darden of Hot 97 will run Beats 1 in New York. Julie Adenuga of Rinse FM will run things in London.
Apple has also included a social media aspect to their service called Apple Music Connect. This feature will allow artists to share lyrics, photos, videos, songs, and comments. Jimmy Iovine says:
“Online music has become a complicated mess of apps, services and websites. Apple Music brings the best features together for an experience every music lover will appreciate.”
Honestly, it seems like Apple Music Connect is just going to add more clutter to the mix…
Apple Music will launch on June 30th for Mac, iOS, and PC. In the fall it will also launch on Apple TV and Android. After a free, three-month trial, the service will cost $9.99 a month for individuals, or $14.99 for families.
Nina Ulloa covers breaking news, tech, and more: @nine_u
No matter what they do they folio cashless business models of Pandora and Spotify.
Global limit of both of those activities receiving income from subscriptions and ads is at $25 billion in 2025!
In 2025 1999 inflation adjusted music industry will equate to $75B.
Why’re we doing this commotion to arrive at 1/3 of what we had 25 years ago? NUTS RUN MUSIC INDUSTRY!
STOP. …and convert Radio and streaming to primitive discovery based $100B music store! We have all resources to be at $100B by 2020.
People that are in high positions in the music industry aren’t nuts… They just don’t really care for or even like music very much.
I hope this helps.
Yawn
That $15 per month family plan might be a game changer. Yeah Spotify is $15 for 2 but it is $5 more per family member. It sounds like Apple’s family plan is $15 for 2 and $15 for 6. They should just call it the friends and family plan. Because that is obviously what it will be used for. Split the cost 6 ways for $2.50 per month. That’s a price I can live with.
This $2.50 is good for you but hopeless for industry. $9.99 is also hopeless for music industry.
Well, how much DO YOU think it should be?
No shit, good luck getting the masses to cough up 9.99
“how much DO YOU think it should be?”
Well, I’m a third Anonymous, but that’s a silly question.
Apple wants to replace paid downloads — the only reliable and constant source of income for recording artists — with streaming and that just can’t be done.
Jimmiy Iovine, the Trojan Horse of UMG stupidity, has convinced Apple otherwise.
Subs to make valid $100B music industry would have to be at $29.99 (300M x $360 =$108B bucks)
As we see Ek’s working business model is GIGANTIC CATCH 21.
Music has to be hidden behind virtual wall and converted to merchandise again. Very easy task with united effort of the industry. Should be VERY EASY considering that we will have only winners on the game board.
Then we can have subscription, possibly advertising free Pandora, Spotify, dead/Beats1 or AppleMusic functioning as a pleasure providers an primitive music stores.
Enjoy the music as it plays. The minute you want to enjoy it again at any time on your terms you got pay.
Addition to playlist should have a toll, reasonable 39 or 49¢ making you the absolute “owner”.
“Apple wants to replace
paid downloadsCDs — the only reliable and constant source of income for recording artists — withstreamingpaid downloads and that just can’t be done.”And so it goes….
You may want to compare download/streaming revenues, dude… 🙂
(Hint: Streaming is valuable if you’ve got a Warner-sized catalogue, but it’s absolutely worthless for individual artists.)
My point is that technology marches on, whether you like it or not.
Here’s how it works:
Spotify, iTunes and YouTube are dead without content.
But they are currently LOADED with content!
‘Currently’ being the operative word…
So can people stream my iTunes songs for free?
Oops, didn’t see this:
“The new service lets subscribers stream any song from the iTunes catalog”
Bye bye, iTunes.
Dude, do you really need to post the same BS on every news ?
Nobody care about your music, free or not, so STFU please…
You’ve no idea how people hate this…
“The new service lets subscribers stream any song from the iTunes catalog”
This appears to be a lie, though.
Several huge iTunes acts — including The Beatles — prefer to sell downloads, so they haven’t signed with Apple Music.
So iTunes downloads just died and there’s not one story about it?
Paid downloads died a long time ago son. your Mother and I thought about telling you, but we thought you were PAYING ATTENTION! Go back to bed.
35 billion paid downloads = death to you? 🙂
We all rely on iTunes sales. Where will everybody go now?
What about Bandcamp – does it force you to stream your songs, too?
You can limit the free streams on Bandcamp (minumum of 3) …but they do not have a real community or network…it’s really just a website for people “in the know”.
Thanks, Truancy!
I don’t personally need the social dimension — I use Twitter and Facebook for that — but 3 streams are 3 too many. 🙁
We need a new solution.
Bandcamp’s position is that free streaming is necessary to get people to buy your music later – after all, we don’t buy music we’ve never heard before.
It makes sense, and I actually agree with it (to an extent, and I disagree with their implementation of the concept).
Here’s where Bandcamp goes wrong: it’s your decision, not Bandcamp’s (or mine).
Bandcamp chooses for you. Right or not, it’s not their call to make. By all means, they should try to persuade you with logical arguments, evidence from other artists, etc. But they shouldn’t coerce you.
“evidence from other artists”
I wouldn’t go that route if I were them. 🙂 Windowing is everything today.
“But they shouldn’t coerce you.”
Well, I guess that’s up to them. Just like it’s up to us to find other solutions.
“Here’s where Bandcamp goes wrong: it’s your decision, not Bandcamp’s (or mine).
Bandcamp chooses for you”
You’re wrong. There is a paid option in Bandcamp that gives you all sorts of additional options, including preventing streaming of your music. You DO have a choice with Bandcamp.
Can you prevent streaming completely?
I asked Bandcamp immediately after Apple’s announcement, but haven’t heard from them yet. This is from their site:
“For most bands, the best sales strategy is to let fans hear more of your music, not less. But for more established artists (or those who simply think we’re nuts), Pro lets you disable streaming on select tracks”
Thank you for the correction. The “select tracks” phrasing mentioned by Anonymous is curious – it clearly implies a limitation on your ability to disable streaming, which I disagree with (but I respect Bandcamp’s right to create their own policies for their services). I’m also not impressed by their decision to make you pay to disable streaming. But you’re right, there is a choice.
No wonder we all missed that option, it’s pretty well hidden (and cryptic).
How can a government mandated royalty for radio play be the norm but not a government mandated royalty for streaming?
Unless Apple pulls out a magic formula to make payments from streaming viable ( and i don’t see how, when they are going to split the 9.99$ among 6 family/friends) , maybe it’s just time for artists to accept that they will never make a living from music again, and that the Silicon Valley overloads are their new masters. Time to get a new job. There is already enough music produced to last a lifetime.
If Apple can’t make it work, i don’t see who can.
“maybe it’s just time for artists to accept that they will never make a living from music again”
I wouldn’t worry about that.
iTunes had its time, now we need something else. (Hint, hint Sarah… :))
Working on it. 🙂
I’ll share something with you: over the past few weeks, we’ve spoken with many industry execs (from both majors and independent labels), and we’ve received widespread agreement and support for RepX’s business model and vision. Several have stated, without prompting, that the direction we’re going is inevitable. That is important for the independent artists: the majors have massive catalogs, which in turn help attract massive, mainstream audiences. You need the mainstream audiences if you want to get anything close to a viable YouTube competitor (without mainstream traffic, at best you become a Bandcamp: good but far too small to sustain or strengthen the industry).
The problem with Apple and Spotify (and every other leading service out there, including Bandcamp) is that they’re trying to play in a new game with old rules. RepX was designed without any of the baggage that comes with a large, politicized industry: we honestly didn’t give a damn about how things have been done in the music industry for the past hundred years, or even how they were done yesterday – we looked only at the best way to do things tomorrow. That’s a hard thing to ask of companies and people who are entrenched in, dependent on, and psychologically committed to the old rules.
There’s an incredibly bright future for music, where more artists than ever before can make a living from their art. As Whawha demonstrates, getting there will be tough because the future doesn’t look like what we know, so it’s very hard to see. But that future is inevitable – it’s merely a question of how we get there, and how long it takes.
In the meantime, please do not give up your career or resign yourself to Silicon Valley overlords 🙂
“we’ve spoken with many industry execs (from both majors and independent labels), and we’ve received widespread agreement and support for RepX’s business model and vision”
Yes, your timing is perfect.
I wouldn’t hurry if I were you, though. The current need for a new player will turn into desperation when Music Key and Apple Music have been around for a couple of months.
Yeah, Beats 1 sounds incredibly similar to BBC Radio 1, apart from being completely different.
Apple has become a complicated mess of apps, services and websites.
FTFY, Jimmy.
Don’t do drugs.
“Think Different”… as long as it’s not actually different from your last job. FTW!!!!
What if Apple (or even Spotify) is negotiating behind the scenes to acquire VEVO? Although I have no proof that such is the case and as such my thoughts are purely speculative, however, what I do know is that less than a year ago, the “owners want[ed] to find a new investor to take control of the company” as reported in the July 2014 article posted on re/code captioned: “Vevo, the Giant Music Video Site, Tries to Fix Itself Before It Sells Itself.”
The article further points out that “Vevo is a joint venture, controlled primarily by Universal Music, the worlds largest music label, and Sony Music.” Video in general, and music videos in particular are fast becoming an increasingly desirable streaming commodity for many reasons beyond the scope of this post, but that fact raises an interesting question in that Sony has aligned itself with Spotify and as such it would seem that the success of either Spotify or Apple could very well hinge upon which of the two streaming services acquire exclusivity of the video hosting company.
Imagine either Spotify or Apple with Vevo in its arsenal. Upon doing so, ask yourself if such an event were to take place, whether that would dramatically tip the scales in favour of either in their battle for streaming market dominance?
I have read extensively on the topic of business models as regards the music industry and I found it particularly odd that I have not read anything even remotely suggesting such an obvious possibility, so I thought I would do so – cheers!!!