I get much more enjoyment out of experiencing new music through radio functionality in Apple Music or Spotify than wasting time "collecting". It expands my horizons rather than limiting myself to what I already know I like.
There's nothing passive about recommendations. I hear a new song I like, I go to research the artist, I start a new radio station based on them, find other artists I didn't know before... it's far more active and stimulating than just listening to the tracks I already know on repeat.
For each individual it is probably a better experience, but there is something lost still. I don't know if it's fair to lay blame for that on Apple though, it seems like that's where things are going anyway in some many dimensions of life.
[1] Trances by Jules Reidy: https://juliareidy.bandcamp.com/album/trances
The point is that if somebody likes to keep a copy of some songs discovered during a day of autoplaying through YouTube, downloading them is very easy for anybody that wants to. Maybe it's easy to do it also from Spotify but I don't use it so I have no idea.
Obviously that's not giving you a local .mp3 file, but that's because it's streaming, not buying.
The one thing I miss is the recommendations, especially as I like music that isn’t very mainstream. It might be that Spotify’s algorithm is better than Qobuz, or it has a huge amount more data.
[1] https://tinangelrecords.bandcamp.com/album/se-ve-desde-aqu
Not saying every musician has the obligation to chase my personal tastes of course but it never fails to get a sigh out of me, haha.
If you've ever saved a song to your library or favorites, you're "collecting", just with less freedom
This was (and is) also a blatant form of consumerism. I honestly don't see any difference in the negative effects on this outside of going through apple rather than my local FYE.
1. Like the look & feel of Apple hardware
2. Feel like the iPod/iTunes scene is shiny bullshit, but whatever
3. Buy a laptop & figure I'll give OS X a shot, if not install Linux
4. Fall in love with the ability to really get some work done rather than have to futz with my system all the time (despite loving to futz with my system)
5. Eventually, become an Apple platform developer
the idea was that if iTunes is the best way to tag, collect, burn, and listen to music, people would naturally adopt it and then go spend money in the store.
this lies in contrast to modern apps' desire to provide an endless library of content within the app or paid service. drives up engagement but pretty soon the point is less "best in class for music lovers" and more "how do we keep them here forever spending money"
Content in Apple Music is still best in class.
And music lovers spend less money with a monthly streaming subscription, than they used to spend purchasing tracks or albums. I don't know about you, but I certainly spent more than $10.99 a month back when I was buying CD's. And it's even cheaper now in relative terms if you factor in inflation.
Now it's too easy: I have the absolutely fantastic experience of having infinite music in my hand on demand without any of the work. I've completely lost touch with music over the last decade. I am always vaguely frustrated because it's not _that_ good, it panders to my taste too much, and there's no value to any of it.
The foraging made it a hobby and intellectually stimulating, the "please tap this! or this! or this! or this!" makes it boring and all the same.
Funny, I get a far superior foraging experience exploring radio stations based on obscure artists and other people's playlists.
I don't understand how the friction of having to build programming tools made your music experience better.
And I truly don't understand how making things easier leads to you losing touch with music. Maybe it's more just a function of getting older and having other, new priorities enter your life?
Some people think that curating a music collection is fundamentally different from collecting funkopops or some other similar mass-market consumerist behavior.
Those people are wrong, but that is what they think.
They'll ramble on about purity and emotion completely oblivious to the fact that someone searching for, categorizing, and collecting various types of paperclips is perfectly capable of experiencing the same emotions.
What it is now is absolutely blatant consumerism, but you are misremembering what iTunes originally was.
Or, better yet, creating.
Time was when FCP trounced any video editor for Window, all of which were buggy and unreliable. Now, FCP is more of a niche product for pro or semi pro editors.
Garageband was never the top choice for pros, but it was highly accessible at that time. Hours of fun for an adolescent. Now, it's weird and tough to use, presumably due to a fruitless bid to target the pros.
Apple has basically given up on the low end of the pro market with their product choices and it's extremely disappointing. At a 5000 ft. view, their product line was basically gentrified as monied consumers pushed out artists and creators.
Have you tried the phone app? It’s fantastic, and easy to use. I assume the expectation is that if you are opening Garageband on a Mac these days, you “graduated” from the phone.
> fruitless bid to target the pros.
I personally know multiple musicians who have albums on streaming services that they made in Garageband.
I have not tried the phone app; that makes sense.
Edit: I would say the Apple tools like FCP were low end in relation to setups with dedicated editing keyboards, etc.
Probably around a decade ago, at least. The low hanging fruits of digitalisation have been gone for a while now. I can't really think of anything they've released since for which it was immediately obvious what "problem" was solved. So it requires different arguments to convince us to buy their stuff...
Just like they did with the headphone jacks.
I think Apple has always been like this (one-button mouse, B&W display, proprietary keyboard plug, dropping the floppy, adopting USB, adopting FireWire, making the original iPod only function as a FireWire hard drive on Windows, etc.) But, like any product maker, the choice of whether you buy it or not is up to you. If you don’t like the whole package, find another option?
To put it another way, if, for whatever reason, someone made a delicious food item that was perfect for me in every way — mind-blowing taste, exceptional packaging, incredible mouthfeel, truly a cut above any other food — except that it gave me the extreme shits, I wouldn’t keep eating it and complain about it all the time. I would simply not buy it anymore. I don’t think, as a complete package, it’s for me — despite the fact that everyone has the right to food to nourish them.
Except that you are not, there exists a 8-10$ dongle from apple for lightning to headphone and, i just had to check, there exists a usb-c to headphone dongle for the same price range if you happen to have the newest gen phone.
So instead it's a forced march to buy a new dongle if you happen to lose your cheap wired headphones/earbuds, assuming you just leave the dongle attached to the headphones/earbuds.
I can understand some grousing when the headphone jack was removed. I can't understand grousing still almost 8 years later. Buy the phone or don't buy the phone, they clearly aren't going to add the jack back.
They're so much better than what we had before that once you've used them for a few days it's hard to go back.
If you have to use Windows computers for work and use Microsoft Teams and all that, Samsung line works. If you want to connect with a Linux computer, Apple AirPods get terrible audio quality (and had same issue on Windows 11), but the Samsung Galaxy Buds (all of them) seem to work fine.
Stating that you are forced to use or upgrade a thing, that Apple is somehow giving you something counter to what they have offered or that you have decided to pay for, or that there is some platonic ideal of hardware that Apple should be pursuing is the take that puzzles me. Just... choose another piece of hardware.
But let's be real, a smart phone is practically a requirement to participate in modern society, and there are two options. iOS and Android. "Opting out" is becoming increasingly hypothetical.
Not much of that works as a selling point anymore. iMovie and Garageband are still great, but they don't even come preinstalled.
Music is a very emotional and impactful art form. Sometimes we confuse the art with the business. They are very different.