Apple Plans to Shut Down Beats Music? | Hacker News Reader

Apple Plans to Shut Down Beats Music?

techcrunch.com

117 pointscoloneltcb84 comments

This has been refuted by an Apple Spokesperson according to Recode [1]:

Tom Neumayr, Apple’s PR rep, says the TechCrunch story is “not true” but wouldn’t go beyond that.

[1] http://recode.net/2014/09/22/apples-beats-music-brand-may-go...

Look like Tech Crunch updated their article to reflect that as well.

> Instead of Beats Music, the Apple Watch features an unannounced music app with a blue play button (top right in the photo below) that instantly starting playing songs when tapped during a demo.

That's the current-day Remote (for AppleTV) icon in a circle instead of a rounded rect. iTunes' logo is right there in the middle. This lack of research makes me question the rest of the article, honestly. All of the post-Keynote demoes were said to be non-working, so for the touch demoes, it could have just started playing music for the sake of it, regardless of which icon was tapped.

Totally agree. I didn't see the demo, but the icon is clearly the Remote app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/remote/id284417350?mt=8

>That's the current-day Remote (for AppleTV)

Remote is also handy for driving iTunes on a Mac :-)

I wonder if some day it will drive the Music app on iPad and iPhone. I mean, why not, especially if you're wearing the Apple Watch.

You should question anything coming out of techcrunch.

Especially considering their 'correction'.

Tim Cook even said in the keynote he loves to use it to control his Apple TV.

I haven't opened iTunes in years other than to update software, and I would imagine most people are in the same boat.

I used to take every penny I earned and dump it into the iTunes store. Now I just pay $10/month to Spotify now and listen to whatever I want.

There used to be services like Napster 2.0 and Rhapsody that competed with the iTunes store, but they didn't work well on iPods, and their selection of music wasn't that great. Things are different now: Spotify is in a completely different league. Perhaps Rdio is in the same boat - I've heard great things, but I've never used it personally.

At the end of the day, unless Apple has a music solution that's somehow cheaper/better than Spotify (which is possible, considering how it could be integrated end-to-end with the iPhone itself), I'm done using Apple music products.

> I haven't opened iTunes in years other than to update software, and I would imagine most people are in the same boat.

I would hold my horses there, unless you have numbers.

> I used to take every penny I earned and dump it into the iTunes store. Now I just pay $10/month to Spotify now and listen to whatever I want.

Except quite a few important catalogs that Spotify doesn't have. Also, I've hit quite a few instances of "this song was there yesterday!".

I went back to buying music.

This has been my experience as well; Spotify is great for pop music and more mainstream things.

If one day you want a song that isn't on spotify, but it is on a free bandcamp download, the whole house of cards crumbles (for me anyway).

If I have to keep iTunes around for random songs, I start to just buy albums through that, and then I end up rarely using spotify.

Spotify has a huge selection, to be sure, and for most people it's more than enough, but there will always be someone who isn't quite covered by the catalog and they will generally just go back to using itunes / foobar / whatever.

Why don't you just download the song and import it into Spotify? Spotify plays it like any other song and will even sync it with your devices like normal songs.

I agree, Spotify is missing a few things that you want, so the solution is to abandon it and buy all of your music instead? That doesn't make sense.

Why? Standard trade comes with a lot of standard expectations: I buy, I own, as long as I can make sure I don't lose it.

no lossless support, bad organization of local files, bad searching of local files.

spotify can be a local player but it is a terrible choice.

"Can't play file" for no reason is my favourite do add to that.

Spotify just ain't a particular good music player.

Also, for me, it exhibits a bug where the first 1 second of a stream is played twice. Incredibly odd.

I've used both apps for an extended period. Personally, I liked Rdio slightly more, I just feel it looks (I prefer the lighter background) and handles better. I also think their recommendations when I'm listening to their radio are a better. However, I haven't really looked into too many apps on Spotify, so they might have one that does this even better. On the whole though, both services are extremely similar so if you like Spotify a lot, theres probably not much point to switching

I too have paid for spotify for a few years now.

It's great but it doesn't interface with Siri like iTunes Radio does. Once Apple allows me to tell Siri to play "x" song or playlist I will no longer use Spotify.

I stream music in the car daily and prefer the safest experience.

I was with Apple in the mid-2000's, when Jobs was insisting that people wanted to "own" their music. This was when services like Rhapsody where the "big" players in online music. I would occasionally join Rhapsody and enjoy it, but it's mobile capabilities at the time were bad and devices like the iPod were entirely offline. It made more sense to me to own my music files then.

By the time Spotify came to the U.S., my iPod was long retired in favor of a smartphone, and I could get enough data on my plan to make mobile streaming a very reasonable option. I haven't bought a track on iTunes in almost three years now and give Spotify my money instead.

I'm really curious about how Apple is going to address the on-demand streaming stuff. It seemed like Beats Music was going to be their entry in, but that's now being shelved. Apple tends to think big and music has been a huge part of their brand for 10+ years now, so I'm interested to see what they have planned for early next year. It better be good!

There are two business models here: record shops and radio. These business models have existed for decades. iTunes Store mainly disrupted the record shop model. You could buy an album online, just like with the record shop, you could rip your existing tracks (for backwards compatibility) and as a disruptive move, you could also buy single tracks (initially DRM'd but later DRM-free as well).

Spotify/Rdio/Last.fm/Pandora essentially targeted the radio model - the disruptive feature of course, being that you got some control over what was being played other than "channel".

With cheap, pervasive mobile data coverage and smart caching (like Amazon/Google music), these models are more and more in contention, thus the Apple purchase of Beats music.

However, they are still separate. In one case, you own a persistent license for the music and in the other, you have much wider selection but have limitations imposed - sometimes you lose access to what you had before (not unlike Netflix's loss of Stars/Disney content).

My life follows exactly your first two paragraphs (except for the working for Apple part).

And then Spotify started pulling albums randomly, probably due to rights reason (I'm an expat so like to listen to niche/indie music from my home country), so in the past year or two I've gone back to owning my music. It's much, much better.

I do use iTunes Match, which I find fantastic to be able to listen to any of my music on the go without having to sacrifice storage space.

The story is the same with Netflix, which I used to use exclusively, but their selection has been dwindling in the recent years and now I'm back to hoarding my favorite shows/movies on hard drives.

Spotify don't pull albums. Record labels does.

The way I solve it is to not listen to them if the record label pull the music. If they don't want my money I'm not going to give them any.

... sure, but the experience for the end user is the same: I can't listen to the music I want to on Spotify.

It doesn't matter who makes them disappear, the fact is that it happens, which makes the convenience of an all-streaming in-the-cloud solution not that ideal when it comes to media.

>> "The way I solve it is to not listen to them if the record label pull the music. If they don't want my money I'm not going to give them any."

How does that help? If they don't want your money...they probably don't care you won't give it to them.

I've seen a couple independent artists pull their music from Spotify due to the poor proceeds they were receiving, or from a dislike of the revenue model. That may have been the case once or twice.

I must listen to weird-ass music, because a good 40-50% of the music in my iTunes library simply isn't on Spotify.

I think I would be OK with the Spotify model if the catalog was better.

I had similar problems and moved to Google Play. They still have massive gaps, but at least for me they're less massive? Play also lets you upload tracks, which I confess I haven't done yet, but I should.

I was given a beta account very early on, and the remarkable thing was how much variety was in there. This was before it was publically launched. Huge amounts of ethnographic records, lots of European good electronic music (Mille plateaux etc), thousands of vintage country artists and somehow even merzbow and his massive box set. Slowly the catalog has gotten stripped down.

If I understand their situation correctly, the statutes allowing for on-demand play by Spotify are too expensive, so they negotiate direct deals to furnish their catalog. Your tastes may not be worth negotiating for!

I have found that due to my data price sensitivity that I listen to far less music on the go then when I had an iPod.

T-Mobile (at least in the US) doesn't count the data you use for several music services towards your data quota.

http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/free-music-streaming.html

Kind of makes one wonder what relationship T-Mobile has with the companies listed at http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/music-freedom-list.html, especially in light of recent net neutrality debates.

It's well known (I've read articles and heard from inside sources) that service providers like FB and Twitter partner up with big carriers to make use of their app free for carrier customers. It's possible that these music providers have set up similar deals. But could also be that T-Mobile is creative with their offerings (which they're known for) and offer free music an USP against others like AT&T.

I'm torn. As a T-Mobile customer, it definitely benefits me. As a net neutrality advocate, it does concern me.

Just be grateful you do not live in Canada. Quite seriously, it is almost painful to have a data plan up here. :(

Why not just sync the tracks to your phone? Spotify allows you to sync 3333 tracks per device.

why is caching playlists on your device not a solution?

I think the closing of the Beats streaming service is a good argument for owning your music. Especially since it seems that exclusive licensing agreements could mean that I may not be able to hear my favorite band on whatever replaces the service.

Anon music guy here.

Apple will rename Beats to something else (tbd) -- it will become Apple's streaming service.

Apple bought Beats for the streaming music service -- to compete with Spotify, which is quickly gaining market share.

It confuses me when people think there would be a single reason to the acquisition, when instead they probably bought Beats for some combination of

1) a lucrative accessories (headphones) business

2) the Beats executives

3) a relatively small streaming service

There's always more than one reason to justify the acquisition price, but surely the desire to purchase in the first play is a bit more singular? Such as wanting to jump start their streaming service in this case, and the rest is just tangential benefits.

Everything you said directly contradicts the article.

You don't even claim any special knowledge, since "anon music guy" is utterly meaningless.

If you work for either Apple or Beats then by all means go ahead and say so, if not then I'll just assume you didn't read the article.

Apple execs have repeatedly publicly praised the Beats Music service since the acquisition. There's absolutely no way that their plan is to just throw it away.

The article claims differently and also claims to have multiple internal sources (at both companies).

Why are you and the other poster above pretending like this comment thread isn't about the article which you're both ignoring?

The core problem is that the article is shitty and has a linkbait title. The headline causes discussion to naturally go to the idea that they're going to "shut down" the service rather than transition the service and its existing customers into the iTunes umbrella, which is certainly not what people think of when they hear the phrase "shutting down". It's of course a matter of semantics, but if an article claimed they were shutting down Beats headphones and then in one of the final paragraphs mentions "oh and maybe that really just means they're rebranding them with Apple logos", it'd similarly lead to bad discussion.

Edit: Also, see the direct refutation from Apple. So now we've got one actual person on the record, a spokesperson from the company, versus five unnamed sources in a garbage article with glaring errors from a known-questionable source.

Apple bought Beats because they sell audio hardware at a markup and in volumes that even Apple was jealous of, to a very "juicy" demographic group (folks under 25). It's practically free money as long as the brand retains strength. The streaming service is a sideshow in comparison. The main reason so many people thought that Apple bought beats for the streaming service is that they didn't want to believe that Apple could be so crude as to simply buy a lucrative "fashion" brand so they invented some convoluted high-level strategy idea, but that's fantasy.

Agreed, not to mention, if they were looking mostly at the streaming platform, why not Spotify? It was definitely about the hardware.

Apparently this is "not true". Source: http://recode.net/2014/09/22/apples-beats-music-brand-may-go...

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/554222/20140530/apple-beats-d...

"Apple's $3 Billion 'Beats' Deal Breakdown; $2.5 Billion for 'Beats Electronics' and $500 Million for 'Beats Music'"

Sounds like they're killing two birds with one stone:

1. Closing down a brand that completed with iTunes/iTunes Radio, likely to merge streaming directly into the iTunes player. This makes sense, given how un-Apple the current Beats UX is. [1]

2. Re-position the Beats brand back to Beats Headphones. This is the money maker anyways.

None of this feels surprising, does it?

[1] "I'm at a party & feel like BBQing with my BFF to Dance-Pop" does not feel very Apple-esque to me personally. http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-BE268_012214_G_...

If this dies and doesn't just get rebranded I will be incredibly pissed off. Beats is the only music service that has got it right. All the radio services suck. Most playlists on Spotify suck. But when I open Beats I get a page full of great album recommendations and wonderful human-curated playlists.

Honestly I'll be surprised if it just disappears. In interviews Apple exec's have been very effusive about Beats curation and how good the service is. As much as I hope it doesn't die I also hope they don't just through it into iTunes. The other thing Beats got right was the UI.

Apple still makes a lot of money selling tracks on the iTunes store. My guess would be that it's going to roll out a streaming service, but on its own terms. This probably means renegotiating a lot of the music rights previously negotiated by Beats, and starting with a clean slate. Apple probably figures it can get better terms from the labels than Beats did.

Part of me thinks that the only reason a la carte purchasing still exists is because there is no way to get everything from one streaming service. To use a TV example: I can't get most HBO shows on Netflix; ergo, I use Netflix and HBO Go. Same thing with Showtime, so I use Showtime's app as well. And some things I can't get anywhere through a streaming service, so I buy them. I'm not buying a la carte because I feel the need to "own" things. I'm buying a la carte because the fragmented streaming landscape has significant gaps in its coverage. What I'm really doing, when I buy, is covering those gaps and/or hedging against the risk that something I love might go away on my streaming services.

My wild hunch is that Apple realizes as much, and it's moving to get as much content as possible under new license before it reveals its streaming service. It knows that a streaming service, in 2014 or 2015, needs to be as selection-complete as humanly possible. And anything not on its streaming service needs to be for sale on iTunes. It's very hard to thread that needle when you're working with legacy licenses under two different entities, presumably applicable only to those individual services.

Tim was enthusiastic about Beat's curated playlists in a recent interview, so if they do kill off the Beats brand, it will probably be so they can move the curated music stuff into iTunes Radio, which is ad-free with an iTunes Match subscription.

I can see iTunes Match morphing into a kind of Amazon Prime like offering, where a bunch of premium services are all rolled together.

Yeah, I'd easily pay $99 per year (or whatever) for some iCloud premium features, streaming music, iWork and (to lesser extent), Match.

I don't have much to add, but this weekend I was buying headphones at Microcenter. My wife wanted a pair of noise cancelling headphones for flying and I want bluetooth headphones for easier dog walking (leash + headphone cables = ouch).

The Beats headphones were all locked up and, holy hell, the pricetags on them were ridiculous. $299 and up? I ended up getting a pair of $35 BT headphones and a pair $99 Creative noise-cancelling headphones.

I can certainly see how Apple is drawn to that brand. What's it cost to make even a premium set of headphones? Maybe a tiny fraction of $299? Apple probably got sick of seeing Beats eat up the high-end for what, I imagine, is used mostly on iOS devices. Beats Music might just be an free extra and ultimately a casualty here. Cheap earbuds that come with your iOS device or Beats at the Apple store make sense for the conspicuous consumer. The profit margins must be impressive.

http://allhiphop.com/2014/05/13/dr-dres-beats-by-dre-cost-an...

You are paying mostly for marketing.

Beats are not premium headphones, they just sell at those prices. At best they are comparable to maybe a sub $100 studio monitor set, and that $100 is also a retail price, not a cost. An actually good set of headphones in the $300 range (like Grado SR325e, Sennheiser HD600, AKG K601) will blow away the Beats, it would be like comparing a Ferrari to a Kia. The amount of profit Beats makes on headphones is ridiculous, which is why Apple bought them.

Count me among the apparent minority that still wants to own my music. I only own about 400 albums and way too many of those get ignored for months, if not a year+, at a time. Streaming just gives me even more choices that I don't really need.

Streaming is the unfortunate intersection of industry desire for control and consumer friendliness.

Most people don't really care enough to curate their collection of music (and even if they do a playlist fits the bill), they just want to be able to listen to whatever they want whenever they want. Although the benefits of owning the music are real, they are sort of intangible in a digital world where a good chunk of people are one hard-drive crash away from losing all their data.

This makes me sad because owning music—especially whole albums w/ artwork—is something I cherish. But I'm pretty sure this makes me some combination of hipster and old man that is totally irrelevant to the future of the music marketplace.

It may be a minority to prefer owning music, but it's not a small one. Most music enthusiasts I know prefer a personal collection, it adds sentimental value. Many also use a combination of Spotify and personal vinyl and desktop collections.

It's not either/or. I want to own the music I really like, and stream the music I get the occasional itch for. Seems like a lot of people do this.

The minority is people who listen to music only if they own it.

I am curious if they plan to incorporate streaming into the itunes. With spotify blowing up it would be great to offer the best of both worlds, which would be streaming and owning mp3.

If they plan on just shutting the whole thing down, I think it is a big mistake. Streaming music has entered people's lives in a big way and will only become more widely used.

This is a pretty expected move on Apple's part. There typical MO is to assimilate the company entirely.

The only reason Beats headphone is still around, is because it is generating revenue and will offset the cost of the acquisition. As soon as they are ready to start producing new headphones in production, you will see Beats headphones shut down quietly.

They did the same thing after acquiring LaLa (A great cloud music site they shuttered in 2010)

I believe LaLa was the foundation for iTunes Match and iTunes Radio.

I was hoping they will rebrand iTunes into Beats, iTunes feels really tired as a brand. Beats is fresh. But I guess I was wrong, let's see what they will come up with. All new iTunes with curated playlists would also be great.

IMHO, that would be incredibly foolish. Business 101 here. You don't throw away a billion dollar brand. What you call "tired", I call 90%+ brand awareness.

(Found a 2008 study with iTunes at 82% awareness).

Personally, I'd rather they merge the streaming service into iTunes.

It makes sense to keep the brand unified.

BTW, I just renewed iTune's premium $25/year service after not having it for a while. I wonder if more streamed content will be included with that.

iTunes Match includes iTunes Radio, which is Apple's streaming offering.

I just canceled auto-renew and wouldn't touch iTunes Match ever again even if they paid me $100 a year. Match was nothing but headaches for me, there are mounds of complaint-filled threads on Apple's forums about all the bugs with the service (one favorite was that it just randomly fails to match and doesn't upload about 25% of your library). For example, I disabled Match on my phone, went back to good ol' syncing, and tried to sync a couple albums over. 24 hours later I'd reinstalled iOS 8 from scratch twice due to syncs failing, Match automagically re-enabling itself and filling my phone's disk with unremovable corrupted data...so much rage.

Apple just needs to stay out of the online services game. There's a saying: figure out what you're bad at, and don't do that. Somebody needs to send Apple the memo.

I heard an advertisement for Beats Music on the radio last night and was wondering why Apple hasn't rolled it into iTunes yet.

I guess putting the suggestion algorithm into iTunes will mean that android users will miss out

I suspect iTunes will be next on apps that get burned down and rewritten (after Photos).

I hope so. It is really terrible when music libraries get large. Its browsing model just doesn't handle large libraries or library catalogs well. Just upgrading the library, version to version takes me 30+ minutes at this point.

If you're interested in building in this space, let's talk :)

Of course they are going to relaunch it. With U2 this time - http://fdrmx.com/u2-and-apple-reveal-next-surprise/

Beats is a great brand, they should retire iTunes instead.

Given recent announcements (Apple Watch, Apple Pay), a likely name would be "Apple Music". Would that be permissible under their contract with Apple Records?

Apple Inc. owns the trademark now so they can pretty much do what they want, I'd think.

Would they need to shut the service down to rebrand it?

Beats is a good brand for the headphones. iTunes is much more valuable than Beats Music.

Good brand yes, but shitty headphones.

Apple Beats would make a great new music brand.

I'm sure both of the beats music users will be in tears.

At any rate, no one is surprised that apple is taking a big 'ol BM on Beats Music :)

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