Introducing Apple Music
apple.com
apple.com
But most importantly: music is very divisive and tastes differ greatly. Apple has usually done a great job to keep their image as neutral as possible. There's a reason why the types of artists they generally associate with are rather inoffensive (Coldplay, The Beatles) or at worst found annoying (U2, or rather Bono).
So who gets excited about such a radio station?
(I just saw Drake get on stage, which actually illustrates this. He's neutral enough to not offend, but because it's music, I imagine a collective groan from pretty much all of my friends.)
To be clear, it's kind of a cute idea, but why emphasize it so much?
"Web Radio Not Making Waves - An unfulfilled Internet vision: thousands of low-cost stations to challenge the status quo."
as titled by LA Times in December 13, 2001, see the article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20011216053056/http://www.latime...
(Many web radio stations are still alive, but the hype is gone)
Also, digital music has become extremely popular, just not online radio. That could be an issue of quality (low) compared to selection (high) or just that a lot of people who utilize connected devices for music prefer listening to their music on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, etc.
By investing in both sides of the fence, on-demand and curated, they can capture both audiences. And by hiring people like Zane Lowe, they are giving people additional reasons to go listen to radio vs. on-demand.
[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-07-...
I think you're underestimating the popularity of radio, too. Pandora and songza are purely radio services, and spotify, google music, and rdio all heavily promote their radio services.
All the examples you name either adapt to your tastes, or offer different 'channels' for different genres. I do see the appeal of that. In fact, I love discovery, and human-powered discovery can be amazing.
The thing that doesn't make sense is that it's 1) a single station, and 2) in no way adjusted to the time and tastes of particular locations.
Why would anyone want to listen to that with exactly the kinds of alternatives you name, on top of the fact that a countless amount of more specific stations can be listened to online?
To make a comparison: imagine if Apple released a new Apple TV and then spent a big chunk of time promoting their single, world-wide channel.
Do you know any people who put on the tv and watch whatever comes on nowadays, without switching channels a few times? And if so, do those people do this because they prefer it over, say, Popcorn Time or Netflix, or just because they're used to doing so, and probably pretty old?
Again, releasing such a 24/7 channel in itself is a nice idea. It just seems really odd to put such an emphasis on it.
It's no longer driven by the ivory tower of the music industry.
The whole idea of playlists created by others is that it exposes me as a listener to the long tail of music, mostly composed of everything I want to listen and more. I discover new sounds based on the fact that I am now able to find that other person on the other side of the world who shares my taste. I can skip through the songs and get right to the content I want.
I drive my listening experience, versus the radio station.
This isn't snark, it's a serious question - inspired by the influence 70s and 80s DJs like John Peel had.
They literally made entire careers by playing non-mainstream music no one else would touch. Some of it got a first airing as a demo cassette. Hundreds of bands recorded special sessions for those shows. Some of those sessions became legendary recordings in their own right.
Will this Apple product do anything like that? Or will it be the usual suspects playing the Official Industry Approved Top Downloads list, with no risks of any kind?
Jimmy Iovine is running this thing. He is the ivory tower. It appears he is trying to recapture the industry.
I think you're thinking of radio in it's current form and that's why you don't like the idea - I wouldn't either. But if the DJ's have completely free reign I can see it being really great.
"Really great" is subjective in music, movies, and pretty much anything related to art or entertainment.
Netflix has it right - everyone has individual tastes, so everyone should get individual recommendations. If the quality of those recommendations/algorithms is poor, then that's where the innovation needs to happen (in my opinion).
Anywhere but smack dab in the center of the distribution algorithmic music recommendation engines fail completely (save for Pandora, which has a different small catalog problem.)
Just because no one has done it really well yet, that doesn't mean we should all go back to human-curated playlists in my opinion.
Edit to add: Perhaps part of my reluctance to rely on DJ's and human-curated playlists is a lack of trust. When a person recommends something to the masses, my gut instinct is to question motives (who is being promoted and why). When an algorithm recommends something to me as part of an unlimited service, I tend to feel like it's been tailored to me for no reason other than to maximize my enjoyment (though admittedly, the truth is that algorithms may be built with just as much - if not more - questionable bias as any human).
Another thing is that they're lying when they say it's the first global 24/7 live DJ-driven radio station. The BBC's music stations have been broadcasting live and timeshifted online for about 15 years already, unrestricted. I'm sure other broadcasters also do this.
It seems rather ignorant - willful or otherwise - to claim that this is something groundbreaking. I have no doubt it'll be well-executed, but at best it can be evolutionary, not revolutionary.
My college radio station did this back in 2003.
There wasn't one thing in the entire presentation that was even intriguing, let alone in innovative. The reason I loved my iPod is because I didn't have to listen to the radio. And now Apple is making that the killer feature? RADIO? Like it's freaking 2002?
Other than that and artist communication (which I would maybe care about for one artist), Apple Music is Spotify. Their solution for finding what you want to listen to? "I like rock and alternative" (whatever that means). This has been done a dozen times, and rarely well.
Spotify has been iterating exact same concept for years and has all of my friends listening to it, as well as all of my playlists. People tell me Rdio is similar, but I've never had reason to use it. The only way Apple wins is if the power of something being the Apple default is truly that strong. Having Siri integration is literally the only thing that Apple has a leg up on any of the other music services on.
And then they call it "revolutionary" and throw it in a "ONE MORE THING!" slot? That's pretty bad. And I'm an Apple fanboy.
For something like this, yeah, Apple default is probably that strong. Considering that it'll button right into all of their hardware (laptop, iPad, iPhone), I could see it being a fairly significant thing for them. It's one less app to have to use, one less payment interface to deal with, and integrate with whatever music the user already has.
Not to mention that Apple probably has a lot more clout in the bargaining arena with the record labels than Spotify does, and a LOT more cash to throw around.
I would generally agree; for the vast majority of people the "notes" app works just fine, no need to install evernote or simplenote or whatever.
But in this instance, Apple is expecting you to shell out $10/month. I think that likely kills most of the inertia of, "Well, it's on my phone, I don't need another app." I could be wrong, though. Regardless, I'm not cancelling my Spotify subscription anytime soon.
Spotify asks for that too. And unlike Spotify, Apple already has your payment details. You don't even need to enter your password with this thumb thing.
The ideal solution would be Apple fixing that - allowing for a user-defined default player. I'm sad to say it, but if that doesn't become a reality, I may be tempted to switch to Apple's streaming service for that one reason alone.
Apple is intended to be a walled garden rather than a true equal platform for the app devs. As much as I like Apple hardware I hate their mobile OS because of this approach of building special integrations for their built in apps that you can't even remove, while denying other app devs access to the full range of device integration, except if you go through their limited API's.
Yeah, a new service that offers a larger selection for the same price, and will be preinstalled to the majority of their customers phones, and free for 3 months will sure be a great cause for celebration...
>The reason I loved my iPod is because I didn't have to listen to the radio.
And one reason iPod et al. got boring and people turned to places like Spotify is because it's not radio (that is, it's not a shared social experience). That's why stuff like Spotify playlists (curated music) got hundreds of thousands of subscribers. And DJs haven't died, they just took it outside radio, and into arenas, because modern radio has both annoying ads and marketing-oriented programming, something that this announcement is not meant to share.
If done right it could be big, and things can come and go in circles. Heck, there are millions of hipster kids out there buying vinyl, which wasn't even in fashion when they were born.
Regardless, the marketing behind it was atrocious, relative to standard Apple marketing. The entire "one last thing" of the keynote was, in a word, cringeworthy.
The only reason I listen to Spotify is because there is no decent alternative with a sufficient catalog. Like many, I've been dying for a better alternative.
I don't know if Apple Music will be it, but I do remember what the iPod and iTunes did to the MP3 player.
This can change if there's a enticing offering. Ads, endless automated playlists and crappy programming are not very interesting even for older people. But someone with a unique radio program can potentially get a large following -- like EDM DJs have.
>Second, it's technically not that impressive.
A social service is not about the technology anyway.
>But most importantly: music is very divisive and tastes differ greatly.
That's rather a problem with endless fragmentation than something nice and desirable. Music can also be a uniting force -- and in the past it was, with people able to listen to many genres, not just celebrate their small corner of the music world.
Furthermore, they're not competing with existing radio, but rather with things like Pandora's part-human algorithms and Spotify's many human-curated playlist. As well as the thousands of radio stations that broadcast online.
> That's rather a problem with endless fragmentation than something nice and desirable. Music can also be a uniting force -- and in the past it was, with people able to listen to many genres, not just celebrate their small corner of the music world.
I'd say people moved primarily to non-radio alternatives (big music libraries on devices, spotify/pandora/etc.) because they preferred them, and they finally could do so conveniently. This same phenomenon can be seen in the move away from tv toward on-demand select-your-preference solutions like Netflix (or online streaming via Popcorn time or certain websites).
Or to turn it around: I've never heard anyone complain that they wished they didn't have to 'celebrate their small corner of the music world' and would rather move back to single sources of music if not for the advertising and programming. People love their little corners because it is part of their identity.
It would make no sense for people to be excited about a radio station before it launches outside of the DJ's previous audience. There is nothing to hook people in yet. I personally listen to the CBC news on the radio everyday and if Apple launched a news station... who knows. It's not really an area that any other big tech companies are competing in. Sports radio is great if you are a sports fan, maybe they'll expand to that. Other talk radio as well, people love it and live call in shows with a "community" of listeners is still a concept best served in radio.
Commercial radio is terrible because it doesn't make a revenue like it used to. I think people dismiss it more so due to it's low quality than the fact that they can curate their own music now. Playing your own music in your car isn't a new concept.
Wild guess, but maybe radio is part of a long term vehicle plan. Broadcast radio is a significant part of the vehicle user experience. Highest radio ratings during a weekday are 7:45AM.
Also, it's not like running an internet radio station is very expensive anyways. Apple can afford it.
Anyways... No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Also, I agree with the keynote speakers, Spotify "Radio" never worked for me. Always got repeated songs or songs I hated.
I wanted automated "thumbs up" if I finished a song, or "thumbs down" if I skipped it, without having to worry about repeated songs.
And a million of other complaints.
Didn't realize Ctrl-F was ever a thing in Spotify. But I just tried it and it works for me (MacBook Pro). I'll be trying that out more now.
self.addComponent(new Filterable()) or some shit and it would have added Cmd/Ctrl-F
This has started to get to me. It seems like if I pick any even mildly obscure artist as the seed for a radio stream, I've got high chances of the same songs showing up in the first half hour even across different days.
What I'd really like to see is a radio feature that plays songs that sound like the song you requested. What all these algorithms seem todo is play songs that other people listened to after or before the song you requested. Or they just play something in the same genre. Genres are kind of dead now, so it doesn't make sense to recommend songs this way. Why not suggest songs with similar guitar riffs? Why not suggest songs with artists that have similar voices?
Isn't this exactly what Pandora does?
I fear that if Pandora ever goes away, this immense collection of musical knowledge will go with it.
It's a start. I don't think you can query it on specific attributes like that yet.
> What all these algorithms seem todo is play songs that other people listened to after or before the song you requested. Or they just play something in the same genre.
and I am pretty sure that, under the hood, this is not what they are doing. They really are using individual attributes about the song (e.g., tenor vocalist, minimalism, heavy distortion, etc.) to try and find something that sounds the same.
So I think your real complaint is "I don't think the algorithms are good enough yet, even though they are trying to do exactly what I want".
https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/06/08Introducing-Apple...
Also alluded to here in the Apple presser:
> whether from the iTunes Store® or ripped CDs — your music now lives in one place alongside the Apple Music catalog with over 30 million songs.
https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/06/08Introducing-Apple...
That simple thing will make me switch instantly to Apple Music. The Spotify app was so much better a couple of years ago when just a few people worked on it.
I did find it funny when Iovine said "revolutionary" though, and a few in the crowd seemed to chuckle/laugh, and he appeared a bit confused.
These presenters didn't fit the usual model. They acted like hadn't rehearsed much (Iovine in particular). It was wildly unclear what, exactly, they were talking about. Lots of abstract hand-waving instead of keeping things concrete and clear.
I'm mystified how this happened.
The format itself is great - NTS radio has been doing similar stuff for years, independent from ad money or any other influences, just the taste of the respective show host. Apple however? They have to appeal, in general, to everyone and you can't have it both ways - it's either deep, niche and interesting to a small crowd...or very wide and superficial.
Playlists: The suggestions coming from their playlists, don't sound more interesting than what rdio and probably every other streaming service (I don't use Spotify, can't compare) is doing - we saw Bruce Springsteen and "Big Rock" as automated playlists in the demo - not the hardest usecase I imagine. I'm less confident when it comes to obscure jazz fusion krautrock crossovers from the early 1970s. In that case you'll probably have to get your hands dirty yourself, with countless open tabs just like it has been for years. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy going down those rabbit holes.
Why can't they can do 'shows' like regular radio catering to different tastes?
Really Apple Revolutionary? You are years late tot he game and you bought Beats. Revolutionary and you have Jimmy Iovinne do the presentation?
Many speculated that was partially a talent acquisition, to get him working on projects exactly like this.
>The company was formally established in 2006,[1] a time when Iovine perceived two key problems in the music industry...
My understanding is he essentially WAS Beats, with Dre lending his name and like consulting on style and whatnot. Iovine being the brains. That has carried over to Apple where Iovine works full-time and Dre does not. Apple wanted Iovine.
But that looong, rambling explanation of every little feature, punctuated by clips from hip-but-safe artists, was entirely too much show for it.
If you just want background music, try Radio Coast.[1]. This is a successful streaming music project which annoys the RIAA because it doesn't have to pay royalties. Years ago Seeburg, the jukebox manufacturer, offered a background music service, using a special record changer which played 1000 songs over and over. The music was recorded by their own in-house musicians, so they didn't have to pay the RIAA. They never copyrighted the records, which you had to do back then to get copyright protection. Instead, they used a primitive form of DRM - the speed, record size, groove width, and hole size are all nonstandard.
All those records have been converted to files, and there's a streaming site. Hundreds of hours of 1950s elevator music.
A radio station? No time shifting? People replaced their radios with Walkmen and iPods for a reason...
And "Connect" just sounds like Ping 2.0.
"We're basically cloning the entire feature set of Spotify and integrating that into our existing services" is bigger than you give it credit for.
I just say 'Hey Siri play XYZ' on my watch and the music plays on my car stereo.
Aside from that, I really have expected thought changes more than anything from Apple WWDC and this one is just disappointing.
Apple Music should help out with this.
http://mashable.com/2015/06/08/daniel-ek-spotify-ceos-apple-...
They'd do well to add a web client and/or a native Linux client to that list, but the aforementioned platforms covers almost all users I'd guess.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/01/apple-beats-streaming-10-...
And free ad supported stations as well.
The receiver itself plays the music directly rather than being streamed from the device I started playing on. Nifty.
Personally, that would be a big deciding factor, as I don't want/can't run iTunes.
Download VLC and click on "Icecast Radio". Tens of thousands of streams, for free.
iTunes Radio, Apple's first attempt in this space, is awful. X skips per hour? Really? The story went that Apple's execs actually had no idea how Spotify worked so thought they really had something.
It's the kind of fiasco that would've earned the execs a bollicking in the Jobs days and, to me, the buck had to stop at Tim Cook.
I'm a paid Spotify subscriber. Generally I like it but it has its warts:
- They did an app update a few months ago that's viewed as pretty much universally awful for reasons I can't really explain;
- Their catalog has many holes (eg Australian music, in this case probably because Spotify doesn't have an Australian service);
- I used to think artists were being Luddites by opting out but there's actually good reason for this. They don't earn royalties proportional to the actual plays. The royalty scheme imposed by the record companies gives a disproportionate amount to currently popular artists;
- Because of the last point you have artists who are missing or, in some cases, you have all their songs except their 1-2 money makers;
- Worse, for some songs, particularly for things from the 70s for some reason, you can't get the original. You just get some shitty remaster that sounds like bad karaoke.
- Spotify's radio feature is the real weak point for me. Repeats (sometimes with only a song in between) and the thumbing up and down I don't think really has the desired effect. Like I might be on a good string of songs but I know the worst thing I can do is thumb anything up OR down as experience has taught me this can only make things worse.
Really "thumbs up" should probably mean "don't change anything". Or at least me listening to something in full is itself is a positive indicator.
That being said, I'm not really sure you can do satisfying recommendations here. So much of music is I think tied to memory and nostalgia. You might like a particular song because of a particular person, place, time or event. How does liking that inform any other music choice?
At the same time your radio playlist has to be large enough not to be too repetitive.
What's more, there's actually an art to playlist selection. It's why, for example, at a concert you'll generally see a band start with something upbeat, play anything a bit more mellow in the middle and finish on a high note.
Curated playlists (which I guess Apple is calling "guest DJs" because that's what it amounts to) is an idea with some history (eg Songza, bought by Google last year I think).
I actually find myself listening to iHeartRadio a lot. I pick a music style I'm in the mood for and just try different stations until I find something not too objectionable. Sure there are DJs (99% irritating) and some ads but at least I don't need to build a playlist, worry about what's on Spotify and what isn't or make a decision each song about whether to thumb it up or down. It's it or nothing (well... something else).
Radio really has a low cognitive cost.