“Apple doesn’t lag behind, especially when it comes to music,” Susie Ochs writes for TechHive. “The iTunes Store was one of the first ways to legally buy digital music, Steve Jobs managed to coax the record labels into agreeing to drop DRM, and iTunes Match gave people who’d invested years into growing large personal music collections a way to dip their toes into the convenience of streaming. Still, when it comes to a real streaming service, companies like Spotify and Rdio are way ahead.”
“I’m a streaming junkie. I’ve been a paying Rdio subscriber for years, and it’s completely changed how I listen to music,” Ochs writes. “While I still play some of the old standby albums I’ve loved for years, having millions of tracks at my disposal all the time has expanded my repertoire in all directions and deepened my appreciation for genres and artists I probably wouldn’t have ever ‘invested’ in by buying albums or even tracks à lah carte.”
“Beats Music as it exists does a great job of combining the “lean-back” style of streaming—the Pandora model, where you start a station or a curated playlist and let ’er rip—and the ‘lean-forward’ style, where you queue up exactly what you want to hear, à la Spotify and Rdio,” Ochs writes. “By adding human curation, Beats can help you find music you might like without you having to do much work. It’s pretty great, but the plans 9to5Mac’s sources outlined sound even better.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ochs writes a bit about Apple “reclaiming” the digital music throne, but, the fact is, Apple’s very firmly ensconced on that throne already. With the forthcoming release of iTunes Music, they’ll simply be adding to their kingdom.
Related article:
Apple’s Beats-based music service plans revealed, including Apple’s first Android app – February 4, 2015
Whilst Apple is firmly ensconced on this throne Microsoft continues to be firmly ensconced on another…
Not buying anything that has Beats on it, in it, or connected to it. Capiche?
come on man…its not even announced yet! I’ve never paid for streaming but I’m interested to see why Apple spent 2 billion on this…
Beats has 2 businesses- shitty headphones/speakers and a me too subscription music model a la Microsoft and Real Networks. Dre is a Thug and Iovine a hanger on.
The word is spelled “capisce”.
and i agree about Beats and all streaming services
I’m not sure I’m in favour of streaming. The musicians make virtually no money from it. If I’m wrong, perhaps someone could help me understand.
Patience is a virtue you have to wait for
I hope the musicians can wait. Most of ones I know have had their incomes fall.
It’s becaise you have a parasitic yound generation that thinks they deserve everything for free.
I’ve seen the recording industry literally collapse because of the dumb down that has taken it’s tolll on the quality of music and audio due to this…
I hope when it’s ready Apple can roll it out internationally. it’s always a shame if Apple provides great services for the US only while European Apple fans (like me) are left out in the cold…
It took 1 Viking to take over the music hill 🙂 spotify is so good and far ahead that it will be very difficult for others to catch on, compare it to how competitors to FB or Google search still is king of the hill.
I really like Beats Music, especially its personalized recommendations. Technically speaking, though, the apps and the web site need some stability improvements, though. Hoping that those come when Apple re-releases the service.
You guys are either high or all in your late-60s still using a click-wheel iPod to believe Apple and iTunes have more than a passing relevance to music. I don’t know anyone that would ever miss freeing up space on their i-device by deleting the app if it were possible. Apple is not hip in music anymore and unless they can iron out relationships with the Beats guys its not clear they wont screw up Beats too.
I have a folder on my iPhone that I dump all the default Apple software that is inferior to another app that does a better job.
As much as I am disappointed in the kludged mess that iTunes is, however, there is absolutely no streaming app that will supplant my personal music collection of files that i manage myself. Period.
For new music discovery, there are numerous awesome podcasts and radio stations that do a fine job:
– Sound Opinions
– Indiefeed
– KEXP
– independent radio stations
Whoever supports streaming audio obviously is more interested in repetitive background noise than in having access to his most personal, meaningful music at his fingertips.
You don’t need to choose between your personal music and what you can stream, you can have both with spotify.