“Apple’s iTunes helped change the way music-lovers bought their favorite songs, replacing plastic discs with digital downloads,” Brandon Bailey and Ryan Nakashima report for The Associated Press. “Now the maker of iPods and iPhones wants to carve out a leading role in a revolution well underway, with a new, paid streaming-music service set to launch this summer.”
“Apple is expected to announce the service at its annual conference for software developers, which kicks off Monday in San Francisco,” Bailey and Nakashima report “About 41 million people globally now pay for streaming music from Spotify, Deezer and other outlets, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which says subscription revenue grew 39 percent last year to $1.6 billion. Overall download sales fell 8 percent to $3.6 billion.”
“While Apple wouldn’t comment last week, a person familiar with its plans said Apple has an ambitious goal to sign up 100 million subscribers for a new streaming service that will cost $10 a month,” Bailey and Nakashima report “Beats users will be migrated over before eventually closing down, and buyers of songs and albums on iTunes will also be presented with the option to purchase a subscription instead.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: 100 million by when? The first year? Regardless, Apple Music is going to be a lot more successful at landing subscribers than most observers currently realize. Apple is going to save the music industry – again.
SEE ALSO:
Sony Music CEO confirms tomorrow’s launch of Apple’s music streaming service – June 7, 2015
Apple still negotiating with record labels over Apple Music terms ahead of planned June 8th reveal – June 5, 2015
Apple planning to change 70/30 iTunes revenue split – June 5, 2015
Apple Music to offer users three months free; Apple to largely abandon 15-year-old iTunes brand – June 5, 2015
All-new Apple Music subscription service, rebuilt iTunes Radio to arrive with iOS 8.4 in late June – June 5, 2015
Well, I hope it does well, but in my case I really have no need. I subscribe to SiriusXM for both my car and my wife’s. We have Music Choice with our cable, and we both have a boatload of CDs and downloads. If it wasn’t for that I might go for it.
• iTunes Match includes Music ?
🙁 Certainly not.
• Is Your music library convenient with Music ?
:{ Some reasonable doubts.
• Will Music compete with Spotify?
*[place your bet here]*
I think they can easily do it. It would blow right past Spotify in a matter of months simply because Apple will be pushing the service. It won’t have to be great but merely good.
20% of their user base sign up… And we will be there ..
since i’ll sign up for it, they really only need 99,999,999 more.
A few extra 9s there buddy!
never mind, I read it wrong!!
Yet you were so quick to open your mouth.
I own 6000 songs, all purchased legally, and travel where there is no cellular or wifi (private aircraft, ocean ferry, remote highways).
Streaming is a dud for me.
The iTunes subscription service will allow for saving songs to your iPhone so that you can listen later in offline situations such as you describe.
Best of luck to them. Subscriptions are a rip off.
My radio still works. Then again, I’m older and the idea of renting music strikes me as insane.
To quote Douglas Adams:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
My heretofore favourite Adams quote was the one about the deadlines (and the whooshing sound they make as they fly by), but this is even better (if it’s authentic)!
There was a time when I was young when I was buying one CD per month. That was somewhat (but not much) more than the expected $10 monthly music subscription. After accumulating some 200 CDs I had slowed down significantly; now the collection is about 300 and I buy no more than a few every year.
Over the past 30 years, I had spent approximately $4,500 on CDs (in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation). This money would have bought me approximately 38 years of music subscription.
With the ubiquity of internet, and especially YouTube, it became very easy to find a specific recording of a specific work online. On many occasions, I would have preferred to have been able to get, for example, Smetana’s “Ma Vlast” (with Belohlavek and Prague orchestra) via some music service/app, rather than on YouTube (which can’t run in the background).
I think that the newer generations are going to love subscription and are simply not going to understand why we had to hoard music on media (whether it is hard disk or flash storage, or even worse, optical discs taking up massive space on shelves), when everything ever recorded is online and can be streamed (and likely even temporarily downloaded) whenever you want to listen to it.
I’m somewhat curious what my grandchildren would end up doing with my CD collection (I still have two very old 78s from early 20th century, from my own grandparents…).
That one came from “The Salmon of Doubt”
Another favorite is:
“A learning experience is one of those things that say, “You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.””
There are so, so many more that I’d just save us a lot of time by saying “If it has his name on it, read it.”
BTW, Get “The Salmon of Doubt” audiobook.
As far as buying CDs, I never really bought that many, and most to replace vinyl. I’m happy with a radio, Shazam and iTunes.
I can see it both ways. Streamers and Buyer customer segments will be what they are. I’m generally in the buyer category.
I can listen to 1000 songs once. But my favorite songs will be listened to hundreds of times.
Demographic analysis on customer preferences will be interesting.
I’m sure its great for people who listen primarily to mainstream music. The problem for me is that a lot of the underground US/ European alternative music I listen to will never be offered on iTunes.
I’ll stick with free stream music which i can rip from.
I love alternative eclectic music, could you give me some examples of bands that are out there that you can’t find on iTunes? Thanks.
If done right, a streaming service could be excellent for people who are receptive to a broad range of music and who want to hear tracks that should appeal to them, but which may be unfamiliar to them.
In the UK, one of the big success stories is BBC radio 6 music, which plays pop and rock music that is not mainstream. I find that whenever I listen for more than a few minutes, I hear something that I would like to hear more of, so I later check the track listings for that show.
A streaming service that adapted to the listener’s taste is a tremendous way to broaden horizons. It’s particularly beneficial to smaller bands who might get exposure that would otherwise not be so easy to obtain.
OK. The issue is family accounts.
When I buy a TV licence it covers all the sets in the house. One fee – multiple users.
apple need to offer the same so that my kids can all use the service. I’m not paying $10 per person per month.
Have they got the answer ?
“Apple is going to save the music industry – again.”
The music industry needs to be saved from itself.
I’ll sign on and stay for the duration of my free trial, if they have one. Otherwise, nope, not gonna happen.
It’s just more money to spend on content. I have a large collection of music (that I want to listen to) which I barely have the time for. Add in my existing video media, Podcasts, TV, and radio and I just don’t have the time or money (or signal in many locations) for streaming music. I’m sure it will be a success, I just don’t see it being the cash cow some think it will be.
“buyers of songs and albums on iTunes will also be presented with the option to purchase a subscription instead.”
I am not interested in renting music I already own.
Music worth listening to is music worth buying.