Apple “will shut down Beats Music on November 30, according to a support document published Thursday,” Steven Musil reports for CNET. “All Beats subscriptions will be canceled on that day, but Apple is encouraging subscribers to migrate their user profiles to Apple Music, the music subscription service it launched in June.”
“The closure of Beats Music comes less than six months after the maker of iPhones and iPad tablets unveiled its first subscription-streaming service, dubbed Apple Music, as its revamped way of presenting songs on its devices,” Musil reports. “The $10 a month service builds upon Beats, the music subscription service that it acquired in 2014 for $3 billion.”
MacDailyNews Take: Or, in other words, roughly $2.7 billion too much.
“The introduction of Apple Music marked a radical departure from the norm for the electronics giant, which had for years resisted adopting a music subscription model for its customers,” Musil reports. “Since Apple Music launched in June, 6.5 million people signed on as paying members, said CEO Tim Cook last month, with another 8.5 million people participating in the music service’s 90-day free trial. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s still amazing that so few users, relatively, take the time to enable the 90-day free trial. What are they afraid of, that they’ll like it too much?
SEE ALSO:
Apple Music has 15 million users in its first three months; plus how to turn off Apple Music auto renewal – September 22, 2015
I am a paid subscriber to Apple Music but don’t use it that much because I find the interface frustrating and confusing. I think this is the reason that there are so few subscribers. Apple waited too long to intro a subscription service.
” interface frustrating and confusing” which is so un-old-Apple.
Expect the new norm from Apple: frustrating and confusing GUI’s.
Too bad.
Yeah! I hate that part where I click My Music and it shows a list of my music? Then I have to click a song to play it! Omfg so confusingZ111
Thanks for That Varth – I feel the same way – Plus I don’t even use the interface that much now – I just ask siri and she plays whatever I want all the time – ITS GREAT!
In Apple Music on iOS, is there some reason that Apple couldn’t allow the user some options? Some of us would like to
– exit the app and when re-starting, return to the same place we left
– permanently turn off those things we won’t ever use (Connect)
– show more data
– have a landscape view
– allow for multi-layer search
– have legible text on the screen, instead of the stupid gray-on-gray minitext GUI that is impossible to read in daylight or when moving
– option to turn off pictures, since many/most of the obscure music some of us listen to are represented by Apple’s default gray music note pic
– DO NOT “automatically follow artists”
– DO NOT require an Apple ID in order to manage your own music
– leave the rev/play/pause/fwd as well as shuffle & repeat play controls VISIBLE AT ALL TIMES
– don’t waste header space with “recently added” music.
– allow users to delete unused genres (and fix Apple’s bizarre & disjointed genre names)
– enable users to display music using additional metadata filtering, preferably those that the user defines — such as language, region, acoustic, live, instrumental, etc. groupings
– ditch the gray white & red color scheme. it’s way too hard to read
I could go on, but why bother? Apple has totally lost its touch on GUIs, it’s spending all its effort pushing icloud and subscriptions, and it clearly doesn’t listen to its users anymore.
Apple Music is perfect for the casual listener who just wants to hear the same pop music that the remaining mega-music labels are pushing this month. Serious musicians who make their own music or collectors who have carefully curated personal collections, or anyone who likes obscure/older/non-mainstream music are overlooked and ignored by Apple.
Most disturbing is that this post on MDN will be met by a bunch of derisive comments telling me that Apple does better than any other company and that i should just shut up. Sorry, Apple USED TO put the user experience first. Now it puts profit and social agenda first. So sad.
I got the Beats closure notice via a Sonos email. The good news is Apple Music will be available soon on the Sonos app.
I AGREE! I moved to Music as soon as it was released and lost access to my Beats Music account which also meant I could not stream music over my SONOS except using the Aux jack or download and play from My Library – it SUCKS! I tried to quit Music and go back to Beats until SONOS worked but wouldn’t allow it. So here I sit paying for a music service I can only use with an Aux cord and a house full of SONOS gear. I am a huge and SONOS fan but damn THEY are driving me crazy!
Buy a cheap inexpensive DROID tablet at walker for $59 (tax included) and put apple music using a cable. It is really a good upgrade to an audio system.
“MacDailyNews Take: Or, in other words, roughly $2.7 billion too much.”
I find it amusing how much people over-analyze every last thing that Apple does. IDGAF personally. Love their products. I use them. But don’t fixate on the minutiae.
things not working well ain’t minutiae, it is pretty much as basic at it gets.
it is, i suspect, a sign of problems in management. like making a clearly bone head mega-buck purchase now gone bust.
Yep, lots of backseat drivers around here who know better than Apple management.
I posted my concerns about the Beats acquisition a long time ago. But I don’t dwell on the fact that Apple pulled the trigger, even at the cost of $3B. The company has generally been quite responsible and successful with its acquisitions, and reward does not come without risk. There will be some less than ideal outcomes. Besides, Apple is working hard to leverage the Beats acquisition and they need time to do fully incorporate it into the company and ecosystem. In addition, I have no clue as to how much revenue/profit Apple is making from the Beats products that they acquired. It is very possible that the acquisition will pay for itself over time just in that area, much less the potential benefits to the Apple ecosystem. Relax and give it time, folks. The people on this forum (and MDN, itself) are sometimes almost as demanding as the analysts.
What have you done for me lately, Apple? By lately, I mean yesterday!
I too am an Apple Music subscriber and rarely use the service. The interface of Apple Music is just horrendous. Absolutely abysmal. I loathe the design of Apple Music.
I am tired of waiting for Apple to update this disgusting piece of software and am going to cancel Apple Music after this month.
Jeff: “I am a paid subscriber to Apple Music but don’t use it that much because I find the interface frustrating and confusing”.
While I agree that the UI could be, and needs to be, improved. I guess I just don’t understand the internet backlash. It’s NOT THAT DAMN HARD people. My God. Do you people even use computers for a living? If you can’t figure this out in 10 minutes flat I’m SMH.
“Apple Music is a bit confusing so I’m not going to take a whole 10 minutes to learn the idiosyncrasies of the iTunes and iOS interface. Apple has gone to hell, Steve would’ve never done this and Cook should be fired”.
TIL that I come from a family of geniuses.
My wife, my 75 year old Mother, her 79 year old husband, and my three children (ages: 14 – 26) all have zero problems using and enjoying Apple Music on a constant daily basis. Yet, MDN posters, who you would think would have above-average computer skills, apparently cannot grasp this confusing UI.
Maybe lynda.com should start a new video series:
Master Apple Music in Ten Easy Hours
facepalm.jpg
I don’t subscribe to Apple Music because I’m not into the subscription streaming model. I think this is true for all serious music people. I actively look out for new artists and the ones I like I want to support by *buying* their albums. When I purchase albums the music is now part of me, it’s part of *my* library, and i don’t want anyone messing around with it. I organize it, I curate it, and develop it for my tastes. Dr Dre and Apple Music are not going to do that for me, my music is too important for me to give that up to others.
Apple Music is for casual music listeners who need background noise, it’s not for serious music people.
i long ago gave up (more or less) on the ugly mess that Apple made of iTunes.
I could not believe that Apple paid billions for Beats a while back. Not it is done, closed, finished. Meanwhile, we have Apple Music, which nobody I know uses. Some people have more money than sense, OTOH, my new MacBook Air is a pleasure to use, and I am lusting after the 6s. Win some, Lose some.
I cancelled my Spotify subscription when I signed up for Apple Music, and was happy with Apple’s playlists for a few months. But when I started searching for several jazz standards and could not find them, I re-joined Spotify and found everything I need.
Too bad they won’t be getting rid of those awful Beats headphones etc.
I didn’t enable it because I just don’t need another subscription service. I don’t listen to music I don’t already own, and when I do I buy it, and it would still end up being cheaper than a subscription because I don’t buy all that much music. At least I can listen to it forever for free after I buy it once.
Hugely disappointing. Apple was doing something truly amazing. They did not give it enough time. I get that the initial numbers were disappointing but it would have grown over time. Knee jerk reaction Apple.
OK. I just read the AppleInsider article on this and realized I was confused. It’s the old legacy Beats music that is being shut down and not Beat 1 on Apple Music. Really confusing article that confused myself, as well as a number of posters on this forum and MDN.