“The future of music is streaming, not downloads,” Peter Kafka reports for Recode. “But that doesn’t mean Apple, the company that essentially invented the market for music download sales, is going to stop selling downloads anytime soon.”
“That’s contrary to a report today that said Apple planned to stop selling downloads in two years — or, alternately, ‘the next 3-4 years,'” Kafka reports. ‘Not true,’ said Apple rep Tom Neumayr.”
Kafka reports, “Neumayr wouldn’t expand on that comment, except to make it clear that he was responding to both timelines proposed in today’s story from Digital Music News.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, in five years then? 😉
SEE ALSO:
Apple prepping to kill iTunes Store music downloads within two years – May 11, 2016
Alright now! Apple gets it!
If Apple denies users the option of purchasing music I will be disappointed. I really cannot see the logic of Apple denying users this option.
Apple have the metrics, they know what to do.
BTW did you guys know that in Japan, the number one medium for music consumtion is still the CD…!?!
It bring up a relative perspective on how the world is consuming media.
MDN is right.
On the previous related article, the massive outpouring of angry responses championing the owning of music over “renting” it was quite telling.
However, I am pretty sure that none of the people who wrote in support of music “ownership” were younger than 20.
As this generation dies out, so does the concept of “owning” music (“owning”, because you only own physical/virtual media it is stored on, and the limited right to listen to it, but that’s beside the point of this discussion).
Children 20 and younger today only know of Spotify (and now Apple Music). As I wrote yesterday, for them, music listening experience involves looking up the artist / album / song, adding it to the list in ‘My Music’ and pressing PLAY. For vast majority of them, buying a song is a concept that is completely alien. The only thing you “buy” is your monthly subscription. It goes into the same category as your internet access, mobile phone plan, rent for your home. It is a utility bill that you pay with all other utility bills, for the rest of your life, or as long as you need that utility.
The millennials are probably going to be the last generation that actually “bought” their music album by album, track by track (physical or virtual media). Those born near the end of 90s will have vague recollection of their dad’s CD collection, but the younger ones will consider it quaint and antiquated.
The original article may well be correct, and may only be wrong on the timeline.
I had the feeling that some of the anger was directed at Apple, some at the music rightsholders and record companies, all perceived as fat cats cynically disrupting our lifestyles and choices as they manoeuvre to squeeze more out of consumers. How dare they!
Those youngsters will grow up and eventually realize that paying forever for music is not such a great idea. I bought my music and I can listen forever without paying another penny for it.
If the main reason for preference to buy is financial, than it doesn’t hold water. Over the past 30 years, I have accummulated some 300 CDs, spending some $4,000 on them. It averages to approximately just a bit less than one CD per month. The average price for each CD was around $13. My average monthly spending on those CDs, for the past 30 years, was a bit over $10. For that money, I could have had millions of CDs available at any moment, without having to build and install shelves for hundreds of physical CDs, which accumulate dust and take up space.
Without Apple Music, I would have likely continued to buy music at the similar rate, a disc a month. Financially, it simply makes no sense, especially if you are young and starting to pay for your music. Instead of spending 30 years to accumulate hundreds of albums, you could, with the same monthly outlay, have access to all the music of the world right away.
For me, even after paying $4,000 for all the CDs I own, I find Apple Music an incredibly inexpensive way to add music into my life; certainly much, much cheaper than buying.
Let us not forget; for all of us who are way into our adulthood, our music collections invariably contain more than a few embarrassing selections from our youth. When you are a teen (or young adult), still living on your parents’ dime, you tend to carelessly spend your resources on the must-have music of the day. Oftentimes, those albums will have a rather limited shelf life (names such as Justin Bieber, or Backstreet Boys, or One Direction come to mind). From a mature adult’s perspective, that was money wasted.
In other words, financially, the more passionate you are about your music, the better the subscription model works for you. If you buy 8 – 10 albums per year (or more), you are wasting too much money on your music. Even if we completely disregard for the moment the fact that when you rent, you get practically the entire world catalogue of music immediately (and when you buy, you only get what you have so far), serious collectors of music would save more money on renting than on buying to own. Casual listeners, who are happy with a small collection, and who buy fewer than 7 CDs per year, may find it cheaper to continue to buy their music.
Let us also not forget that formats for music tend to change every few decades or so (Vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, MP3…). The popular saying is “I now have to buy the White Album all over again!”. In other words, even if you buy your music, the medium may well become obsolete during your lifetime. That doesn’t automatically make it unplayable, but obsolescence usually comes when the succeeding format offers significant improvement over the previous one, so while you could certainly still be able to play your ‘White Album’ vinyl record, you’d likely be compelled to buy the CD release, for superior sonic quality, as well as portability.
Let’s look at those costs.
$15/month for a family subscription x 12 months/year x 50 years = $9000.
My wife does not have a very wide musical interest (mostly jazz and some pop/rock) totaling a couple thousand songs. My taste is much wider and includes a lot of music that is not on Apple Music or is even available in digital format. I have a library of LPs, cassettes and CDs acquired over that 42 years, mostly on sale or used, at an estimated average cost of about $7. What I have been able to find digitally, I have encoded myself using Sound Studio.
I figure I have another 30 years or so to go and I don’t want to spend $5000 more just to keep listening to the library of music I have carefully collected over the years.
You are at a life’s point where you have already spent your money on the music library you want, and it is unlikely that your library will grow significantly. For you, it may make little sense to switch to rental model.
As for the music availability, I can’t imagine where is the source of this music you claim can’t be found on Apple Music. In my case, literally everything I wanted to find was on Apple Music. I am far enough from mainstream (mostly into classical and jazz), and everything, from all over the world, is there.
Bosh. Still no Trout Mask Replica.
I noticed that too. Glaring omission from the Cap’n.
There is no orchestral version of “Going Home” from Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
Perhaps nobody has ever orchestrated the Fisher adaptation…
I’m surprised you haven’t been mercilessly downvoted by the “ownerati”, but I agree with you. While I certainly think there should be choice in the market to own and rent (and I currently own over 12,000 songs), I have never listened to as much music as I am right now via Apple Music. Economically speaking, I could not even come close to exploring the sheer amount of music I am currently enjoying through an ownership model.
Yes, I grew up at the whims of a music curation service. I waited to hear the songs I liked and in between was exposed to all sorts of other music I grew to like.
I eventually came to the conclusion that the curation service did not serve up music like I wanted it served and started buying own music. I still have those recordings and still listen to them. I no longer have the need for RADIO regardless of whether it is FM, Pandora, Spotify or Apple Music. They can’t keep up with my own collection for choice and diversity.
I don’t really care for anyone’s curation service. I only use Apple Music to listen to the music of my own choice.
If you buy your music from iTunes, then there is no reason why you can’t get to the exact same tracks via Apple Music.
About the only kind of recordings that may not be available on Apple Music is privately recorded independent productions, such as a small local band that has privately produced a CD and is selling it at their concerts, or online, through their website. And in vast majority of such cases, that same CD is also available on Apple Music (and Spotify and others), usually through CD Baby or other similar distribution service. Even the musicians who play in the NYC subway and sell their own CDs out of their instrument cases have those same CDs on Apple Music (I checked).
There is almost no commercially (or even privately) produced music out there that cannot be found on Apple Music.
In other words, Apple Music is not Pandora. With monthly subscription, you can pick individual tracks or albums that you want to add to your collection. Once you add them, they are yours for as long as you pay. You can download the DRM files, or stream directly from Apple Music servers. You can rate them, put them in playlists, disconnect from the internet and they will still play.
And unlike any previous or competing music service, Apple has by far the largest catalogue of music, from practically every country of the world.
I have about 100 of my 300-disc CD collection ripped into my iTunes. When I joined Apple Music, literally all of the music I had ripped was actually available on Apple Music. Every single one of my CDs was now accessible, without me having to sync my iPhone with iTunes. I could easily create playlists, download these albums from Apple Music servers, or, if I prefer not to clog the storage space on my phone, stream them directly from Apple Music (T-mobile doesn’t count music streaming against their 4G throttling monthly data limits!).
I have recently deleted ALL the ripped audio files from my iTunes. On my Mac, they serve no purpose; if I ever needed to listen to that music, I can stream directly from Apple Music, or download what I want at any time. The downloads will have DRM (to make sure I’m still paying subscription), but in every other aspect, they’ll be the same as my ripped files. So, the only restriction I can think of is that rented music cannot be used in iMovie projects. I’m not sure this will be major dealbreaker for anyone other than a minuscule number of people. And even for those, you can still buy that one track that you need for your iMovie project ($1 gets you a DRM-free file).
Your far more trusting than I. I have no intention of deleting my locally stored collection – ever. For one thing unless you have a huge cell data allotment it’s not practical on the run, nor always predictable. And I can load files on my iPod (don’t use my iPhone for that) and SD cards, etc. in my car. And I will continue to buy CD’s and rip them to Apple Lossless (I just wish you could buy AL files from iTunes now). But that’s just me.
I’ve rarely been disappointed applying a healthy dose of dependent cloud skepticism.
The deleted music was ripped form CDs. If anything really terrible happens (for example, Apple shuts down Apple Music), I can always re-rip.
I’m with T-Mobile, which doesn’t count any music service streaming against the 4G data allotment, so I can stream 24/7 and still use 0GB of monthly 4G data. When I know I’ll be traveling in and out of coverage zones, I tap on the little ‘+’ icon and the album(s) are automatically downloaded onto my phone.
I am an unapologetic convert. It took me a long time to warm up to the idea of music in the cloud and 4G streaming, but I have yet to hit a snag with it. For me, Apple has offered me the most amazing and transparent access to all the recorded music of the world.
Yeah with well over 1,000 CD’s I don’t want to go through that again! 🙂
That’s nice about T-Mobile and how it should be. I don’t believe Verizon is as magnanimous. I am glad you found a more modern system (that is supposed to work that way) that works for you. I guess I am just too “controlling” of my media. Might take me a little longer to let loose.
Until you tell me that Apple Music has every single song that has ever been recorded, I’m gonna stick to purchasing my own music.
Yes. For all intents and purposes, yes, Apple Music has every single song that has ever been recorded. I wasn’t really expecting this when I signed up with the trial, so I tried putting it through its paces. There is music there from every corner of the world.
For today’s music, there is no musician worth his salt on this planet who hasn’t heard of iTunes. If he has recorded his music for public consumption (i.e. if he is somehow selling it), he has made it available on iTunes (and therefore on Apple Music). And for older and archival recordings, in the rich countries, record labels made sure not to miss out on this back-catalogue revenue. And in the poorer countries, there is always this entrepreneurial individual with lax regard for copyright laws who has diligently ripped his old CDs (and in some cases, even vinyl) and put it up for sale (through a local iTunes distributor). Even obscure old folk recordings from the 60s from places like Bulgaria, Armenia, Kyrgizstan, have miraculously found their way to iTunes and Apple Music.
I have no doubt, there may be some commercially recorded music out there that hasn’t found its way to iTunes (and Apple Music) yet, but so far, I have yet to identify such a recording.
For me, what sold me completely and irreversibly was when I looked up Mozart’s Requiem. I wanted to hear several different interpretations and looked it up on Apple Music. Several hundred (!!!) different recordings! Just picking from among the most renown world ensembles was a delicious challenge. I settled on five versions and was profoundly thrilled by this ability to suddenly have five very different readings of the same work! I would never have bought five different recordings of the same work. And I got to choose from among several hundred!
I have music in my collection that has never been released in digital form anywhere. I highly doubt tat Apple Music has it.
This is what I thought about some of my very old vinyl records, until I looked it up on Apple Music.
Your mileage may vary.
My comment that I don’t need a curation service was also about iTunes store as well as Apple Music. It is curated in the sense that what is available is based on commerce, licensing, availability and legal matters.
It is also limited by ignorance of recorded history by a company run by young people who must think “We even have Wang Chung 12″ versions! What could be missing?” I have no such limitations with the digital music that I have ripped from my physical copies or the recordings I can get to without a computing device, a cloud, Internet or even electricity.
I appreciate that someone with 300 CDs cannot imagine what might be missing from AMusic. But as a collector with over 10,000 vinyl albums, 5000 CDs, countless 45’s, 78s and tapes, and Many Tb of “mp3s” I can easily go directly to what is missing. As mentioned, Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica is a massive glaring omission for one of the top ten greatest recordings of all time. By itself that refutes all argument that everything is on AMusic.
As a test I just looked up “Lonely Little GIrl” by the Mothers of Invention on iTunes. The only version is from the album. The single version which is completely different is not there, nor do I imagine it would show up on Music. I also do not want Apple deciding that a later recording of various Coasters or Drifters songs by one of the many successor groupings is just as good. It is very common for an artist to record his own hit songs for later collections if he has changed labels along the way. I don’t trust Apple to know the difference, especially if the earlier version is out of print.
Money spent doesn’t add up for me. So many boxes of vinyl bought from flea markets and thrift stores, review copies sent to me from record companies, piles from radio station friends, people who just give me their collections to find a good home. My average is below $1 per album. I realize most people’s mileage varies a whole lot more.
So I am not the target for iTunes downloads or for Apple Music. I do not wish to rent music or buy sonically inferior versions.
Since Apple insists that to load my music onto my iPhones, iPads and iPods, and stream to my AppleTVs, I have to sync with iTunes, all I want is for iTunes to simply do that basic function. It rarely does.
Rubbish rumor mongering topic of the week.