Apple’s killer plan for Beats: A little human touch, a little human nature

“Human, rather than machine intelligence, is the big drive behind Apple’s plan for Beats, with the company making huge investments in intelligent playlist curation to support its service when it launches in June,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.

“UK digital music industry bible, Music Ally, this morning reports the following: ‘Music Ally has learned that Apple is currently paying music journalists to write copy for thousands of playlists – all of which could form the backbone of Beats when it finally relaunches,'” Evans writes. “The report predicts Apple will relaunch Beats ‘in June.'”

“Iovine has waxed lyrical on the importance of curated music experiences in the past,” Evans writes. “Now with the resources of Apple behind the attempt, it seems likely we can expect well-crafted collections designed to whet music listeners’ interest in new genres, music forms and artists.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Let’s go already!

Apple’s late on this. Not too late, but late, so the sooner the better.

Related articles:
Apple asks Taylor Swift, others to promote revamped Beats Music service – April 11, 2015
U.S. feds weigh investigation of Apple’s forthcoming ‘iTunes Music’ streaming service – April 7, 2015
EU regulators already probing Apple’s music streaming plans in Europe – April 2, 2015
Apple’s ‘iTunes Music’ streaming service to cost $9.99/month, no free tier; iTunes Radio to get makeover – March 26, 2015
With iTunes Music, Apple wants to help music labels roll back the tide of free digital music – March 6, 2015
Apple may release ‘iTunes Music’ with iOS 8.4 ‘Copper’ – February 9, 2015
iTunes Music: New Beats service will continue Apple’s reign as the king of digital music – February 4, 2015
Apple’s Beats-based music service plans revealed, including Apple’s first Android app – February 4, 2015

23 Comments

      1. I don’t really trust any one source for music, note even Apple. Apple won’t hire enough disc jockeys to cover all the genres of music that are in my playlists. They won’t even label the genres properly, fill in all the metadata, get the original release date or album correct, and they won’t have a clue what the difference between “Pop/Rock” and “Singer-Songwriter” is, as if those were even valid genres.

        Something has to change, but Beats doesn’t hold any more promise than ClearChannel taking over your local independent radio station and replacing the whole crew of DJs with a repetitive feed of whatever the labels released in the last 3 months. You know, because they say that’s what the kids want. Whatever.

        1. iTunes sells low-quality files and as Green said, the metadata is incomplete or just wrong. So much better to just rip the CD.

          Apple just wants to rent people music because other companies are already there, and Apple is now a me-too company.

  1. I love this later paragraph:

    “Finally, there’s the tantalizing claim Apple intends on making Beats available for iOS and Android. If this actually does happen, Apple would immediately gain an audience among pre-switch Android users who may be interested in purchasing Beats-related iOS wearable devices.”

    “…pre-switch android users…” which presupposes that it’s only a matter of time for any Android user to switch to, presumably, the iPhone. Love it.

    1. Me, I prefer symphonic gothic doom metal, so they’d better hire some music journalists who know their stuff. Given that the number of people who fit that bill I can count on one hand, I’ll just keep making my own playlists.

    1. Unless you write your own music and perform your own music and then listen to your own recorded sessions your music tast IS satisfied by someone else’s music tast.

      You are satisfied by a bit of this groups music tast and a bit of that groups music tast. In fact a lot of other people have the same tast and your are not so unique.

      1. No. In my case, musical taste is influenced by the thousands of artists that we have in our 35+ year music collection — most of which is not and never will be available on iTunes or any streaming service. “Personal curation” is not a selling point. There are many excellent free podcasts for discovering new music — without the annoying ads.

  2. I bothered myself with the free trial of Beats, found that, just as I expected, I was unable to work up any enthusiasm for it, and left within about seven days. It ain’t for me, and I doubt they could change it to suit me.

  3. So basically they are doing what Slacker radio has been doing since the start?
    Honeslty I’m happy with slacker radio and i love the caching service.
    So far thats one thing apple has not been able to do and thats get music right. Slacker gets me gets what i like. Apple, pandora, and all the others just assume you like this song because you liked the beat and grove of this song.

    Sorry but just because i like say poison doesn’t mean i want to hear some new band i never heard of just because they have heavy guitar and drums like the poison song i was listening to.

    I listen to groups. 80s music pop to hair metal, 90s country, Sinatra, and on but no one gets it right. Slacker gets close and the more i lsitened the better it got

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