“Apple Inc. is poised to unveil what analysts and record label executives hope will be a game-changer in the way consumers listen to music,” Ryan Faughnder reports for The Los Angeles Times. “Taking on the likes of Spotify and Pandora, the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant is expected to announce a $10-a-month streaming service and revamped Internet radio feature at its developer conference in San Francisco on Monday.”
“Apple is suffering from the worldwide decline of digital downloads as young people increasingly turn to streaming online, craving inexpensive access to virtually unlimited music instead of adding tracks to iTunes libraries,” Faughnder reports. “Now the record industry is looking to Apple to bring subscription-only streaming to the masses and help reverse years of declines in the global music market… Its iTunes store has 800 million user accounts, giving it access to a huge market of potential subscribers.”
“‘This is expected to be a mainstream, possibly transformative announcement,’ said Larry Miller, a music business professor at NYU-Steinhardt,” Faughnder reports. “Given Apple’s wide audience, the new service could overtake Spotify’s subscriber count within several months, said one music industry insider.”
Much more in the full article here.
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SEE ALSO:
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
I hope it does well, so I don’t have to listen to the naysayer’s BS about how Apple doesn’t do anything right. I personally can’t imagine it being better than Spotify, but I’ll wait to see what Apple has done before passing judgment. It’s not going to make or break Apple, but I do hope they did create a respectable service. With Iovine and Dr. Dre having input I’m sure it won’t be a disaster.
People keep talking about the decline of music sales, but times change and technology advances. All Apple needs to do is try to adapt to the times and do a good job of it. If the world is headed toward internet connected devices why not have 5 million songs in your pocket instead of 5,000 songs. I don’t see that as an Apple failing. It simply requires an Apple adjustment. I’m sure music downloading won’t die out completely, but it certainly will decrease. I just don’t see why they’re acting like it’s some huge Apple disaster when the whole music industry is changing.
I still prefer to own my own music, but I see nothing wrong with offering subscription services for greater listening selections and for those who don’t want to bother with managing their own home music libraries.
The key is ubiquitous, inexpensive and fast wireless connectivity. That’s still not the case for a lot of areas (in the US), but I hope it’s coming.
Your point is my problem. Streaming may work at home or office, but mobile for me…no way. There are so many cellular dead zones around my locale that streaming is impossible.
In addition, the cost of cellular data is almost never mentioned in these music streaming discussions. Seriously, if you are going on a road trip, would you prefer to have 15000 songs stored locally for play in the car, or have an open cell stream going for 72 hours? If you depend on streaming for all your music, how does this impact the cost of your data plan?
Why not do both? No one said you won’t still be able to download music to your iPhone.
why not do both? well maybe you will be able to…. for a while
but, the money quote above will likely set the pattern for the future:
“Now the record industry is looking to Apple to bring subscription-only streaming to the masses and help reverse years of declines in the global music market…
the operative word here is ONLY.
not that i possess an overly suspicious turn of mind, but my eddy-cated guess is that the buy to own option will disappear entirely. first from the itunes store, then, who knows? cd’s fade away? it costs the record companies money to make them, market them, transport them etc.
the corporate music companies have never been happy with it, they figure they got snookered by apple.
we may have our collections of tunes, but people in the future may not be so lucky.
FYI – and a real boon for those who’d use it – T Mobile includes free music streaming from a number of services including I♥︎Radio, Spotify, the current iTunes Radio, Google Play Music, etc.
Not “net neutral” though.
Your post resonated with me, macnificentseven48. Apple needs to try new things and adapt to changing times. We would not have the iPod and other iDevices if that were not true.
I prefer to own my own music, and I would be highly reluctant to commit to yet another monthly fee on top of all of the other ones in my life. But managing you own music library and making playlists and such takes time. Perhaps, someday, I might be willing to pay for streaming as a convenience.
It’s called iTunes Match. Works GREAT when you can stream – wifi.
“Transformative” sounds like “reality distortion field” talk to me.
Successful? Likely. Profitable? Pretty certainly. But other than some of the people behind the scenes being “big names” I haven’t heard any real speculation it will add any brand-new dimension that doesn’t currently exist in streaming services…
….nor that there’s been a rearchitecting of many times stretched but never rebuilt iTunes, which seems to be becoming a bane for many Mac users.
…and not all of Apple’s internet-related services have clicked. By any means.
So personally, holding prospects of “being transformed” in abeyance until shown otherwise….
Agree. RDF, and its fairly lame as RDF goes. I was more excited over Apple’s first laser mouse.
No streaming subscription for me.👎🏼
Can anyone explain to me how musicians are supposed to make a living when everyone can have 24hr/day streaming for $10/month, (never mind for free).
Quite simply: no. =:-(
It’s another way for musicians to pay for an elite group of executives to make $millions for themselves on the backs of hardworking musicians. This will eat itself in the next few years. There needs to be a much better model in the digital age of music.
All ears. 😉
What is the model in the digital age?
They can’t, and it doesn’t work very well over cell, unless someone else pays.
Like any smart artist has/does. Touring and merch. Music sales have not been the main source of income for quite a while.
If you look back in history far enough, you see minstrels in the renaissance earned all their income from ‘touring.’
In addition, they brought news from their prior town visits to keep the locals ‘up with the times.’
If this is the plan it’s a bad plan. So this will kill a few radio station.
I thought video killed the radio star.
Most radio stations need to die. At least the ones that pass themselves off as music radio.
Looks like iPod users are SOL with this streaming. Wifi is certainly not common enough to be a reliable source of music when out and about.
iTunes Match is already a streaming subscription. $25/year… Is it a music discovery/organizer/transcendent or what? I don’t get it. No social, no Ping part II.
For those complaining about not being able to stream with a bad connection, like Spotify, I think we can expect an offline mode.
$120 a year? Not. Gonna. Happen. It’s not as if Pandora and Spotify’s free services are going to disappear.
I’m already paying $25 a year for Match which gives ad-free iTunes Radio. If Apple takes that away I’ll leave behind Match and just use Google’s free streaming of my music.
If Apple colludes with music labels to eliminate free radio, expect to draw the attention of the Justice Department.
Google Ha..Ha..Ha….
The other thing that no one seems to mention is quality. Streaming has to adjust quality down all the time to even work right if you’re mobile and even then it’s not fabulous.
If they’re going to try to get rid of ownership of music, the quality had better not go backwards, though recently that’s the M.O.
“….as young people increasingly turn to streaming online, craving inexpensive access to virtually unlimited music……”
Yes, so if by “inexpensive” they mean FREE, then yeah… paying $10.00 a month seem like…….. well.. like it won’t work. Even the poll here in MDN says more than 50% of readers won’t subscribe..
Another thing is the way record companies will yank something or not make it available. An example is Def Leppard. Their biggest albums are not on iTunes because of the record company. A couple of years ago, they re-recorded some of their hits so they could sell them on iTunes.
I’m not going to dive in whole hog with something, only to find out suddenly that a bunch of songs or artists have gone missing.