Apple today unveiled Apple Music, a single, intuitive app that combines the best ways to enjoy music — all in one place. Apple Music is a revolutionary streaming music service, a pioneering worldwide live radio station from Apple broadcasting 24 hours a day and a great new way for music fans to connect with their favorite artists. Apple Music combines the largest and most diverse collection of music on the planet with the expertise of world-class music experts who have programmed playlists for your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC, Apple TV and Android phones.* Apple Music will be available starting on June 30 in over 100 countries.
“We love music, and the new Apple Music service puts an incredible experience at every fan’s fingertips,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, in a statement. “All the ways people love enjoying music come together in one app — a revolutionary streaming service, live worldwide radio and an exciting way for fans to connect with artists.”
“Apple Music is really going to move the needle for fans and artists,” said Jimmy Iovine, in a statement. “Online music has become a complicated mess of apps, services and websites. Apple Music brings the best features together for an experience every music lover will appreciate.”
Apple Music
Apple Music is a revolutionary streaming service and app that puts the entire Apple Music catalog at your fingertips across your favorite devices. Starting with the music you already know — whether from the iTunes Store or ripped CDs — your music now lives in one place alongside the Apple Music catalog with over 30 million songs. You can stream any song, album or playlist you choose — or better yet, let Apple Music do the work for you.
Curation is the soul of every playlist created on Apple Music. Apple has hired the most talented music experts from around the world, dedicated to creating the perfect playlists based on your preferences, and they become better curators the more you listen. The “For You” section of Apple Music provides a fresh mix of albums, new releases and playlists, which have been personalized just for you.
In addition to human curation, Siri is also dedicated to helping you enjoy great music and have fun with Apple Music. Ask Siri to, “Play me the best songs from 1994,” “Play the best FKA twigs song,” or “What was the number one song in February 2011?”
Apple Music Radio
Beats 1, Apple’s first ever live radio station dedicated entirely to music and music culture, will broadcast live to over 100 countries. Beats 1 is a 24-hour listening experience led by influential DJs Zane Lowe in Los Angeles, Ebro Darden in New York and Julie Adenuga in London. Listeners around the globe will hear the same great programming at the same time. Exciting programs on Beats 1 will offer exclusive interviews, guest hosts and the best of what’s going on in the world of music.
Apple has also redesigned radio with human curation taking the lead. Apple Music Radio gives you stations created by some of the world’s finest radio DJs. The new stations range in genres from indie rock to classical and folk to funk, with each one expertly curated. With membership, you can skip as many songs as you like, so you can change the tune without changing the dial.
Apple Music Connect
Artists and fans now have an incredible way to connect with one another directly in Apple Music with Connect. Through Connect, artists can share lyrics, backstage photos, videos or even release their latest song directly to fans directly from their iPhone. Fans can comment on or like anything an artist has posted, and share it via Messages, Facebook, Twitter and email. And when you comment, the artist can respond directly to you.
Pricing & Availability
Starting on June 30, music fans around the world are invited to a 3-month free membership, after which a $9.99/month subscription fee will apply. There will also be a family plan providing service for up to six family members available for just $14.99/month.
Requires initial sign up. At the end of the trial period, the membership will automatically renew and payment method will be charged on a monthly basis until auto-renewal is turned off in account settings. Family plan requires iCloud Family Sharing. See www.apple.com/icloud/family-sharing for more information.
*Apple Music is available on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC starting June 30. Apple Music will be coming to Apple TV and Android phones this fall.
Source: Apple Inc.
Only way Music will be ground breaking is if it forces all the other apps (pandora, spotify) to abandon “Free” Streaming. Then from now on its either buy a download or pay for a subscription
I like my already owned and paid for music. I won’t be signing up for $120 per year.
That’s what I thought too, but with Siri musical search and other interesting options I must admit now I am intrigued. Three free months should be enough to answer the question if it’s useful to me and many.
I’ll try it free for 3. Maybe I’ll like it after all😃
The amount of cluelessness about music displayed today was staggering. I’ve never rooted for Apple to fail at anything, so this is truly a first. Apologies to Steve Jobs, who must be spinning at 78 rpm right now. Jimmy Iovine? Cue the head shaking and eye rolling. Do you want to breathe the same air as that guy?
That reads racist😖
Excuse me, when did “record company weasel” become a race?
You have to excuse someone who uses massive numbers of emoticons to express himself. He is just clueless about message vs media.
No excuse. I apologize.
I use a lot of emoticons cause I think they’re fun and cute not for any ulterior motive.
@FutureMedia You my friend are a freaking idiot..throwing around the race card like they were free gummi bears.
I agree.
I also have very low self esteem.😪
Yet for all that, you are unique in that you accede to egregious accusations, calumnious though they be. Apparently you recognize that such attacks do not rise to the level of existential threat. How many useless conflicts could be avoided if only others had your sense of humor? 😄🐔🔥💥
Hah, well people seem to think its okay on CNN. “Let’s act funking crazy, and do shit to cops that only wild criminals would do, then we get to play the get out of trouble race card and instantly become the victim.”
Yes, it’s racist, because black people are above criticism. Plus which, they’re all so adorable.
Go back to farming tomatos friend .
He correct–Iovine is complete shyster and a fraud..
I agree. He came off as a snake-oil salesman to me.
My apologies.😳
Seems like a new version of the existing functionality with the option of paid streaming and a revamped ping.
Considering that they had Drake on stage to talk about his experience it pretty bad that the third country is Australia. Canada has at least 50% more population!
What is this “Ditch Canada Day” at Apple?
Where’s Road Warrior?
By the way, population-wise it’s Australia 24 million vs Canada 35 million. GDP in US$15.6bn vs US$18.2bn. GDP per capita in US$67,500 vs US$52,000. So the Aussies have higher disposable income and a free trade agreement with the USA so perhaps this helps explain why it’s a highly favoured market for Apple. Or maybe it’s just easier to roll-out without having to re-write everything in French! 🙂
Ouch. Plus they have Kylie Minogue and Natalie Imbruglia rather than Michael Bublé and Justin Bieber. Would swing it for me. Just don’t don’t mention Rolf Harris if we are talking about crimes against music… or just crimes generally.
I’m willing to try Apple Music IF I can download tracks like I can do in Spotify. I’m listening to music on my iPhone mostly while commuting with no 3G/4G reception 70% of the trip. If it’s streaming only it’s useless to me
Agreed 100%.
Oh, I’ll give it a fair try. But I like downloading higher bit rate on my Spotify account when I am connected to wifi. Then when I am out on a run, I am not using cell service to stream music.
Apple’s own site says offline available…and it will be in Canada.
I hope they give us choices for streaming and download bit rate quality like Spotify does.
Is there a list of countries where Apple Music will be made available on June 30th?
…almost as exciting as Watch.
Wow botty, I’d thought that you had changed your name to “yojimbo007” and were posting your tripe under that moniker. Now get back under your bridge and eat your goat intestines.
What I don’t get about this web site is why half of the comments are by high-school hall monitors getting after the other half.
You seem to have hit the nail on its proverbial botvinnik’s head. About half of the posts are from Apple hating high school mentality posters.
Not exactly…YOU are one of the self-appointed hall monitors adjudging someone’s free speech. How long have you been lying in wait for botvinnik to emerge and speak five innocuous words?
hello his mommy has taken to lecturing the school about him being bullied now.
Here’s what I like for my own preferences:
1. 3 months free
2. all the main device OS
3. I’ll give curation a try
4. Apple name brand
5. Connect
I’ve been away from music mainstream for a while, so I might give it a try.
6.
Ill try for a while and see how it goes..
I think the connect feature is great and lots of artists and fans will benifit from it greatly.
Beats 1 radio… Ummmm not my cup of tea.
I will hold judgment on custom curated playlists and streaming till later
Revolutionary? Not really. Evolutionary, sure. Having one place to go for locally stored music, online radio, or streamed music. Though iTunes pretty much already does that. Maybe the “professionally curated” playlists are what’s considered “revolutionary”, but there are other places that already have that. Or maybe it’s the ways for artists and fans to connect.
Seems like a yawner to me, all in all. Pandora and Songza have better playlists than Apple Radio does, and Pandora seems like it has fewer ads.
I don’t think I’ll be signing up and forking over $120 a year.
I’m trying hard to be excited about Music.
Why bother to get excited about a rehashed Spotify imitation? Does Apple really think that everyone in the world wants to listen to one of their few music streams? It is amazing how stupid the hip-hop generation has become regarding music, and how brainless that Apple has become in buying and rebranding an app that is no better than any of a dozen different music streaming apps. All of which are low-fi and either impossible to use offline or so annoying to set up for offline use that you will want your old iTunes from 3 generations ago back.
I have a heck of a time getting my personally recorded songs onto my iPhone. It use to be easy. I put them in iTunes and then sync. Now I have to get my iTunes to put my personally recorded music on the cloud. It’s a pain. If my iTunes cloud/music match (whatever it’s called) doesn’t recognize it, it won’t upload and then I can’t get it on my phone.
Use to be easy, not it’s not.
Pretty sure you can still sync the old way. I do it every day with my iPhone and my iPad.
I can. But if/when I switch back to the cloud method, it undoes my manual sync.
Even when I do it the old way, it still doesn’t always work.
You must be doing it the wrong way. I drag and drop all my songs from my Mac’s iTunes to my iPhone 6 Plus all the time. No iCloud involved at all.
So what happens to iTunes radio? I don’t want my music curated by anyone. Don’t fix what ain’t broken.
Once they add The Ruttles complete box set, then I’m on it like melting cheese on a frying pan!
Keep in mind, they are not everyone’s cup of ‘tea’….