“Dear Apple, I wanted to love Apple Music, I really did. It had all the potential in the world, and with all the hype surrounding the WWDC keynote, I watched with cautious optimism,” Brandon Shaw writes for Startup Musician. ” Ultimately, though, I was disappointed. ”
“First off, let me tell you what you did well… Right out of the gate, you have a LOT of music ready to go,” Shaw writes. “You’ve set your price at $9.99/mo. Perfect. And you’ve let users have a 3 month free trial to test it out. Great. Is there a fully free tier? No! While this move is surely going to be controversial, I’m with you Apple, I got your back… Unfortunately, this brings a close to the ‘Good’ section.”
“Apple, you need to start treating musicians and artists the way you treat your software developers. You can do this by giving artists and musicians great tools they can use to easily build awesome things with a clear idea of how to make money,” Shaw writes. “Right now, they’re an after thought. Give us some more info, and don’t be afraid to geek out a little with us!”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Read the full article. None of his “bad” or “ugly” or “meh” points are incorrect (some, like the criticism of the “look” of the app are neither correct nor incorrect, merely taste). And none of them will in any way negatively affect Apple Music’s uptake in any fashion.
The article above is from a musician’s point of view. Musicians will get the info Shaw wishes was imparted and then they’ll be falling all over themselves to connect with Apple Music fans. Because Apple Music fans are PAYING fans. There’s an operative word there. Even without the All-CAPS/Bold/Italics, musicians will be among the very first to make note of it.
And, yes, the Iovine/Drake/Reznor portion of the keynote was hellish, unnecessary, and, if we had to guess, something Cook felt he owed to the Iovine/Drake/Reznor contingent as opposed to something that should have been included on stage. Dear Apple keynote producer (if there is one), put your foot down and tell Tim “NO!” for Jobs sake! Give those guys some more RSUs instead and spare us! Good God, that was awful. On the bright side, at least they made Tim look like a dynamic stage presence.
We kid, Tim, we kid. (Not really.)
Forgive us, some days we just miss Steve so much!