“Apple Music hits its three month anniversary next week and, to paraphrase an old Warren Buffett saying, we’re about to see how many people are listening naked when the tide goes out,” Aaron Pressman writes for Yahoo Finance. “Apple’s streaming music service costs $10 a month and does not have a free-with-advertising tier, a popular option on Spotify, Deezer and many other rivals. Apple’s service kicked off on June 30 with a 90 day free trial for anyone who signed up. But those early adopters will have to decide whether to begin paying for the service September 30.”
“The New York Post reported on Monday that 15 million have signed up so far, citing anonymous sources,” Pressman writes. “The music industry has been desperate for Apple’s premium subscription service to take off, encouraging more people to pay for music again and offsetting plummeting sales of digital and physical songs. Without Apple, the streaming music wave is already slowing. The number of U.S. paid subscribers increased only 2% to 8.1 million in the first six months of this year compared to 2014, according to figures released by the Recording Industry of America on Monday. Streaming revenue was up 23% to $1.03 billion. Apple Music opened on the last day of the period.”
Pressman writes, “It doesn’t seem like Apple is going to approach Spotify’s 20 million or more paid subscribers.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Music will be three months old. Spotify turns 7 years old on October 7th. Hardly a fair comparison.
“‘The great hope,'” adds Geoff Mayfield, a consultant who used to work for Universal Music Group, ‘is that the success of Apple Music doesn’t come at the expense of Spotify and that it will be additive rather than just moving people from one paying subscription to another,'” Pressman writes. “The music industry has placed its hope in Apple’s no-free model. Whether that bet will ever pay off remains debatable.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: To turn off Apple Music’s automoatic renewal:
In iTunes:
1. Click on your account
2. Select “Account Info”
3. Select Settings>Subscriptions and click “Manage”
4. Set Automatic Renewal to “Off”In iOS’ Apple Music app:
1. Tap your account
2. Tap “View Apple ID”
3. Select Subscriptions and tap “Manage”
4. Hit the toggle button to turn of automatic renewalSEE ALSO:
Apple Music has 15 million users in its first three months; plus how to turn off Apple Music auto renewal – September 22, 2015
I’ve been using the trial of Aplle Music. I just can’t get into it. It’s a confusing mess and requires far too much work from the user. I am signing up for Sirius Radio which I find better.
I jut don’t have the time to mess with Apple Music. It’s bloated and not user friendly. It’s like a comedy of horrors.
I hope in the near future Apple revamps so it’s much easier to use and better. At that point I’ll revisit it.
Are you Sirius? – I’m just joking, I had to be corny.
Didn’t try it. Not much interest in adding more subscription payments to my life, and I don’t listen to enough music outside of my own collection (which I also don’t listen to very often) to make it worthwhile.
Makes you wonder, though, if someone now instead started paying $120/year into a money market at age 20, how much would they have at retirement at age 70? (trick question – the answer is none – they were eaten by cannibals when civilization failed in the 2020’s).
I agree about subscriptions. The subscription revenue stream is the new hotness but all those subscriptions add up. I can’t believe I went back to ad supported Pandora. Thanks a lot Apple Music.
I’m signing up. I own six thousand individual songs and find great joy “filling in” partial albums.
I will never subscribe to music I will buy individual tracks until the day I die.
If I was to subscribe I would use Apple’s service, but I’m more interested in TV than music.
Good. I’m tired of the trial period STILL screwing with my library.
Sorry Apple Music is the worse interface I’ve ever used. I’m constantly thoroughly confused by it. Spotify is a joy to use. I was hoping to cancel Spotify and just use Apple Music but right now there’s no comparison. Hope you’re listening Apple.
Apple Music itself works quite well, but I keep losing Beats 1, just can’t find it, so I don’t even open iTunes anymore. Instead I play music from YouTube and listen local radio
The iTunes debacle continues. Eddie……Eddie…..Eddie! The botch boy strikes again!
I wonder if a year of music should be rolled in for
iPhone 6s buyers. Would make some sense.
I signed up for the family plan on day one. Confusing interface? Somewhat until you learn how to use it. Entire family loves it. It didn’t screw with my library a bit and I’ve got way more than 10,000 tracks allowed by iTunes Match. For me, it’s a winner.
As this phenomenon plays out, I’m wondering if closing Music accounts is going to damage people’s personal music collections. That would raise a hue and cry!
I cancelled out without even trying it. I don’t wear earphones and it’s too hard to use when my phone is plugged in to the stereo.