“9to5Mac reported that Apple plans to “demote” Apple Music Connect — one of the most exciting features in Apple Music — in iOS 10,” Bryan Chaffin writes for The Mac Observer. “If accurate (like all of Mark Gurman’s reports, I frankly assume it is) this news is a major disappointment, and it should be taken as an embarrassment within Apple.
“In implementation and practice, it might be the most egregious failure of design in Apple Music, which is a pretty impressive achievement considering,” Chaffin writes. “Artists have complained about difficulty in posting content, which leads directly to fans complaining about there being too little content.”
“The point is that despite having all the promise of being awesome, Connect has failed, and that failure is all about implementation, not concept. Exclusive content from musicians is a no-brainer idea, but it never worked well in Apple Music Connect. For anyone,” Chaffin writes. “Apple Music Connect could have been great, and it should be great. It should be something I want to use. For that matter, Ping was also a great idea, though I may be alone in that assessment. But Apple isn’t willing to do what it takes to make Connect great. Instead, it’s going to be one of a long line of Apple software and services that is rolled out and ignored. Everyone and their brother is already saying it’s been “Pinged.” ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple is to social networking as oil is to water.
Apple doesn’t like to share and that, somehow, unfortunately, bleeds over into their projects meant to encourage their users to share.
It’s amazing that Apple can’t seem to recognize and correct whatever it is in their structure that is currently preventing no-brainer, easy-peasy, really-should-work projects like Ping and Connect to work as they should.
Apple desperately needs a VP who really understands social networking, approaches it from a user’s point of view, and has the power to “make it so” when it comes to projects like these.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tom R.” for the heads up.]
“Apple desperately needs a VP who really understands social networking, approaches it from a user’s point of view, and has the power to “make it so” when it comes to projects like these.”
I think that Apple’s silo’d, secretive, control freak management structure is really starting to become a serious impediment to success for any non-core product/service that can’t get management attention at the highest level.
There is nothing to understand lower security and make it free and you too can be big in social.
The only way they can succeed is to not care about people’s privacy like the other successful services. Personally I like that they actually don’t want my data and personal info. This stealing of our info is what helps Facebook and the like work – the more data they have the more they can taylor the experience and hook you in.
Thank you Apple for caring.
Wrong. Successful social networking does not have to sacrifice privacy – especially when, in the case of Apple, it does not rely on advertisers to exist. That is why Facebook, Google, etc. constantly overstep privacy bounds – it’s advertising driven.
Apple’s failure to make it easy for artists and fans to share is exactly that: Apple’s failure. Privacy has nothing to do with it.
The Artist agent or posse having a moment with you is worth nothing.
When was the last time Apple produced a successful software application?
I am thinking it would be around a decade ago, at least. It’s perhaps easier to list the failings:
– Final Cut Pro X: disastrous initial release, still awful. Hated by all but a few.
– iWork: Never cut it for work even before it was dumbed down. Not called iWork any more, for good reason
– iTunes: dog’s breakfast and has been for years
– Siri: cute but not useful. Development seems to have been abandoned some years ago
– iOS: minimally useful. Most noticeable by what is missing. Every app which works across OS/X and iOS is much better on OS/X – and often almost unusable on iOS.
– Photos: Changed but it’s not clear why.
Apple, actually, are hopeless at software development. They live in a bubble where no-one does any real work so even the design spec is hopeless, and then they just can’t execute. Apple is the only software vendor I have ever known to produce a backup application which only offers a temporary solution.
Which is fine if you never do any work worth saving.
But not otherwise. And then you need Office, OneDrive, Parallels and a proper backup app.
When my Mac Pro no longer cuts it, my next computer will be a Windows machine. The last time I bought one of those was in 1999. My first Mac was a revelation. My latest Mac a disappointment. (MacBook: very cute but useless for work if you type. Must be the very worst keyboard I have ever used on a computer, ever.
I bet Sir Jonathan doesn’t type. It’s likely no-one in his team does either…