Financial Times has some insight on what Apple’s new music streaming service will be all about. First off, it’s going to be named simply Apple Music, and secondly, Apple will be abandoning the brand name iTunes – it will use the name only for their online store.
Bold move Apple, a really bold move. Let’s see if the gamble is going to pay off.
Apple Music will not feature a freemium ad-based service, and it will try to steal loyal customers from other music streaming services by offering the first three months free. Afterwards, Apple will charge you $9.99 a month for their service. It’s quite nice actually, more so, Apple Music competitors only offer the first 30 days free.
Apple has the money to make such offers, and the popularity to garner a huge community. Spotify isn’t liking this one bit – more about how Spotify is counter attacking later in the article.
Apple Music will be based on their already built service Beats Music – the existing subscription service was bought by Apple last year. Beats Music was heavily praised by Apple executive for bringing the human touch back in the digital medium. This is what Apple is trying to bring back – peer curation. Apple Music will let users rate, and choose their favourites – it will also ask its users what are their favourite music genres, styles or bands, and it will recommend artists based on them.
Apple Music has one main goal – to help users discover new artists, and songs. Well, besides profits of course.
But what about Apple’s iTunes Radio? Completely forgot about it didn’t you? Well, rumours have it that it’s going to be completely revamped, and it’s going to serve as a gateway drug for people outside of the U.S. – Apple is trying to entice people who aren’t accustomed to paying for music. iTunes Radio is going to accompany Apple Music as a free service.
As the trend dictates, Apple will be trying to shine a bright light on their new Apple Music service by featuring popular DJ’s, celebrities, and artists. Apple has already hired several BBC DJ’s such as Zane Lowe to spread the word, and market their services in Europe.
Some of the celebrities who were photographed wearing Apple Watches ahead of its launch earlier this year, such as rapper Drake, will soon be acting as DJs on Apple’s new radio service, which will emphasise the personal tastes of artists over using algorithms to curate music, as Pandora does.
So you’ll be able to listen to what Drake is listening – pretty cool feature for die-hard fans.
We’ll hear more info after Apple’s WWDC keynote – it’s going to début with iOS 8.4
Now, at the beginning of the article I mentioned Spotify, and their plans on counter attacking Apple Music. They are devilish and ruthless – you have to be this way if you want to last in this horrible industry.
Rumours have it, from trusted sources, that Spotify has sent its dogs that led investigations from the EC and the DOC regarding the antitrust allegations. Apple now sports a fresh complaint, and of course Spotify is behind this one too. This is what the music streaming company states:
Apple charges a 30 percent fee toward any sales through its App Store, and that includes subscription services. That means if Spotify wants to sell its premium subscription service — which usually costs $9.99 a month — through the App Store, it has to raise the price 30 percent higher to $12.99 to pull in the same revenue, while Apple can still offer Beats at a lower price. Spotify and many others in the music industry believe Apple’s App Store tax gives them an unfair advantage over the competition.
Come to think of it, these are normal requests, and Apple seems to listen to these complaints. As a gatekeeper to a huge digital medium, Apple needs to pay attention and not become a dictator. More so, Apple Music is going to be released soon, and the company doesn’t want consumer backlash now, on the brink of releasing a new service.
It’s likely that Apple will forget the 30/70 fee, and will generally use the 15/85 method that has worked with HBO. Now, we don’t know if Spotify is going to like this – and my spider senses tell me that they won’t; but it’s a step forward.
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