
Apple announces Apple Music radio - todsacerdoti
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/08/apple-announces-apple-music-radio/
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avolcano
They've been running Beats 1 for the last 5 years (now rebranding to just
Apple Music 1). I like the idea of a pop & pop-adjacent radio station with a
lot of different shows for different subgenres (it's obviously patterned after
BBC Radio 1), but it never seemed to have the "right" mix of variety, and
unlike Radio 1 it didn't really have any tentpole stuff to center around (like
e.g. Essential Mix), just a lot of random short-lived celebrity-presented
shows. Adding country and pop hits stations isn't exactly going to improve it,
but I assume that's for people who found it a bit too left-field.

Kind of astonished it's quietly been on air for so long, and I wonder if the
rebranding means they're actually going to revitalize it in some way or if
this is just going to lead to them quietly dropping the more interesting
aspects of it.

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tarentel
I listened to it a lot when they launched but the problem with it is they
really treat their shows as live radio. There's no way to save them or
subscribe and get notifications when they're live. There is no way to follow
them. Searching for them is weird. Discovery is also awkward. There were and
probably still are a lot of good shows but good luck figuring it all out.

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bredren
I was listening when Beats 1 came on air, the song they played just prior to
the start was Music For Airports by Brian Eno. That influenced me to include
it in our Burning Man art this past year. [1]

I've subscribed to Apple Music since the start, but apart from a massive
catalog, I can't help but feel that it is a neglected product.

Apple put Jimmy Iovine in charge of that business, presumably because the
company needed industry legitimacy and the connections he had.

However, I do not think Iovine or his lieutenants were music "fans", which are
people who for personal reasons intentionally seek out new artists, listen to
them and share their picks with friends.

I think this lack of familiarity with the customer and how to connect with
them through mobile software products led to the state it is in now.

What is strange to me is that Apple Music as an application has not improved.
The views do not pre-cache, so they are the slowest loading of any app on my
iPhone. Apple Music often fails to perform searches properly.

Despite the volume of data Apple had from my music preferences _before_ Apple
Music existed, the recommendation engine is still no good, and the music
curation lacks any semblance of personality.

When I ask Siri to play a song, it sometimes feels like Apple Music tries to
play a version of the song that has a lower licensing fee than the one I'm
actually after. This is total conjecture, but I would not be surprised.

That Spotify has done as well as it has is more a credit to the failure of
Apple Music to materialize into something at all representing the vast beauty
and detail of music.

I occasionally have tuned into Beats 1, especially if there was an artist
interview I wanted to hear. But I really did not like the vibe of Zane Lowe. I
felt like he was always fawning over the artists and he interrupts them while
they're talking.

Hopefully, these minor radio changes are indicative of a larger changes coming
to the Apple Music product as a whole.

[1] [https://skylarkcollective.com/blog/](https://skylarkcollective.com/blog/)

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finnh
To say that Jimmy Iovine isn't a music fan ... that's a weird thing to say.

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bredren
I don’t think he looks at music and browsing for new music in a remotely
similar way to an average person.

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reaperducer
_Apple today announced two new live global radio offerings_

...and that's where you lost me.

Global radio doesn't work. Hundreds of companies and thousands of people have
tried it, and it's never worked. People are different all over, they're not
the same, so they don't all want the same thing.

I stopped listening to the BBC World Service when it stopped being about
Britain and started being "The world's radio station™," because it just got
boring and repetitive.

"Centralcasting" is what almost killed radio in America the 1990's.
Jacor/Clear Channel ate hundreds of stations across the country and had a
computer in Kentucky decide what music should be played for an entire nation.
It didn't work. People flocked to iPods and streaming to get away from the
homogeny. Those stations that kept true to their local content survived, and
some thrived.

Even Sirius learned this with its satellite radio stations, and the DJs no
longer pretend to be some monolithic continental presence in the sky, and
instead talk about wherever they're broadcasting from, and some even bend the
playlist to match their geography, so it changes through the day as they
switch from a host in Detroit to one in Boston to one in DC to one in L.A.
When I was in broadcasting it was called a POD — Point Of Difference. Why can
DJ A give me that DJ B can't?

KCSN/Northidge and WXRT/Chicago are both AAA radio stations, but they don't
play the same songs. They're tailored to what their LOCAL audiences like.
That's a good thing. Apple Global Mega Huge Music One has no local audience,
and zero feedback other than a subscriber count.

When I listen to a pop station in London, I hear different music than when I
listen to a pop station in Los Angeles or Melbourne. That's good. I listen to
music from stations all over the world, and in genres I don't ordinarily like,
simply because I enjoy the discovery of new songs and artists that I never
heard of.

Apple has enough money to keep this online for a very long time, even if no
one listens. But why? Who is it good for? Aside from a branding exercise, or
trying to give one more checkmark for its bundled services package, what's the
point?

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SirHound
If they were being globally-minded about these "global" stations, Country
would _not_ be the second station they make. What a misfire.

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reaperducer
_If they were being globally-minded about these "global" stations, Country
would not be the second station they make. What a misfire._

I think you're letting you biases show. I've heard country music on radio
stations from Germany to Japan to Mexico. There are even country music artists
from Europe that show up on American radio stations.

I think Apple has enough data and enough smart people looking at that data to
know what genres to pick.

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SirHound
I really don't understand what they've done with the Beats brand. They've
released a handful of headphones (that in my experience have suffered an array
of technical faults compared to reports from Airpods users) and Beats 1. Now
they're killing off the latter.

It clearly fits into the Music product better but even after the corporate
takeover there was something cool about "Beats" as a brand. It even sounded
good in the stings. Oddly this is currently in Music as "Apple Music Beats 1"
next to Hits and Country, which is even worse than one or the other.

The visual branding of all three stations is amateur too. Quite clearly so
next to the Beats branding.

I wonder what the real success of the station has been - it seems to have all
the right ingredients even if I'm not that interested after Julie left. It's
always seemed a little discard by Apple, as it often is with these big tech
companies and their side projects. If this was a business in its own right, as
with Apple Music, I assume there'd be more publicity and a more competitive
product.

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hehsjsbb
Beats One was supposed to be a differentiator for Beats before it was acquired
(I worked on it). The point was that it would be unique content you couldn't
get from a commodity streaming service, and the hosts would bring an existing
fanbase.

My impression is post-acquisiton Apple figured their brand would be sufficient
to differentiate them, so they kind of stopped caring about the very high-
touch work involved in curated radio. I think at this point it makes sense to
view Apple Music as "commodity music streaming but it's apple, so it's
preloaded, etc."

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thrwn_frthr_awy
Beats 1 has been the free version of Apple Music service for some time, but no
one really knew that because of disjointed marketing/branding. This is a good
step in unifying the services into a cohesive set of offerings.

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at-fates-hands
That's an interesting point.

I just switched back to iOS about a year ago and I haven't seen an ad for it
in the app store or had it recommended for any of the music players I've test
driven since I switched back.

I'm not sure if that's just bad marketing or is it Apple not pushing its own
products in the app store?

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pwinnski
If you launch the pre-installed Music app and tap over to "Radio," you'll see
it (now them) front and center.

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gdilla
If you haven't listened to Soulection (radio show every saturday on beats 1
and archived on soundcloud), stop what you're doing and add that to your life.

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avolcano
Thanks for this rec! I see it's also actually archived on Apple Music as well,
which is nice. Really wish Beats 1 surfaced their non-celeb-hosted shows
like... literally anywhere in the Browse interface.

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js4ever
I wonder if all radio apps like TuneIn will be banned from the app store
because they will directly compete with an apple software, I believe I saw
this clause in the apple TOS...

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shbooms
if this were in fact true, wouldn't Spotify have been banned long ago for
competing with Apple Music? Google Maps vs Apple Maps, etc?

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akshayB
They need to re-ramp the UI/UX on Apple music app. I have been using it for
fairly long time and you can see how other competition like Youtube/Spotify
have much nicer recommendations and ease of use. Some sort of streamline and
unification needs to happen.

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jasonlotito
I try Apple Music about once a year. Only when they are offering a free trial.
I always cancel the trial quickly. Apple Music is just bad. Ignoring my
experience with a privacy violation that still makes me question Apple's
commitment to privacy, nothing about Apple Music is enticing. Ignoring the
confusing UI, music discovery is awful.

Apple has a large selection of songs it can pull from to know what I do and do
not like, and could easily recommend things for me. The last time I checked
out the recommendations, they were awful. Spotify? Spot on. =) Also, Spotify
is just available everywhere I want it. Apple? Pretty much "Apple brand" or
nothing. Apple is not the end-all of my universe. I'm sure Apple Music is fine
if you _ONLY_ use Apple products or listen via Apple approved products, but no
one I know does that. Not even the iOS developers I know.

Anyways, even if you are a fan, you have to admit their offering is pretty
lame.

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parasubvert
I have to disagree pretty strongly. I have both Spotify and Apple Music, and
the latter has spot on recommendations, sound quality, and the far better UX
for me. Probably 80% of my listening time is in Apple Music. TIDAL seems
better for lossless/master quality in my stereo setup but is really expensive,
so I only sign up occasionally.

The only reason I use Spotify is sharing playlists with friends or on social
media, which is something Apple Music recently added, but isn’t widely used. I
will admit that Spotify has nailed The music sharing UX.

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jasonlotito
I just opened up Apple Music to see if it changed much. I tapped on a song to
play. Instead of playing, I got a full screen ad.

A full screen ad. For Apple Music. The app I'm in.

Edit: And I want to make sure I'm clear here. I pay for iTunes Match. I have a
nice music library, and it's in iTunes, so I like having it with me where I go
when I want to listen to something from that. So, I'm in Apple Music, trying
to play music I own. And it's synced through a service I've already paid for.
And Apple has the audacity to ask for more money? Stop me from playing my
music after I've already paid them and deal with an annoying full-screen popup
Ad.

Opened Spotify, and is synced up with what my Desktop is doing.

It's fine you disagree. It's just Apple has done everything they can to make
me hate using Music.

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parasubvert
It's fine you hate using Music, but at least be honest about the situation:
You want it without paying for it.

You're not paying for Apple Music. Apple Music costs the exact same price as
Spotify Premium: $10 a month, or $15 for a family.

You're paying for iTunes match which is an annual fee of $25 that lets you
play your CD-ripped library anywhere without transferring the files. Go to
your Library, play your music, relax, this is what you paid for.

To suggest that somehow you're entitled to free Apple Music because you pay an
annual fee of a separate product, is disingenuous.

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maxdo
Trying to understand. In a world of gazillions of radio shows online on so
many platforms including direct and indirect competitors, with traditional
shows going online, with platforms like pandora. Why two radio stations from
one big company is such a big deal?

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hankchinaski
i’ve used apple music for a couple of months and i don’t understand why people
use it compared to spotify. the UI is awful and buggy. the UX is horrific.

~~~
jeffhuys
Spotify is extremely slow and battery-draining on my 6s. I don't want the
random videos that play either. I also want the integration between my mac,
apple tv, watch and iphone.

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easton
For that specific complaint, the videos can be disabled in Settings ->
Playback -> Canvas.

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dpweb
I don't see celebrity shows as attracting a big audience. I have to like the
celebrity, to want to listen. They should try to break new music. Like The
Weeknd will preview his new song/album LIVE here, before it goes on the
streaming services.

Plus, if you take EDM/dance genre for instance. All the big shows/DJs play the
same current hits. There are lots of less known tracks that come out that a
DJ/show could break.

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joecool1029
Shoutcast has been a thing for near a quarter of a century. I don't see how
this compares favorably at all. I have been streaming Shoutcast stations on
phones since the late 2000's back on featurephones.

iOS I'm currently using 'radio.net' for a Shoutcast client, Android I use
Radiodroid. Tons of stations across pretty much any genre. Lots of FM stations
that simulcast on here as well.

Is there something I'm missing about Apple's service that doesn't even provide
a way to play old shows? Are they trying to do live streaming as a creative
way to skirt licensing costs (like how FM stations don't pay a penny to play
songs). I seem to recall soma.fm and di.fm shoutcast stations trying to lobby
and get fair licensing structures, and they still pay $$$ to keep their
services up.

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dewey
That's not really what the product is about. They already had Beats 1 Radio
before which is just like a regular radio station but with well known hosts
they hired.

Some shows that were on-air are usually available as on-demand after the show.

If you are not looking for the exclusive shows or you want to avoid switching
to a different apps it's probably not a product for you.

~~~
joecool1029
Thanks for the clarification, I looked into it a bit more and it looks like
what you get on the radio section is a Shoutcast client with 3 exclusive
stations. I would assume the integration is a better feature sell than the
exclusivity agreements. It seems more of a cheaper competitor to SiriusXM when
viewed this way, where instead of leaning on the Shoutcast broadcasters to
fill in a sparse radio section, they actually run a bunch of their own curated
stations.

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afwaller
Looks like they’re killing off the beats brand…

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BitwiseFool
I was confused as to why Apple would buy beats as a brand when they were
clearly planning around AirPods and Apple Music. I'm sure that combo would
have beaten Beats with enough time.

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cityzen
It was more about Jimmy Iovine and Dre and less about headphones. They had a
star team, Ian Rogers, Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre and Trent Reznor as creative
director... and somehow we ended up with Apple Music. _sigh_

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bdcravens
While the sales side of things is pretty despicable, Sirius XM is pretty nice
(an online subscription is only $8 a month). I also subscribe to Digitally
Imported (electronic music, with dozens of genre-specific channels), a service
I've listened to since the early 90s, for about the same price point.

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teejmya
_“feature exclusive original shows from the world’s top music hosts and
artists”_

Do we need to worry about podcasts?

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chappi42
Mafia

