

Beats Music launches - aaronmoodie
http://www.beatsmusic.com

======
k-mcgrady
I've been using this for the last 4 or 5 hours. I'm not in the US but have a
dormant US iTunes Account so I was able to download it through that.

Design: Really slick. I like the Rdio app but recently it's been getting a bit
confusing. I've always hated the Spotify app even though I was a paying
customer since it first arrived in the UK. The Beats app admittedly has a lot
going on but I found it pretty easy to navigate and the artist page layout is
quite nice.

Features: The artist page actually recommends playlists to help you get
introduced to a new artist or the 'deep cuts' of an artist you already know
which I find quite nice.

Creating playlists is simple and unlike Spotify you can set a cover image and
a description.

The sentence based playlist feature (mad libs for music) works ok. It hasn't
thrown up anything completely wrong and I expect it'll get better over time.

The home page is kind of the best part of the app. It presents you with albums
and playlists you might like and seems pretty good at recommending stuff.

Overall I think they have two things up on everyone else: design and
playlists. On Spotify and Rdio finding good playlists is difficult. Spotify
has been getting better at this but it isn't great yet. Beats seems to have
spent a lot of time crafting A LOT of really great playlists and they seem to
be where I'm spending most of my time. The human curation thing seems to have
worked.

At this point it's hard to tell who'll come out ahead. Beats is ad-free but
subscription only. If they can convince people to pay for it (and I think they
might be able to through brand power/marketing) I think it'll be a good thing
for artists and might take away some of the stigma streaming music services
have with them. I think I'm going to continue using it as my main service but
at the moment I don't know how they will charge for it. It comes with a 7 day
free trial. Currently it's pretty easy to get around the US only limitations
but if their payment system restricts sales to US addresses I won't be able to
use it until it expands to the UK.

~~~
aaronmoodie
>> "Overall I think they have two things up on everyone else: design and
playlists. On Spotify and Rdio finding good playlists is difficult. Spotify
has been getting better at this but it isn't great yet. Beats seems to have
spent a lot of time crafting A LOT of really great playlists and they seem to
be where I'm spending most of my time. The human curation thing seems to have
worked."

Totally agree. Beats has taken the best of both of Rdio and Spotify, and along
with the human curation, built a pretty solid product.

The web interface leaves a lot to be desired at this point, but looking
forward to seeing what they come up with here.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Totally agree, the website is lacking compared with the app. I guess launching
solid apps on three separate platforms in the same week meant dedicating fewer
engineers to the website, hopefully it'll improve quickly. I do most of my
listening on my laptop and having to listen on my phone is quite annoying as
I'm using it for dev purposes all day.

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TomGullen
Not a fan of Beats. Tried a pair of their headphones in a shop and they
sounded terrible. Build quality was flimsy as well. I think the only new thing
they bring into the market is style, and that's not enough for longevity imo.

This new service, $10 a month. Not quite sure what it offers over Spotify.
Anyway, past experience with their product means I'm just not going to be
interested in this.

~~~
edgarallenbro
Beats are EQ'd to increase the volume of the high and low end frequencies.

These frequencies sound good to human ears.

So, when someone compares Beats to non-Beats, they hear that those frequencies
are louder and the very fact that there is a noticeable difference is enough
to create the illusion in some gullible people that Beats 'sound better'

Of course, in the long run, they don't.

~~~
timje1
I bought a nice, high quality pair of headphones and was disappointed to find
that sound was quite 'crisp'. Fortunately there's an equaliser in the Spotify
app... I cranked up the lower and highest end frequencies, and now Meshuggah
sounds nice and crunchy again.

I'm not defending Beats at all, but I'll defend that low frequency / high
frequency setup all day. Not everyone listens to classical.

~~~
JonnieCache
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-
loudness_contours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contours)

The problem is, a lot of modern music has this same curve (the "smile")
heavily applied to it already, so it can disintegrate into a mess quite
quickly.

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brentm
Whenever a brand like Beats lends their name to or builds a service like this
with a much hyped press launch I feel like it's almost always doomed. I tried
my account this morning and that's probably the end. It's just another
streaming radio app, nothing at all new. Their entire value claim is based
around the idea that not just an algorithm is picking the music, humans are
involved too. That's great, who cares? Humans are already involved for the
other radio apps, maybe not special "music experts" but direct plays on
Spotify are certainly factored into their radio algorithm. In fact it's more
democratized that way. This needed to be magnitudes better than Pandora,
Spotify radio and iTunes Radio to get anyone to care once the press goes away,
it does not appear that is the case. I will be impressed if anyone is still
talking about this in 3 months.

~~~
sbarre
Here's the thing though, they can bundle a free trial period (longer than the
default on the website) with every pair of Beats they sell, and they will
probably get enough adoption to keep going in the long run.

I forget the stats, but Beats headphones have a ridiculous market share...

~~~
brentm
I don't disagree with that. The brand is huge and will find a way to at least
keep the lights on here but how many people are really going to decide to
spend their $9.99 a month on this? Most people won't even pay Spotify $9.99 a
month for radio and a virtually unlimited music library since oh yea it's all
also available for free.

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phren0logy
I am (was?) a fairly happy MOG subscriber. Some thoughts:

1\. No way to transfer my MOG playlists and favorite bands/songs? That sucks.

2\. Tried to sign in through the AT&T family plan for 90-day free trial. Got a
text with a code, which AT&T says was accepted, and Beats says was not. ???

3\. No web-only option for $5/month. I suppose that was too much to hope for.

4\. No information about how the 5-person family plan works. Do we share one
login (and favorite bands)? I hope not; we have very different tastes.

This service seems really half-baked. Might end up being good, but for the
moment is behind were MOG was, which is pretty bad. MOG was basically a zombie
service for the last few months, as they obviously had all their attention
focused on this launch. The web interface never had basic stuff like their
featured playlists.

Here's to hoping they get it all ironed out.

~~~
warfangle
The AT&T trial ($15/mo) .. once you complete the trial, do you begin paying
Beats? Or AT&T? Is it included on your data plan, or does it supersede? This
whole thing strikes me as ... shady. But everything about the Beats brand
strikes me as shady.

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Raphmedia
I don't understand the text on the website. Is it some kind of attempt to look
funny? " home.whatever.p", "HOME.ELEGANT-AND-FUN.LI3.HEADING"... ?! Or is the
website completely busted right now?

Edit: What it looks like to me and everyone I asked to have a look. Big bug.
Can't even see the pricing.
[http://imgur.com/ydTIPso](http://imgur.com/ydTIPso)

~~~
warp
It's busted in firefox here, works in chrome.

~~~
Raphmedia
Eh, weird. Here, it's busted in chrome and works in FF.

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antoinec
Thanks for telling me that you are not available in my country AFTER I
register....

~~~
bestest
yeah, quite misleading:

AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE

and then:

HOLD UP. BEATS MUSIC IS NOT YET AVAILABLE IN YOUR COUNTRY.

very annoying.

~~~
jellicle
By "everywhere" it is meant "only in the United States".

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pla3rhat3r
The biggest issue I have with Beats (or any streaming music service for that
matter) is that it's just curating existing music. Even their tagline includes
the word "curating." This goes to the heart of what's wrong with the entire
music industry. It seems that the industry is happy with keeping things the
way they are instead of finding ways to be prolific. Curating what we already
have is not going to push the music industry forward. Hopefully Beats is
different than other music services and actually pays the bands. If not, who
gives a shit about another service trying to separate us from our money?

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sbarre
It looks like they are basically copying Songza's concierge model (which may
not be original itself but it's a pretty popular implementation of that
idea)..

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whizzkid
This looks to me more like an app designer/developer company's showcase than a
music service (sorry for being negative, i might still have the monday
feeling)

What are the advantages I will gain if I switch from Spotify?

\- The answer seems to be the nice layout!

What are the disadvantages?

\- Spotify gives me limitless account (with ads) for free, this one not.

\- Spotify is even available as a web app,and desktop client which i use most.
This one???

\- "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Swedish Store,
but it is available in the U.S. Store."

I am not trying to be disrespectful to what these guys had done. It looks
beautiful.

Music industry is really really tricking area when it comes to application
development. Even Spotify had hard times to make its service up and running
for years.

I might be totally wrong. That's why if you believe in something, just don't
mind negative people. keep going!

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "\- Spotify gives me limitless account (with ads) for free, this one not."

I'm happy about this. Maybe they can convince people music is worth paying
money for and instead of wasting time selling ads they can spend time and
money building a good product.

>> "\- Spotify is even available as a web app,and desktop client which i use
most. This one???"

It's available on Android, iOs, Windows Phone AND the web at
[http://listen.beatsmusic.com](http://listen.beatsmusic.com)

>> \- "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Swedish
Store, but it is available in the U.S. Store."

Like most music/video services it's launching in one location (US) and
planning to expand to others soon. e.g. iTunes Radio is still US only. Spotify
took years to branch out of Europe.

>> What are the advantages I will gain if I switch from Spotify?

After a few hours of use the main benefit seems to be playlists. I've
described how they work in another post on this thread so won't repeat but
they seem infinitely more useful to me on this than playlists on Spotify
(which I've been using for around 5 years).

~~~
whizzkid
Reasonable arguments I have to agree except the first one.

Spotify takes my time which is valuable to me instead of my money for the free
version, and I like listening those ads about the new released albums, not
really annoying. So "music is worth paying money" and they are getting money
from those ads because Spotify users listen them. Like youtube, but there you
don't earn anything though :)

Other than that, It is always good to have competitors and i wish them good
luck :)

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cmicali
Selection, UI, and curation/recommendation all are very good. I hope this
creates some competition for Spotify, because I think they need a fire lit
under their product plans. (It's 2014 and I still can't save a collection of
music outside of playlists)

But is it just me, or can you not fast forward / seek in Beats Music?

~~~
uses
You have to tap the "now playing tray", then there is a circular progress bar
which you must track your finger around. It's incredibly easy to move from 99%
to 1%...especially problematic when the circle turns into a volume slider.

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Dirlewanger
Nice website, recommendation seems kinda cool, but I'm sure like most people
here, I don't see this going too far.

>That’s why you’ll never hear an ad on Beats Music.

Yeah, that's not lasting.

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brady747
Seems that I can't 'shuffle' play my own library by genre (or 'mood'). Which
makes Beats about the thousandth company to not offer this (common sense?)
option. I can do this with Google Play Music (thankfully). Personally, there
are plenty of ways to get 'curated' music...make it easy for me to play what I
want.

Also, spent about 15 minutes on their site and still couldn't find the web
player...maybe launch day issue?

Edit: found listen.beatsmusic.com (thanks to a comment here)

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dtf
Is this the "Daisy" project?

~~~
josephagoss
Yes.

[http://evolver.fm/2013/08/09/project-daisy-gets-a-name-
beats...](http://evolver.fm/2013/08/09/project-daisy-gets-a-name-beats-music/)

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jccalhoun
So is this just basically MOG with a new name?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29)

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ohwp
Why would I like to listen to curated music !?

Problem is: I like some harcore, some jazz, some classical, some punk. Taste
is very personal. That's why I like to curate my own music.

~~~
JonnieCache
To branch out without getting completely lost, assuming that isn't what you
want.

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djim
their tagline/value statement is weaksauce: "A NEW MUSIC SERVICE CURATED BY
PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE MUSIC IS EMOTION AND LIFE." who gives a shit?

~~~
cliveowen
Beats me.

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jmcatani
"I'm at work and feel like saving the world with your ex to old school dance"
gives me some pretty funky jams. I am happy. Thanks Reznor!

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benjamta
Hmmm. I reckon I'm quite good at choosing the music I want to listen to. Not
sure I want to pay some one (or a service) to select music for me.

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jksmith
If the tracks are more than 5-10 cents a piece, what's advantage over what
I've been spoiled to (gomusicnow, and now iomoio)?

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zman0225
I bet every song is equalized with extra bass.

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sehr
Service is down right now, just returning standard JSON errors.

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paraschopra
Not available in India. Rats.

