
Apple Plans to Shut Down Beats Music? - coloneltcb
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/22/apple-plans-to-shut-down-beats-music/
======
jwcooper
This has been refuted by an Apple Spokesperson according to Recode [1]:

Tom Neumayr, Apple’s PR rep, says the TechCrunch story is “not true” but
wouldn’t go beyond that.

[1] [http://recode.net/2014/09/22/apples-beats-music-brand-may-
go...](http://recode.net/2014/09/22/apples-beats-music-brand-may-go-away-
apples-beats-music-service-is-sticking-around/)

~~~
vlunkr
Look like Tech Crunch updated their article to reflect that as well.

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eddieroger
> Instead of Beats Music, the Apple Watch features an unannounced music app
> with a blue play button (top right in the photo below) that instantly
> starting playing songs when tapped during a demo.

That's the current-day Remote (for AppleTV) icon in a circle instead of a
rounded rect. iTunes' logo is right there in the middle. This lack of research
makes me question the rest of the article, honestly. All of the post-Keynote
demoes were said to be non-working, so for the touch demoes, it could have
just started playing music for the sake of it, regardless of which icon was
tapped.

~~~
bitJericho
You should question anything coming out of techcrunch.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Especially considering their 'correction'.

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austenallred
I haven't opened iTunes in years other than to update software, and I would
imagine most people are in the same boat.

I used to take every penny I earned and dump it into the iTunes store. Now I
just pay $10/month to Spotify now and listen to whatever I want.

There used to be services like Napster 2.0 and Rhapsody that competed with the
iTunes store, but they didn't work well on iPods, and their selection of music
wasn't that great. Things are different now: Spotify is in a completely
different league. Perhaps Rdio is in the same boat - I've heard great things,
but I've never used it personally.

At the end of the day, unless Apple has a music solution that's somehow
cheaper/better than Spotify (which is possible, considering how it could be
integrated end-to-end with the iPhone itself), I'm done using Apple music
products.

~~~
Argorak
> I haven't opened iTunes in years other than to update software, and I would
> imagine most people are in the same boat.

I would hold my horses there, unless you have numbers.

> I used to take every penny I earned and dump it into the iTunes store. Now I
> just pay $10/month to Spotify now and listen to whatever I want.

Except quite a few important catalogs that Spotify doesn't have. Also, I've
hit quite a few instances of "this song was there yesterday!".

I went back to buying music.

~~~
bigdubs
This has been my experience as well; Spotify is great for pop music and more
mainstream things.

If one day you want a song that isn't on spotify, but it is on a free bandcamp
download, the whole house of cards crumbles (for me anyway).

If I have to keep iTunes around for random songs, I start to just buy albums
through that, and then I end up rarely using spotify.

Spotify has a huge selection, to be sure, and for most people it's more than
enough, but there will always be someone who isn't quite covered by the
catalog and they will generally just go back to using itunes / foobar /
whatever.

~~~
milesokeefe
Why don't you just download the song and import it into Spotify? Spotify plays
it like any other song and will even sync it with your devices like normal
songs.

~~~
vlunkr
I agree, Spotify is missing a few things that you want, so the solution is to
abandon it and buy all of your music instead? That doesn't make sense.

~~~
Argorak
Why? Standard trade comes with a lot of standard expectations: I buy, I own,
as long as I can make sure I don't lose it.

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ssharp
I was with Apple in the mid-2000's, when Jobs was insisting that people wanted
to "own" their music. This was when services like Rhapsody where the "big"
players in online music. I would occasionally join Rhapsody and enjoy it, but
it's mobile capabilities at the time were bad and devices like the iPod were
entirely offline. It made more sense to me to own my music files then.

By the time Spotify came to the U.S., my iPod was long retired in favor of a
smartphone, and I could get enough data on my plan to make mobile streaming a
very reasonable option. I haven't bought a track on iTunes in almost three
years now and give Spotify my money instead.

I'm really curious about how Apple is going to address the on-demand streaming
stuff. It seemed like Beats Music was going to be their entry in, but that's
now being shelved. Apple tends to think big and music has been a huge part of
their brand for 10+ years now, so I'm interested to see what they have planned
for early next year. It better be good!

~~~
LeoPanthera
I must listen to weird-ass music, because a good 40-50% of the music in my
iTunes library simply isn't on Spotify.

I think I would be OK with the Spotify model if the catalog was better.

~~~
SCdF
I had similar problems and moved to Google Play. They still have massive gaps,
but at least for me they're less massive? Play also lets you upload tracks,
which I confess I haven't done yet, but I should.

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anonmusicguy
Anon music guy here.

Apple will rename Beats to something else (tbd) -- it will become Apple's
streaming service.

Apple bought Beats _for_ the streaming music service -- to compete with
Spotify, which is quickly gaining market share.

~~~
brown9-2
It confuses me when people think there would be a single reason to the
acquisition, when instead they probably bought Beats for some combination of

1) a lucrative accessories (headphones) business

2) the Beats executives

3) a relatively small streaming service

~~~
edias
There's always more than one reason to justify the acquisition price, but
surely the desire to purchase in the first play is a bit more singular? Such
as wanting to jump start their streaming service in this case, and the rest is
just tangential benefits.

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fastest963
Apparently this is "not true". Source: [http://recode.net/2014/09/22/apples-
beats-music-brand-may-go...](http://recode.net/2014/09/22/apples-beats-music-
brand-may-go-away-apples-beats-music-service-is-sticking-around/)

------
wiremine
[http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/554222/20140530/apple-
beats-d...](http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/554222/20140530/apple-beats-deal-
dr-dre-ipod-itunes.htm)

"Apple's $3 Billion 'Beats' Deal Breakdown; $2.5 Billion for 'Beats
Electronics' and $500 Million for 'Beats Music'"

Sounds like they're killing two birds with one stone:

1\. Closing down a brand that completed with iTunes/iTunes Radio, likely to
merge streaming directly into the iTunes player. This makes sense, given how
un-Apple the current Beats UX is. [1]

2\. Re-position the Beats brand back to Beats Headphones. This is the money
maker anyways.

None of this feels surprising, does it?

[1] "I'm at a party & feel like BBQing with my BFF to Dance-Pop" does not feel
very Apple-esque to me personally.
[http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
BE268_012214_G_...](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
BE268_012214_G_20140121110305.jpg)

------
k-mcgrady
If this dies and doesn't just get rebranded I will be incredibly pissed off.
Beats is the only music service that has got it right. All the radio services
suck. Most playlists on Spotify suck. But when I open Beats I get a page full
of great album recommendations and wonderful human-curated playlists.

Honestly I'll be surprised if it just disappears. In interviews Apple exec's
have been very effusive about Beats curation and how good the service is. As
much as I hope it doesn't die I also hope they don't just through it into
iTunes. The other thing Beats got right was the UI.

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jonnathanson
Apple still makes a lot of money selling tracks on the iTunes store. My guess
would be that it's going to roll out a streaming service, but on its own
terms. This probably means renegotiating a lot of the music rights previously
negotiated by Beats, and starting with a clean slate. Apple probably figures
it can get better terms from the labels than Beats did.

Part of me thinks that the only reason a la carte purchasing still exists is
because there is no way to get everything from one streaming service. To use a
TV example: I can't get most HBO shows on Netflix; ergo, I use Netflix and HBO
Go. Same thing with Showtime, so I use Showtime's app as well. And some things
I can't get anywhere through a streaming service, so I buy them. I'm not
buying a la carte because I feel the need to "own" things. I'm buying a la
carte because the fragmented streaming landscape has significant gaps in its
coverage. What I'm really doing, when I buy, is covering those gaps _and /or_
hedging against the risk that something I love might go away on my streaming
services.

My wild hunch is that Apple realizes as much, and it's moving to get as much
content as possible under new license before it reveals its streaming service.
It knows that a streaming service, in 2014 or 2015, needs to be as selection-
complete as humanly possible. And anything not on its streaming service needs
to be for sale on iTunes. It's very hard to thread that needle when you're
working with legacy licenses under two different entities, presumably
applicable only to those individual services.

------
LeoPanthera
Tim was enthusiastic about Beat's curated playlists in a recent interview, so
if they do kill off the Beats brand, it will probably be so they can move the
curated music stuff into iTunes Radio, which is ad-free with an iTunes Match
subscription.

I can see iTunes Match morphing into a kind of Amazon Prime like offering,
where a bunch of premium services are all rolled together.

~~~
pbreit
Yeah, I'd easily pay $99 per year (or whatever) for some iCloud premium
features, streaming music, iWork and (to lesser extent), Match.

------
drzaiusapelord
I don't have much to add, but this weekend I was buying headphones at
Microcenter. My wife wanted a pair of noise cancelling headphones for flying
and I want bluetooth headphones for easier dog walking (leash + headphone
cables = ouch).

The Beats headphones were all locked up and, holy hell, the pricetags on them
were ridiculous. $299 and up? I ended up getting a pair of $35 BT headphones
and a pair $99 Creative noise-cancelling headphones.

I can certainly see how Apple is drawn to that brand. What's it cost to make
even a premium set of headphones? Maybe a tiny fraction of $299? Apple
probably got sick of seeing Beats eat up the high-end for what, I imagine, is
used mostly on iOS devices. Beats Music might just be an free extra and
ultimately a casualty here. Cheap earbuds that come with your iOS device or
Beats at the Apple store make sense for the conspicuous consumer. The profit
margins must be impressive.

~~~
tr23
[http://allhiphop.com/2014/05/13/dr-dres-beats-by-dre-cost-
an...](http://allhiphop.com/2014/05/13/dr-dres-beats-by-dre-cost-an-
estimated-14-to-make/)

You are paying mostly for marketing.

------
codva
Count me among the apparent minority that still wants to own my music. I only
own about 400 albums and way too many of those get ignored for months, if not
a year+, at a time. Streaming just gives me even more choices that I don't
really need.

~~~
dasil003
Streaming is the unfortunate intersection of industry desire for control and
consumer friendliness.

Most people don't really care enough to curate their collection of music (and
even if they do a playlist fits the bill), they just want to be able to listen
to whatever they want whenever they want. Although the benefits of owning the
music are real, they are sort of intangible in a digital world where a good
chunk of people are one hard-drive crash away from losing all their data.

This makes me sad because owning music—especially whole albums w/ artwork—is
something I cherish. But I'm pretty sure this makes me some combination of
hipster and old man that is totally irrelevant to the future of the music
marketplace.

------
jcavin
I am curious if they plan to incorporate streaming into the itunes. With
spotify blowing up it would be great to offer the best of both worlds, which
would be streaming and owning mp3.

If they plan on just shutting the whole thing down, I think it is a big
mistake. Streaming music has entered people's lives in a big way and will only
become more widely used.

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pptr1
This is a pretty expected move on Apple's part. There typical MO is to
assimilate the company entirely.

The only reason Beats headphone is still around, is because it is generating
revenue and will offset the cost of the acquisition. As soon as they are ready
to start producing new headphones in production, you will see Beats headphones
shut down quietly.

------
PolandKid
They did the same thing after acquiring LaLa (A great cloud music site they
shuttered in 2010)

~~~
tjakab
I believe LaLa was the foundation for iTunes Match and iTunes Radio.

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fabrika
I was hoping they will rebrand iTunes into Beats, iTunes feels really tired as
a brand. Beats is fresh. But I guess I was wrong, let's see what they will
come up with. All new iTunes with curated playlists would also be great.

~~~
encoderer
IMHO, that would be incredibly foolish. Business 101 here. You don't throw
away a billion dollar brand. What you call "tired", I call 90%+ brand
awareness.

(Found a 2008 study with iTunes at 82% awareness).

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mark_l_watson
It makes sense to keep the brand unified.

BTW, I just renewed iTune's premium $25/year service after not having it for a
while. I wonder if more streamed content will be included with that.

~~~
mullingitover
iTunes Match includes iTunes Radio, which is Apple's streaming offering.

I just canceled auto-renew and wouldn't touch iTunes Match ever again even if
they paid me $100 a year. Match was nothing but headaches for me, there are
mounds of complaint-filled threads on Apple's forums about all the bugs with
the service (one favorite was that it just randomly fails to match and doesn't
upload about 25% of your library). For example, I disabled Match on my phone,
went back to good ol' syncing, and tried to sync a couple albums over. 24
hours later I'd reinstalled iOS 8 from scratch _twice_ due to syncs failing,
Match automagically re-enabling itself and filling my phone's disk with
unremovable corrupted data...so much rage.

Apple just needs to stay out of the online services game. There's a saying:
figure out what you're bad at, and don't do that. Somebody needs to send Apple
the memo.

------
orik
I heard an advertisement for Beats Music on the radio last night and was
wondering why Apple hasn't rolled it into iTunes yet.

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sigmar
I guess putting the suggestion algorithm into iTunes will mean that android
users will miss out

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IBM
I suspect iTunes will be next on apps that get burned down and rewritten
(after Photos).

~~~
abakker
I hope so. It is really terrible when music libraries get large. Its browsing
model just doesn't handle large libraries or library catalogs well. Just
upgrading the library, version to version takes me 30+ minutes at this point.

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rahilsondhi
If you're interested in building in this space, let's talk :)

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LeicaLatte
Of course they are going to relaunch it. With U2 this time -
[http://fdrmx.com/u2-and-apple-reveal-next-surprise/](http://fdrmx.com/u2-and-
apple-reveal-next-surprise/)

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roberte
Beats is a great brand, they should retire iTunes instead.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Given recent announcements (Apple Watch, Apple Pay), a likely name would be
"Apple Music". Would that be permissible under their contract with Apple
Records?

~~~
snowwrestler
Apple Inc. owns the trademark now so they can pretty much do what they want,
I'd think.

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phusion
I'm sure both of the beats music users will be in tears.

At any rate, no one is surprised that apple is taking a big 'ol BM on Beats
Music :)

