I buy a lot of music. Let’s just say I’m confident that I personally skew the average to make up for those people who don’t buy music.
I haven’t yet embraced any of the many streaming music services for a few reasons. I like Pandora, but it’s too random. If I want to listen to Prince, then I want to listen to Prince. Not an occasional Prince song mixed with a bunch of artists I’ve never heard of that Pandora thinks might be similarly appealing.
When it comes to services like Spotify, my primary issues are lock-in to that specific app or service, and the limited inventory of artists. Most music services have an impressive catalog of artists on board, but each seems to lack key artists. I don’t want to listen to most of my music in one app, but then have to switch apps just to listen to certain artists.
That’s why I’m excited about the upcoming service from Apple, though. The rebranded Beats Music service is expected to launch sometime in the middle of this year, and there are a few reasons that [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]rivals like Spotify should be very concerned[/inlinetweet].
I wrote this blog post explaining why:
Last year Apple paid a lot of money to buy Beats—the iconic headphones and streaming music company founded by rap mogul Dr. Dre and music industry veteran Jimmy Iovine. This year, it plans to try and cash in on that $3 billion investment with its own streaming music service, according to a report from 9to5Mac. Rival services, like Spotify, better brace for impact.
Spotify and other streaming music services probably weren’t all that concerned with Beats Music as a standalone competitor. Beats Music has only a fraction of the subscribers that Spotify has. Spotify recently passed 15 million paid subscribers—with another 45 million or so using the free service.
Beats Music is about to change the whole game, though. When Apple launches its rebranded Beats Music service, competing services like Rdio and Spotify could be crushed.
[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Apple has a secret ingredient that rival streaming music services like Spotify and Rdio lack: it’s Apple.[/inlinetweet] Being Apple gives it three key advantages over the competition:1. Apple Ecosystem
Apple has a massive base of loyal customers. There are millions upon millions of people around the world using Mac PCs, iPhone smartphones, and iPad tablets. Part of what those customers buy into is the simplicity of the Apple ecosystem.
Individuals can use Spotify, Pandora , or other services on their Mac or iOS devices, and many do. According to 9to5Mac, though, this new Apple service will be woven into the default Music app on iOS as well as the iTunes desktop software. That alone will be a significant advantage for Apple.
Read the full article on Forbes to find out the other two reasons Apple is guaranteed to disrupt the streaming music market when it launches its service: 3 Reasons Apple Streaming Music Will Be Serious Threat To Rival Services.
Do you use Pandora, Spotify, or one of the other streaming music services? Are you a paying subscriber, or do you just use the free service? Do you plan to try the Apple streaming service when it launches? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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What you predict is only true to the extent that Apple makes it easy for Android devices to use the service. There are more Android and Windows users than there are in the “i” universe, so it will be interesting to see the adoption rate of non-Apple users. And I can’t see Apple having a “free” option, so that will also slow the adoption rate of those who are not Apple fans.
Good points. It will be interesting to see how–or if–Apple will offer its service across other platforms. I will say that there are far more iPhone / iPad users than there are Mac users–meaning most iOS users also run Windows, and use iTunes to some extent.
I have an iPhone 6 and I’m running Windows 10 on a Surface Pro 3, but I still use iTunes as my default music application because of the integration between the two, and the fact that it allows me to stream music from my Windows PC to AirPlay speakers through iTunes.
Yep, I agree. It needs to be convenient to use on Android. I am a paying subscriber to Spotify currently. But if Apple gets nearly universal artist coverage and Apple Beats (or whatever it’ll be called) is easy to use on Android, I’ll switch. And it will have to make high bitrate files available for streaming and local storage.
crapple is a parasitic, predatory company. When it needed someothers to use its products/services the encouraged them and when these became sucessful crapple looked to replace them with its copied offerings. They even made iTunes for the PC. What other software have they released for other platforms since then? None. Because they’re afraid of some competition. It’s one of those monopolies that should be crushed for the good sake of the rest. They’re opportunists and it’s a shame people are so brainless to consume its products, yes victims of their brain wash ads.
What do you suggest we use today when Apple’s app is broken and you can’t purchase any music?
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/apples-itunes-app-store-are-currently-broken/
Patience. Mostly I suggest you just wait a few hours and I’m sure it will all be worked out. Outages are not unique to Apple and none of the other music sites or services are immune. That’s just a reality we have to deal with for doing business online.