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Apple announces Apple Music radio

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31–40 of 62 posts

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#31

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.

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?

It's in the built-in music app, not something extra on the app store.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#32

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™…

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

Older US Country music is pretty popular globally. Modern country, less so, but the classics of the genre actually have really large global appeal.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#33
post #2

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 ra…

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.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#34
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.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#35
post #29

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...

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?

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#36

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.

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.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#37

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™…

But I'm not sure that geography is the best way to segment & present music going forward? I live in Texas, but that doesn't mean I'm always in the mood for Texas music.

This will be interesting to watch—variations in music scenes around the world have made music rich and diverse, but most artists now (at least attempt to) launch to a global audience. In this new scenario, the diversity I think pulls from being able to gain traction without going through the traditional gatekeepers. There's also a lot more interesting fusion happening as artists are exposed to so many other artists worldwide.

I do agree with your larger point that centralcasting can make for boring playlists, so this product isn't for me. But I've also found that there are people who don't want to do all the effort of discovery and curation of their music—they just want to hit play and have a soundtrack for the day going. This feels like Apple trying to solve for that use case.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#38

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™…

> People are different all over, they're not the same, so they don't all want the same thing

You are right, but right about the wrong thing.

A few weeks ago there was a submission here on HN about a site that shows a world map with the locations of radio stations with internet streams marked, and plays one at random from a circle around the center of the map.

I spent quite a while going all over the world at random listening to what their stations were playing.

Yes, I heard a vast difference between pop stations in the United States and pop stations in Australia and pop stations in England. I heard a vast difference between pop stations in different states in the US, too.

But I also heard a lot of similarity. No matter if I was listening to random stations in Russia, or South Korea, or Nigeria, or New Zealand, or various states in the United States, I heard a lot of the same artists.

So yes, people don't all want the same thing. But it seems that in most places there are enough people who do like the same thing enough to want to listen to it along with the things that are more specific to their region.

That's all that Apple needs to get listeners. They won't become the only station for many people, but they could easily become a station that many people around the world do regularly listen to in addition to stations that focus on their regional music.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#39
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.

Re: Apple announces Apple Music radio

#40

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™…

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

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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