The thing about Apple's 'one MORE thing'? It's a streaming music thing Apple CEO Tim Cook closed out the WWDC keynote today with a typical "one more thing" non-surprise: a Spotify clone that just about everyone in the entire world knew was coming. Dubbed Apple Music, the service will combine music-streamed-over-the-internet with a round-the-clock live radio station and media-sharing service for …
Yes. And patented. Spotify and the like will regret stealing the intellectual property of Apple, the team of high powered lawyers are ready and waiting. Perhaps the idea of music streaming came to Steve in 1978, when he made that trip to mount Sinai, and returned with round cornered tablets. Of stone.
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It would be nice if it could cache a few days' worth so you could load it up on wifi and have it play when you're on vacation without needing cellular data or when out of cellular range.
Most streaming services have too many annoying restrictions in how that works because the labels are super paranoid about people copying the cached music. Since iOS doesn't allow access to the filesystem maybe Apple was able to negotiate a more sane implementation.
It would be nice if it could cache a few days' worth so you could load it up on wifi and have it play when you're on vacation without needing cellular data or when out of cellular range
Errr..... That's why you load up itunes (purchased or ripped from CD) on your iPhone/iPad/iPod with your songs before you go on holiday. Saves a packet in Data charges.
My iPod Touch(circa 2009) was loaded with a good part of my music collection before I went on a 3 week trip to the US. Large parts of the Western states have no mobile coverage let alone half decent 3G let alone 4G services expecially if you are on T-Mobile so an MP3 player is the only way to go.
Frankly I don't see the point of streaming services. First you have to pay for the stream then you have to pay your mobile company for the data it graciously lets you recieve. But hey, each to their own though.
I fully expect one (or more) wags to be along soon predicting that the advent of Apple Music will allow Apple to reduce the amount of storage on their iDevcies thus boosting their H/W profits even more. The 9Gb iPhone is not a thinkg of the past folks!
Err...you do realise you can download songs/playlists on Spotify so these can be played offline?
Maybe do some research or at least try a streaming service before ridiculously slating them.
Have fun ripping your CDs and carrying around another device with you for your music...
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Well the problem with the idea of using downloaded music I own or "own" is that I have to bother to find/purchase/download it. I haven't purchased much for some time and haven't bothered to download anything illegally in over a decade. So if I want to hear much of anything recent, streaming is the only way, or spend a lot of time/money getting it.
No, no need for a separate device, I have a 32GB SD card in my One M8, I find it can hold way more songs than I ever actually need it to. I have an aversion to the idea of renting music that doesn't bother me so much with films and Netflix. Firstly due to me being far less likely to want to stream films when I'm not within range of wifi, and secondly being the wrong side of 40 I've always bought music on physical formats. I have CD's I bought over 20 years ago that I still love. Renting music somehow makes it feel disposable to me.
And you know the thing about all those CD's I buy...? They're all still sat there on my shelf even without paying an ongoing subscription to anyone! And I don't need any particular setup to listen to them - I can play them in my car, other people's cars, other people's houses etc, with no fuss. They're often cheaper to buy than the equivalent download (especially 2nd hand), and when I'm at home with access to proper speakers, they sound infinitely better than MP3/AAC.
This does not excite me at all, even though I'm fully bought into the apple eco system, with 5 iphones, 5 iPads, 3 macbooks, 4 apple tvs etc for our small family.
What I really want and would be happy to pay for, would be for multiple hd music video channels with surround sound, sky beacause of their obsession with football wasting literally billions on this, provide awful music oriented channels, poor quality only 1 hd channel and worst of all constant highly irritating advert breaks, this realy makes me hate sky, especially after paying them £120 per month for 3 multiroom hd service. You tube is a pain in the arse to watch for music constant searching required and often the quality is appalling, their paid for service which they have been talking hot air about for ages, is still not available in the uk! Also I buy lots of music videos on itunes, what surprises me is how limited the choice is there, with big hits often not available.
gary27 wrote:
This does not excite me at all, even though I'm fully bought into the apple eco system, with 5 iphones, 5 iPads, 3 macbooks, 4 apple tvs etc for our small family.
I'm assuming; you the missus and 3 kids? And you and her indoors share one of the Apple TVs? Sounds like you need another one for your shed (and your sanity).
But back to the streaming service, <yawn>, sorry.
Errr - Someone missed something, but the paid for version of Spotify has offline ability across all it's Apps. I regularly offline stuff to listen to in the car for example.
If the Apple Music service matches Spotify for Artists, does offline AND I can just listen to Albums (not yet another Radio station) then at $14.99 for the whole family that's going to shake things up. Spotify is £14.99 for me + wife, would add about £10 for the kids...
It's not groundbreaking but the feature list looks good, Family subscription option for 6 people is good. Radio stations with unlimited skipping is good.Unlimited listening from the Apple Music library (which I hope means ad-hoc selection from the iTunes catalog), with the ability to save for offline listening. Adding Android devices is icing on the cake for my One M7 and my sons' Tab 4.
"Apple has promised that songs uploaded by independent artists will be given consideration for broadcast on the service alongside titles from acts signed to record labels" probably translates as 'one or two tracks a week max, for which you won't be paid because of the exposure we're kindly giving you'.
I've been reading some bogus claims that Apple Music will allow users to listen to "almost every song ever." This is complete bull, as I own loads of music that no streaming service has available. First of all, there's a lot of music that has never been released digitally, and a lot that's long out of print. Then there are small, indie releases which are pretty obscure. Apple's collection and mine don't actually overlap all that much.
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