Usually, when Apple takes the stage to unwrap their latest new offering, the criticism is simple - It looks great, but it won’t “just work” the way they promise.
Yesterday, I think the opposite took place.
There is an abundance of commentary happening about Music; ranging from what Eddy Cue was wearing to labeling it Ping 2.0. And I’ll quickly admit my own head-scratching at what played out on stage. Unlike everything that came before it at the keynote, Tim Cook’s “One More Thing…” was a mess of bad presentation. Rambling and failing to find it’s structure, it was clearly lacking the polish that the first half had.
But underneath it, I believe, is a compelling product.
While there are many questions left to be answered (again, the fault of faulty presenting) from what I can see, I like the ideas Apple is putting forward.
Specifically, it’s "one app to rule them all."
One of the biggest reasons I’ve never made it past the dabbling phase with Spotify, Rido, or even Beats, was the daunting task of re-establishing my music library. I have playlists I like and don’t want to have to re-build. I have lots of my own music that often streaming services don’t offer. iTunes has the advantage of being my established music repository for over a decade and I don’t want to lose the play counts and star-ratings I’ve been collecting. Maybe those things don’t matter to someone just getting onto a mobile device (which is perhaps why Spotify works for younger listeners) but for me it’s been a limiting factor. What it’s always lacked is “discovery” and that’s what Music will hopefully bring in spades. And while the social aspects may have a “tried and failed” history to overcome, if it can enhance my experience without getting in the way, I think there’s room.
That all said I think there are a couple of things that would be needed to really make this work (and maybe these all exist but got lost in the poor messaging.)
Make the “Connect” easy to populate. I don’t want to have to “set-up” another social network. Apple has years of my listening history at it’s disposal, so put it to work. Make it so I automatically follow my top 15 - 20 most played artists. Then offer me occasional posts from similar artists with a quick “follow” button. Same on Beats1 radio - give me a quick way to “follow” artists I like, but don’t make me “set it up.” If they’re really ambitious, use my Twitter data and import those too.
Make discovery as good as Netflix. Much easier said than done, but the Netflix recommendation engine is first in class for one big reason - it doesn’t try to “understand” but instead uses venn diagrams to get me things I’ll like. Don’t bother with “same genres” or look for similar musical note patterns. Just take all that buying data you have for millions of users and tell me what everyone that buys what I buy bought but I didn’t. It’s that simple (in theory).
And one other request - can you please make my viewable music filter dependent on my connection type? I have iTunes Match today and I like that I can get at my entire library without having to download it all. But I would LOVE if you only showed me that when I’m on wifi. Right now, that option is binary regardless of my connection. But I would LOVE if I could only see my downloaded music when on cellular and all my streaming only when I’m on wifi. It’s the little things.
Perhaps one of the very few things Apple has lost in the post-Jobs era is that polished showmanship. The Watch introductions suffered the same rambling and rocky start, but I have been loving mine so far. I’m hoping the same is true for Music. That long after the sloppy keynote is over Apple will ship a product that, in use, has a solid, compelling foundation and a is a platform that will mature well.
We’ll find out June 30th when I have no doubt so many will be starting our 3 month free trial.
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