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Why Apple Music Is More Than A Streaming Service [Video]

By Kevin Carneglia
Published on: 05:39 PST, Jun 9, 2015

If you ask Jimmy Iovine (founder of Interscope Records as well as co-founder of streaming service Beats Music), music is about far more than selecting songs based on algorithms. The music label legend told the Wall Street Journal exactly why he doesn’t believe in using machines to select songs.

“You put Paul Simon into a playlist. An algorithm will tell you that the next song is Art Garfunkel… But it’s not the next song to play. Ask Paul Simon that. They play different kinds of music for different moods.”

Iovine, whose company, Beats Music, was recently purchased by Apple, will be bringing that same philosophy to Apple’s new streaming service, Apple Music. So if Apple Music isn’t just another streaming service, what exactly is it? The answer is still somewhat obscured, but USA Today did discover some of the service’s new features at a private event held by Apple. The new Beats One Radio will replace iTunes Radio with a (free for use) live radio station curated by actual humans rather than computer programs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfInYY-oPqk

As Iovine mentioned, the great thing about Apple Music’s human input is that there can be actual emotion and thought put into selecting each song. This would give listeners more accurate suggestions when compared to, say, the Music Genome Project, which is more geared towards predicting what listeners might want using formulas (sorry, Pandora). Apple Music sounds interesting in and of itself, but if you weren’t convinced yet, Apple isn’t above a little name-dropping to get their point across.

According to Apple Music’s official Twitter, iOS users can get their hands on Apple Music starting June 30 of this year. Even though the service hasn’t officially come out yet, rival streaming service Pandora’s stock prices have already taken a beating. Surprisingly enough, most musicians seem to be okay with jumping aboard the Apple Music bandwagon, at least for now. Lady Gaga even left a congratulatory note for the people responsible for Apple Music on Twitter.

If you’re interested in Apple Music, the service will run you $9.99 per month, the same monthly cost as Spotify Premium. Alongside Apple Music is Connect, a sort of music-based social network where fans can see new stuff their favorite artists are releasing, share, comment, or like each musician’s posts, and check out things like unreleased demos or acoustic versions of a song that might not find their way onto an album. In a sense, Apple Music is kind of like iHeartRadio meets a dedicated social network made just for music — it’s definitely going to be a different, but hopefully in a good way. What are your thoughts on Apple Music and its predecessor, iTunes Radio?

[Image Credit: Appleinsider.com]

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