Apple Music & Beats 1 Live Radio Station.

Apple Music is here! Well, not yet, but all the information about it is!

Come June 30 users will be able to use it to  stream songs, access curated playlists, and tune in to a 24-hour, live worldwide radio station called Beats 1.

Apple Music can be split up into 3 different facets that Apple hopes everyone will use and enjoy (D’uh), as well as making the music world a fairer and more creative place to be.

First, there’s the streaming service. Your own collection of music, as well as tens of millions of tracks in the Apple Music library. Handpicked by a ‘dedicated team of experts’ just for you, (not too sure yet on the logistics of this) and a bona fide way to discover new music.

Unlike some of their biggest competitors like Pandora and Spotify who use Algorithms to select songs in their product, Apple Music will have human curation, which, in Jimmy Iovine’s words,

“Algorithms alone can’t do that emotional task,” argued Iovine. “You need a human touch.”

Next, there’s the radio station – Beats 1.  24/7 radio broadcast to over 10 countries, and headlined by former BBC radio DJ Zane Lowe alongside other famous DJs from Los Angeles, New York and London such as Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga. Beats 1 will offer exclusive interviews, guest hosts and other music world gossip and goings-on.

Third, we have Apple Music Connect, a social platform for Artists ( both known and as-yet-unknown) to interact with listeners and fans, with extra multimedia offerings such as lyrics, videos, photos etc.

So what do we think? Looks like a pretty solid service with a likely very big boost from grandfathered in Apple customers and the offer of a 3 month free trial. It will work, and it will be a strong and exciting competitor. It will add to the way that we listen to music. Even so, Pandora already has 80 million users, Spotify 60 million – so even with the boost, Apple might have a fight to the top.

Apple Music will be available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC on June 30, with support for Apple TV and Android coming in the fall. For full membership, you’re looking at a monthly fee of $9.99 or $14.99 for a family plan for up to 6 family members, although there will be a 3 month free trial available for all.

If you’re not down for commitment, you can still listen to Beats 1 radio, see what artists are posting on Connect, and hear ad‑supported stations on Apple Music (with limited skips) without a membership.

Check out the Ad for Apple Music here for the ‘feel good about the world with Apple’ feeling!

How you listened to music in 2014

Apple intends on releasing it’s revamped Beats streaming product in 2015, and it looks like they got the timing pretttty perfect on that, as the guys over at Nielsen SoundScan have just revealed their year-end stats for the music industry, and streaming gets a big ‘ol thumbs up.

There was a 54% growth in on-demand streams of audio and video content and total streams were up to 164 billion from 106 billion in 2013.

Sad face for the regular old retro (can we say retro yet in regards to this?) album, as digital album sales fell 9%, and digital song sales fell 12%. Physical and digital album sales fell 11%.

Happy face for the actual retro music format here, though – vinyl album sales in 2014 grew 52%. Fifty-two percent!  In fact, although vinyl sales have been increasing every year, 2014 was the best year for vinyl since 1991, and possibly only because that’s when Nielson SoundScan started keeping track of music industry stats.

Apple’s other streaming product, iTunes radio, has had a smaller than expected impact in the streaming music market, and is currently only available here in the States and in Australia.

So. The old big thing is Vinyl, and the next big thing is streaming. Which Apple knew, and is set to take a bigger advantage of the latter by revamping Beats Music, probably as a native iOS app in the first quarter of this year. It will either be entwined with iTunes or they’ll be looking to take another segment of the market with iTunes.

Beats Music will, of course, have some competition, with very loyal subscribers to Pandora and Spotify as well as other players in the market.

Currently, you can subscribe to Beats Music for $9.99 per month, or $99.99 for 12 months.

iPhone Tip Of The Day!

Hand up who listens to music in bed at night?  Hand up who sometimes falls asleep then wakes in a heart attack of terror 2 hours later when your playlist hits onto your awesome screamer metal songs? It might not be a problem for all of us, but boy, for some of us, it can be a little…

Well now you can stop freaking out boys and girls, cos you know what? We got you! Use a timer to help you shut down the music before the heavy metal comes on.

Clock >Timer > When Timer Ends. Scroll down and tap Stop Playing. Then, set a timer (say 30 mins) and tap Start. Now you can play music as you fall asleep and it will be turned off according to the timer.

Brilliant.

Images courtesy of Lightweightfunny & Sodahead.

3. Google Play Music All Access

Google has today launched it’s new music subscription service, Google Play Music All Access, which (apart from being an annoyingly long name) is apparently aimed squarely at Spotify’s place in the market.

The service, like Spotify and others, aims to provide songs on demand that can be streamed to a computer, tablet or mobile device.

It’s built on the existing Google Play Music Store and recommends songs based on user preference, and then guiding the user towards similar music they might not have discovered yet.

You also have the ability to store 20,000 of your own tracks in the cloud alongside the All Access tracks.

Here’s the tricky part- Google think of this as a premium service and there is no free tier- it will cost $9.99 per month. Worth it? Maybe. Luckily you can check it out for yourself with a 30 day free trial.

If you get in early, Google is offering a discount if you begin the free trial by June 30. Those keen enough will pay just $7.99 per month.

Go to google.com/music and you’ll be invited to sign up if you’re keen!

1. Google Hangouts (Integrated, multi- platform video & chat product)

2. Google Maps update and iPad App

3. Google Play Music All Access

4. Google Play Game Services

5. Updates and the future of the Google search engine.

Photo Courtesy of Macrumors. 

How to Play Music while your iPhone is locked

Simple enough, but an awesome feature if you didn’t already know about it.  There is a relatively easy way to play music on your iPhone if it is on the locked screen.

Simply double click home (circular) button and a quick menu will pop up with the last song you were playing.  Simply press play, next or previous to start playing music!