Apple Music! It’s coming June 30th. It will cost $9.99 a month to stream music. Just like in the old days of the Columbia Music Club, you get the first three months free!
Guess what? It’s the same music you listen to now, on Spotify or Pandora. Same music, except for a kind of droney emo guy who Eddie Cue played for us and isn’t signed to a record label. The reason he isn’t signed is, he sounds very dull.
Anyway, I digress. With Apple Music, you can make playlists and share them with friends! Music will be suggested to you by…Drake!
Look, I know people love the Apple hardware. I love my iPad. But this stuff is not new. Apple is a cult. The people who love it live by it. But I don’t want to be trapped in iTunes. If you really love music, get the Sony Walkman and download high fidelity tracks from HDTracks.com. This isn’t so hard.
Seriously: what are artists going to be paid by iTunes? Will iTunes pay the record companies advances, and will those advances be paid to the artists? Did Apple pay the musicians whose music was used in their demo today? Will Aretha Franklin and Bruce Springsteen be getting checks for promotion? I doubt it.
The other news from Apple was that you can multitask programs and apps on the iPad with their new platform. But you have to buy a new iPad.
I would now turn my attention back to Tidal. The problem is, they’re a wreck. Back to Spotify. It’s just fine.
