Apple buying Beats? And is it about headphones...or streaming?

[Anderton]

http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/apple-beats-not-headphones/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

 

This could be a major development in terms of Apple buttressing the fading iTunes model with streaming services. The question, of course, is whether Apple will be as hardball with the labels about streaming as it was about iTunes.

 

And a bigger question...at what point does Apple move from just being a distributor to becoming a label and developing talent? If they weren't planning on that, why would they need Jimmy Iovine onboard?

 

Not sure if this indicates a new record industry rising from the ashes, or the final nail in the coffin for the old one.

 

 

[blue2blue]

NY Times: In Beats Deal, a New Direction for Apple

Houston Chronicle: Report: Apple on verge of buying Beats for $3.2B

MacWorld: Why the Beats deal shows Apple is actually listening

CNET: 'First billionaire in hip-hop' Dre boasts of Apple-Beats deal on Facebook

WSJ MarketWatch: Can hip-hop superstar and entrepreneur Dr. Dre give Apple Inc. the kind of marketplace buzz it sorely lacks?

 

 

As a longtime streaming music subscriber (since ~2004), I've been on 6 streaming music services.

 

Why so many? Stuff happens. Mostly they got closed down. And, mostly, they got closed down by one man, Ian C. Rogers, current CEO of Beats Music.

 

I was a reasonably happy MusicMatch On Demand subscriber. Yahoo Music, then under Rogers, bought MMoD, sucked the technology (and licensing deals?) out and concocted the arguably not terribly inferior Yahoo Music Unlimited.

 

After a while, they shuttered MMoD and I had to move over. It was OK. But not OK enough for the masses (didn't help that no one knew they existed, but that's Yahoo for you). After a relatively short period, they shut down Yahoo Music. I got a transition deal to Rhapsody -- and was generally very pleased, unlike MMoD and YMU, Rhap actually had a good classical selection -- but the fidelity was disappointing.

 

When I discovered MOG (through this forum when I was writing about Spotify, which I'd been checking out its first few days), with its all-320kbps streams, it was love at first listen, pretty much. I'd decided to switch in about 15 or 20 minutes.

 

I was happy. But the shadow of stream service closing loomed over it in my mind. I'd been burned twice before. MOG did no advertising and -- apparently because they weren't spreading the cash and 'considerations' around to tech journos -- they were getting no ink whatsoever, usually a footnote mention in a list of other services, at best. I worried.

 

And then the shadow of Ian C. Rogers fell over MOG.

 

Rogers was now with blngtastic, glow-in-the-dark hip hop headphone maker, Beats. And they had just bought MOG.

 

My heart sank.

 

But I waited somewhat impatiently for the Beats Music roll-out. It was finally announced that MOG would be closed down, to make 'room' for Beats.

 

The day that Beats debuted, I signed up for my trial subscription.

 

How to say it? It was the biggest trainwreck of a major online service roll-out I've seen. Nothing worked, if you could get on. Maybe you could get some music to play, maybe you couldn't. The mobile version on Android was a mess of broken features and screen 'buttons' that didn't work; the desktop was even worse. It took them most of the first 10 day trial to even get it so people could log in properly.

 

And when they did, they were confronted with a player missing almost all the features we've come to expect in a stream subscription player, there isn't even a play queue in Beats Music -- you can't see what's going to play next.

 

You can't add a song or album to play after the current selection. If you're listening to something and you want to listen to something else, you can't add the new material to the play queue -- because there is no play queue. Have a favorite album that, unfortunately, includes 'extras' in the form of inferior outtakes and superfluous stuff you don't want to hear?

 

You either play the whole album in order in its entirety or you have to manually skip. (About the only way around that is to create a playlist with the album as you'd like it, in the order you want.)

 

If you want to hear another album when the current one is done, you have to manually start it up at that time. Really. (Of course, if you knew you were going to want to hear it, you could create a playlist in advance and...)

 

The primary 'feature' seems to be a thing called The Sentence. They have a Mad-Libs-like fill in the blanks 'sentence' and you plug style or artist names into it and it generates a playlist. I mean, you could just have a blank for artist or styles or whatever, but, no they have this nutty 'sentence' thing.

 

Oh yeah, and it has this garish red and black interface with LOADS of HTML5 animation (when it works)... everything zooms or spins. Its beyond annoying.

 

 

Meanwhile, former MOGgers (yes, they called themselves that) seem to be pretty much aghast, judging from the support thread I can't seem to get unsubscribed from (don't even start me on the utter joke of their 'support' which I tried using several times through my two trial periods (MOGgers got an extra because, apparently, they were so horrified during the first).

 

There's a help thread that just keeps growing called Queue! with one unsatisfied user after another wondering why the heck there's no queue and they have so little control.

 

Here are just a few of the many score:

 

i just cancelled my subscription due to this still being 'under consideration', the queue is a time tested way of listening to music. while i appreciate the music discovery aspects, the missing queue is really just the perfect example of the lack of thought into actual usability vs flashy appearance. the fact that something as basic as a queue was not included to begin with, or addressed immediately, is really inexcusable. if some effort is put into basic user interface issues on both the desktop and mobile, i would consider taking another look, as i was a long time happy user of mog.

Amazing that all we get from beats music is a canned response like "great suggestion"... What really puzzles me is that MOG already had all the great features like various queue functions, "similar artists" and "artists radio" with slider, yet beats music acts as if all these features are a sudden revelation to them with "great suggestion!" MOG was the best in terms of features and sound quality, beats music takes over and drops all the best features of MOG. Why on earth would anyone do this?

I am a longtime Rhapsody user. I used the free trial for Beats through AT&T but since it's ended, I did not renew. I gave y'all three months to get things right and have seen little to no improvement, and ZERO satisfactory customer support answers in this forum. Telling us it's a "great suggestion" and that you're "listening" over and over again with no published timeline and list of projected updates is not helpful, it's patronizing. I realize you are just doing your job, but your bosses and the analysts seriously need to get their act together.

I find the lack of queue to be the most frustrating aspect of beats. This was a terrific feature of MOG.....I used it everyday!

​

Olivia said: "This is still under consideration." My question: Why does beats music treat a queue feature like something that you may consider? For a streaming music service in 2014, having the ability to queue songs is essential. What really puzzles me is that you bought MOG and with it direct access to MOG's infrastructure to see how queues, similar artists, artist radio, etc. work from a technical perspective. Yet, more than a year after your acquisition and time to build the beats music service, you have not figured out to incorporate all the features MOG had for years???

I like when others make suggestions, but there is no better curator for one's taste than oneself. Yet one more useful tool removed, limiting my ability to craft my own listening experienceI can't even find any way in the Beats android app to clear the queue and start over. MOG for far more intuitive and user friendly in its UI. Beats is so cluttered with useless crap it's nearly impossible to find what you want, which may not even be there. what a joke!​

MOG was for people who can think for themselves. Beats is for those who need someone to tell them what to listen to, and not let you change it. MOG UI was straightforward, pretty intuitive, and highly functional in setting up and controlling exactly what you wanted to hear. I don't get why they didn't simply take the MOG UI and start adding the whole "we know better than you" stuff out of the way somewhere where people who actually want it could find it. I just started the trial a couple of days ago (along with those for Google Play All Access and Spotify) and all pale compared to MOG for ease of use and flexibility. And Beats, who had full access to all of MOG's intellectual property, is the worst of the bunch. It was clearly either not really ready for release or just was never intended to deliver MOG's flexibility. Beats can "condiser" these suggestions all they want, and in the meantime I'll be considering who I want to send my $10 a month to.

That's it, I'm out. Was a MOG user for the last two years I think. It was the best all-around service out there. Beats is a total mess and nightmare to use. Where it went wrong: you can do all the sentence stuff, and curation, and new features, but you have to offer all of the other stuff first and foremost! Without a solid base of queue management and all of the other pieces pointed out on this site, you don't get the business....you don't get to flaunt your innovative features because people need the basics first and foremost. I signed up with Spotify yesterday, and am enjoying their 320kbps just fine. Just got done cancelling beats. All the best folks.

Note: the 'Olivia' people keep directing their comments or referring to was the only support staff that Beats seemed to be fielding for a while...

[blue2blue]

It's about the subscriptions, that's what the NY Times, Forbes, WSJ, and others say. And the brand, I guess. To those in our milieu, the glow-in-the-dark, blinged out Beats headphones are a running joke. But to the kids who have to buy all the latest Big-Machine Approved merch, it's the only brand that counts, I guess.

 

It can't possibly be about the product, which is, by far, the worst streaming subscription service I've tried or used -- and I've used six since 2004. About the only thing it's got going for it is 320kbps streams. But others have that.

 

It's got, without question, the worst user interface of any service I've used.

[groovezilla]

Yeah, the "subscriptions and streaming" story seems a bit weird. If they wanted that, why don't they just buy Pandora - they certainly can afford it. I'm not putting any bets on the label thing, that would a) be competing with their vendors and b) jumping into a shrinking market. Beats certainly has a very strong brand, but I can't imagine that Apple sees that as an adder the their already ginourmous branding.

 

And as blue2blue notes, the product is overpriced and underperforms.

 

None of it makes sense to me. It's shaping up to be Apples first big mistake.

[groovezilla]

Apple should buy Tesla. That would be a total Steve Jobs move!

[blue2blue]

Yeah, the "subscriptions and streaming" story seems a bit weird. If they wanted that, why don't they just buy Pandora - they certainly can afford it. I'm not putting any bets on the label thing, that would a) be competing with their vendors and b) jumping into a shrinking market. Beats certainly has a very strong brand, but I can't imagine that Apple sees that as an adder the their already ginourmous branding.

 

And as blue2blue notes, the product is overpriced and underperforms.

 

None of it makes sense to me. It's shaping up to be Apples first big mistake.

Actually, to be honest, it's about the same price as other services, $10 a month. That's about what I've paid on most services, although Rhapsody's public price was higher -- but I got a special rate when Yahoo Music folded (the whole story of how Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers has been responsible for putting THREE of the services I've used in the corporate graveyard is in the post I mentioned at the top of my earlier post in this thread).

 

But, for sure, because the BM UI is so incredibly stunted, unless you're really someone who has no clue what to play next and has to have it robotically programmed for you, it's not worth it at all.

 

That said, I can't imagine that Apple wouldn't completely remake the product. If they have half the sense I think they do. It's a shabby, shabby joke.

 

 

I don't know that it's a mistake for Apple, though. We may think it rather pathetic, but Beats does have a 'good' brand with young, inexperienced consumers -- and THOSE are the ones that companies like Apple want to start shaping now, because they are pliant and will part with money when the right buttons are pushed, which is right in line with Apple's general relationship with their customers.

[blue2blue]

From ZDNet...

What a Beats purchase would tell us about Apple

 

Summary: Apple is reportedly going to buy Dr. Dre's Beats Music. Here's what a $3.2 billion purchase would tell us about Apple's strategy, innovation and willingness to use its balance sheet as a weapon.

Apple's potential $3.2 billion purchase of Beats Music could signify a few strategic shifts and possibly indicate the company is going to have to take a portfolio approach and buy some innovation.

"We'll spend what we think is a fair price." — Tim Cook.

The Financial Times reported that Apple is in negotiations to buy Beats, which was co-founded by Dr. Dre and Interscope Geffin A&M Chairman Jimmy Iovine. With the move Apple may be paying up for a streaming music service, hip products and a brand. If this move sounds familiar that's because HTC bought a stake in Beats only to unload it to The Carlyle Group in September.

 

​http://www.zdnet.com/what-a-beats-purchase-would-tell-us-about-apple-7000029266/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539&ftag=TRE17cfd61

[Vito Corleone]

It's about the brand. Period. Apple has always been about being "hip". Beats is hip with the young crowd. Apple needs to appeal to them if they want to remain hip over the next decade. Sound/product quality has nothing to do with it.

[sventvkg]

Apple is WAY WAY WAY late on streaming and Beats Headphones suck arse...They are going to continue to decline without Steve...

[blue2blue]

The Beat 'phones may be weak (or boomy or whatever) but the brand, according to the folks who say they know this stuff, is strong.

 

Beats Music seems to have gone over like the proverbial lead balloon with former MOG subscribers -- but I think it's probable that a lot of their sustaining subscribers are new to streaming and, so, have little to compare Beats' miserable service to. And, since they're presumably drawn in by the kid-familiar Beats logo, young, and impressionable and have a few loose bucks -- they are precisely the kind of malleable, pliant, and under-informed consumer that marketers like to get their hooks into and get them in early...

[Vito Corleone]

Yeah, I don't think it will matter if the headphones suck. They already command a huge market share. And there's nothing to prevent Apple from making them better if they want to.

 

What's making the news here isn't that Apple is buying this company, but how much they appear to be willing to pay for it. Is it too high a price? Probably. But what people are forgetting is Apple can afford to overpay. They've got tons of cash.