Music streaming is set to overtake digital downloads. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is going to launch its highly hyped music streaming service at the Worldwide Development Corporation in June. Apple would be christening its new music streaming service as Apple Music.
Apple’s second foray into music streaming services
It’s worth mentioning that Apples previous attempt at merging digital music and social networking floundered. Ping was released way back in September 2010 to let people follow friends and musicians inside the firm’s iTunes store. However, it was closed down two years later because of lack of popularity. Now Apple is having another crack at social music by re-launching Beats Music streaming service.
In-built social features for artists
Apple Music will come with a significant degree of social networking integration for the artists. In other words, artists can have their pages that they can use to publish track samples, photos, videos, as well as concert updates. Also artist can use their page to promote other bands if they want.
According to sources, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has had more than a dozen famous artists sign up to exclusive content deals that could be for full albums or a select bundle of songs.
The strategy of Apple is to facilitate a one-way communication exchange between artists and their fans. This is unlike having a social network for users to connect with each other. It remains to be seen how Apple implements this feature and how popular it becomes among music lovers.
Spotify, a potential competitor to Apple, incorporates certain news features. For instance, users can view forthcoming concerts and merchandise sales inside the artist profiles. Apple music will be highly integrated into iOS and its music app. It is also designed keeping mind Beats. As a result, users can import their accounts from the Apple service to the Apple Music.
The service is expected to have an initial free trial before becoming a paid service. In other words, it’s unlikely there will be an ad-supported free service.
