Ondrej Holzman After a year in operation, significant changes await Apple Music at WWDC. Music streaming service all the time though is recruiting new subscribers, but at the same time it is met with quite a lot of criticism, so Apple will try to significantly improve the iOS application in particular. For example, the social element Connect is to fall victim.
In addition to the new operating systems, Apple Music should also have space at the June developer conference, which it seems news awaits, such as a modified (colored) appearance of the user interface, or the addition of some functions that the service lacked until now.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]The only thing people don't want is another social network.[/su_pullquote]
Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac now your original message he added about information that Apple Music's overhaul is to demote Connect, the social element that was meant to connect artists with fans like nothing else before.
No matter how embarrassing the presentation of Apple Music was a year ago, also at WWDC, the speakers took great care to present Connect as one of the core elements of the service. It was another attempt by Apple to create a kind of social network, and the only thing that immediately came to mind for many was Ping. A similarly contrived social network, which no one used.
The same fate evidently met Connect as well. Although nothing has been officially announced yet, since the summer this social element is no longer supposed to have such a prominent place in Apple Music, i.e. as one of the buttons in the lower navigation bar. Users reportedly didn't use Connect nearly as often as other parts of Apple Music, so the social network will be more subtly integrated into the "recommendations" section For you.
And frankly, it would be more of a surprise if Apple managed to push its social network forward rather than quietly put it on the back burner. After the battle, everyone is a general, but almost everything played against Apple. However, the Californian giant tried again and failed again. Building a social network today from scratch and trying to compete with giants like Facebook or Twitter is simply not possible, at least not in Apple's way so far.
“Connect is a place where musicians offer their fans a peek behind the scenes of their work, their inspirations and their world. It's the main route to the heart of music - great stuff straight from the artists," Apple describes its attempt at a social network, adding that fans will receive exclusive material in Connect, such as behind-the-scenes footage or snippets of written lyrics.
Good idea, but Apple should have come up with it ten years ago. Such things as are possible on Connect have long been made possible by Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and that is the main three-leaf clover of social networks, where absolutely everyone, not just musicians, concentrates. And also a shamrock that Apple couldn't beat or break through.
The only thing people don't want nowadays is to start another social network. After opening Apple Music and turning on Connect, many people shook their heads and asked why they should use something like that, after all, they already get exactly that elsewhere. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, it's where today's music bands and artists supply their millions of fans with the latest and also the most exclusive they have on a daily basis.
The idea that there might be some content in Connect that would be so enticing that people would turn on Apple Music and leave Facebook was naïve. That couldn't work from an artist's point of view or a fan's point of view.
It is enough to demonstrate everything on a simple example. Taylor Swift who is different the main face of Apple Music, last posted on Connect twenty-one days ago. Since then, he has almost ten on Facebook.
While artists target 13 million users on Apple Music, far from all of them using Connect, Facebook is used by a billion people worldwide, and Taylor Swift alone has almost six times more followers than Apple Music combined. Moreover, even on the otherwise less "populated" Twitter, Taylor Swift has the same numbers as on Facebook, and the same applies to Instagram.
Apple wanted to be everything, a little Facebook, a little Twitter, a little Instagram, just for musicians and their fans. He failed at either camp. In today's interconnected world of the internet, it didn't stand much of a chance of success, and it won't be a surprise at all if Connect ends up quietly buried.
They could develop the social network slowly gradually in places where people often go. For example in the app store...
Connect is stolen from everyone anyway, criticism should mainly be directed at itunes. That's the reason why I switched from Apple Music to Spotify. Spotify has a simple desktop application purely for listening to music and is much faster than iTunes. With iTunes, one expects a lot of loading screens, and the whole thing is actually a website running in the application. I don't want to wait for the itunes store/app store, to connect the device, I want to open the application and listen to music straight away.
Connect is the best source of new music for me. Better than suggestions in Apple Music, incomparably better than Facebook et al.