“We invented copying”: Apple Music parody makes fun of Apple’s streaming service

We love a good Apple parody ad, and we love it even more now that it seems like Apple’s antics (or at the very least, perceived antics) are being widely caught onto and satirized. An Apple Music parody is on the menu today after College Humor rightfully identified the similarities between Apple Music, and the preexisting Spotify service. While we’re sure Apple representatives will have a million ways to convince you that the two are actually very different, and we’re aware of the irony that Spotify itself is a copy, it’s nonetheless an amusing watch as the satire goes beyond just Apple Music:

While it’s not quite as good as their Apple Watch parody, we’re really enjoying College Humor’s Jony Ive impression. And all the callbacks to the U2 debacle make this parody all the more sweet – for anyone who didn’t hear, Apple gave all its users the new U2 album for free last October, to which many people complained, and some were just plain confused. Who complains about free stuff?

What do you think of this Apple Music parody? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: YouTube

The post “We invented copying”: Apple Music parody makes fun of Apple’s streaming service appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

Apple Music Connect’s ‘Clunky’ Posting Process Detailed by Indie Artist [iOS Blog]

After the launch of Apple Music earlier in the week, many users began searching and following their favorite artists on Apple’s new social platform Connect, which aims to showcase new songs, videos, and pictures to fans of artists like Pharrell, Dr. Dre, and more, directly within the app. The process that artists have to take to create content for their fans was unknown, until today, when app developer and indie musician of the band Airplane Mode, Dave Wiskus, posted a detailed summary on his blog of the steps needed to make a post on Apple’s new social platform.

Wiskus hoped that Apple’s promise of Connect at WWDC meant a more level playing field between the musician and app developer worlds within the iTunes marketplace, and that “giving musicians any control at all over their brand identity on the iTunes Music Store,” would create a more stress-free and inviting platform for musicians, especially independent ones. So, Wiskus and his band Airplane Mode decided to put Connect through the ringer: debuting a brand new track on the service and seeing if the fans’ connection is as front-and-center as Apple intended.

The musician’s first thoughts of the upload process are summed up in one word: “clunky.” Wiskus found he needed the song he wanted to post to be in My Music in the iOS Music app, so for a brand-new, unreleased track, he had to sync it off his computer and then search for it on iOS. GarageBand updates for iOS and Mac released earlier this week also support uploads to Connect, but it is unclear if the format and process of using those apps was even more awkward or if Wiskus was unaware of these options.

In the next step — giving musicians the ability to edit song artwork and track details — Wiskus also had troubles with finishing up the post, the “Done” button staying grayed out and refusing to let him finish up and send it out to fans. After trying basic troubleshooting like backing out and making sure all the required fields were filled in, he discovered the problem: “I had to edit the artist name, add a space, and then remove the space. Then I could post the song. Of course.”

He also wondered how someone would delete a Connect post should there be a mistake, but eventually discovered that each post on the service can be brought up in a single post view with a “Delete” option. The issue being that since the entire post is treated as an interactable, tappable cell, “it’s not obvious” for users who may need to delete something in a hurry. But the musician noted that the biggest personal drawback is the complete lack of any in-depth fan interaction for his band once the content is actually uploaded to Connect.

But the worst offense of all is this: I can see no way to invite people to follow us on Connect. I can share the link. I can even tweet about it. Yet there’s no way to know how many followers we have, encourage people to follow us, or directly engage with anyone who hasn’t already purchased a song from us on iTunes. That feels broken. Somehow people were able to comment, which is great, but it makes me sad that I feel no sense of… well, connection. And I really, really want that connection.

Someone asked why I believed that Connect would ever be better than Ping, Apple’s previous attempt at socialifying iTunes. Ping’s mistake was that it tried to connect listeners to each other, as a way of discovering new music. Apple Music has re-thought that problem in some very interesting ways, and early indications are that the new approach works. For the social component, Connect wants to be about connecting artists with their listeners, but at the moment, it falls short.

While Connect lacks any of these basic features that services like Twitter and Facebook provide in abundance, Wiskus encourages Apple to begin consulting with bands who have both made it and use social media successfully every day, and the ones who haven’t yet but know the tools they need to make it there.

The indie musician makes multiple good points, especially in the lack of any in-depth social networking features on the service. Taking his band’s new post as an example, Airplane Mode’s post for the new song “Over It” got 7 loves and 4 comments, but the band can’t determine its own follower count or the amount of people that actually interacted with the post.

Lacking as well is any interaction on a user’s name or handle, which aren’t clickable on iOS or Mac and PC, leaving musicians with no real way to browse their fan community in any meaningful way. But, as Wiskus notes, the service has laid the groundwork for a possibly richer version of itself in the future. “These are early days,” the musician notes, “And there’s hope.”

Apple Music Tidbits: Nicknames, Playlist Management, and More [iOS Blog]

Apple’s new subscription-based music service launched earlier this week, and even if you’ve taken advantage of Apple’s free three-month trial to see if it is worth your dime and time, there are a few things you may not have discovered yet about its features.

While our Getting Started guide gives an overview of how to get up and running, this article gives more details on some of the things you can do with Apple Music and how to make it work for you. If you’ve noticed any other features we haven’t listed yet, feel free to let us know in the forums.

Add a Nickname to Your Profile

You could stick with your full Apple ID name, or change it to something that fits you better. Apple lets you add a nickname to your ID, which will be displayed on playlists and comments. Nicknames are unique, so the earlier you grab one, the better.

On iOS:

1. Open the Music app and tap on any of the main section icons in the bottom toolbar if you’re not already on a main page.
2. Tap the silhouette profile icon in the upper left corner of the main screen.
3. Tap your name. Then tap the Edit button to add a nickname.

In iTunes:

1. Click on the arrow next to your name, and then click on your Apple ID.
2. Enter a nickname in the fill-in form.

Start a Station Based on a Song or Album

You can start a new station based on a song or album in either your music library or Apple Music. Tap the three dots next to the song or album to call up additional options. Then, tap “Start Station” on iOS or “New station from artist or song” on OS X to begin listening to tracks.
Read more

Buyer’s Guide: Discounts on iPhone, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 3, Apple Accessories, and More [Mac Blog]

Happy almost Fourth of July! With the holiday approaching, retailers are offering celebratory holiday sales, discounting a wide range of products. Sales are available at big box stores like Best Buy and at smaller websites, so if you’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on an Apple product or accessory, make sure to see if it’s on sale this week.

There’s a new feature in the Buyer’s Guide, which will let you know when a product is available at the lowest price we’ve seen. Look for the products that are tagged with “Lowest Price Ever” to see some of the best discounts available. There are several this week, on an older 2014 Retina MacBook Pro that’s available for $600 off and on several older MacBook Air models.

We’ve rounded up the best deals we could find, on Apple products like the iPhone and on Apple accessories. As always, we’ve also got a list of great apps and games that are on sale this week.

iPhone

Best Buy is offering a free $50 Best Buy gift card with the purchase and activation of any iPhone on a Verizon Edge, AT&T Next, Sprint Easy Pay, or Sprint Leasing plan. It’s also available for two-year agreements through Verizon and Sprint.

Prices for the iPhone 6 start at $199 with a two-year contract, or $21.67/month on a plan like AT&T Next.

iPad Air 2

Staples is discounting several of its iPad Air 2 models by $100, dropping the price of the 16GB Wi-Fi only model to $399. iPads on sale include all 16GB Wi-Fi only models and 64GB Wi-Fi only models in Gold and Space Gray, which are priced at $499 instead of $599 with the discount.
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How Apple Music’s Liking System Works to Customize ‘For You’ Recommendations

Apple Music’s main draw is its focus on curation and its ability to learn about your music preferences to provide recommendations that suit your tastes. Apple’s new Music app focuses heavily on content discovery, with an entire “For You” section dedicated to recommendations.

According to Apple, its music experts “handpick songs, artists, and albums based on what you listen to and like,” and this content is what populates the “For You” section. Apple’s explained that “For You” recommendations get better over time based on “whether you love a song or not,” but the company hasn’t explicitly spelled out how to best use likes and listens to better tailor Apple Music to your tastes.

To clear up confusion on how recommendations work, The Loop‘s Jim Dalrymple has spoken directly with Apple to get some insight on how the “Like” feature in Apple Music works to affect recommendations, and he’s penned a useful guide on liking from the information he obtained.

Any song played from Beats 1 radio, a default radio station, a curated playlist, or from a search can be liked by expanding the miniplayer and tapping the heart icon. You can essentially heart anything that’s playing via Apple Music.

As Dalrymple explains, tapping the heart button on a song you like influences the content that’s then displayed in the “For You” section of Apple Music. As more content is liked, the feature gets a better idea of each individual user’s tastes, and is able to offer up a more tailored selection of music. Music that’s added to a library and music that’s played in full also affects “For You.”

Tapping the heart does affect “For You,” the section of Apple Music that’s custom built with playlists, albums and songs tailored to your individual tastes. For You also takes into account music you add to your library and full plays you listen to. Skips aren’t really taken into account, because there are so many reasons you may skip a song–maybe you’re just not in the mood for it right now.

Radio stations created from individual songs, done by tapping on the hamburger button when any song is playing and choosing “Start Station,” work a bit differently. Instead of displaying a heart, these playlists display a star. Tapping the star allows you to choose “Play More Like This” or “Play Less Like This” to tune a radio station to your particular tastes at that time without affecting overall “For You” recommendations.

Pressing on any album or playlist recommendation in “For You” gives you an option to customize the section even more, by choosing “I Don’t Like This Suggestion.” It appears that this customization option is limited to iOS devices for the time being, as Apple Music on Mac doesn’t offer this menu.

Apple Music’s ability to offer up intensively tailored song recommendations over time may be one of the reasons why Apple insisted on giving users a three month trial to experience the service. Regularly liking songs and culling the “For You” section of recommendations that aren’t suitable should vastly change the quality of suggestions over the course of the next few months.

‘Beats 1 Plays’ Live Tweets Songs Played on Beats 1 Radio [iOS Blog]

Beats 1 is a multi-genre radio station for iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC that plays a wide variety of songs from indie and popular artists alike, but there is currently no way to identify tracks that have already been played. To solve that problem, web apps developer Callum Jones has created an unofficial Twitter account that live tweets songs as they are played on Beats 1 Radio (via The Next Web).

Beats 1 does offer archived playlists of tracks aired during featured shows
The new Twitter account is aptly named “Beats 1 Plays” and makes a single tweet each time a track is played on Apple’s live 24/7 global radio station, including the name of the song and artist with a #Beats1 hashtag. Simply follow the account on Twitter and you will no longer have to worry about missing out on what is playing while you are not tuned in.

Beats 1 does offer archived playlists of songs that aired during the radio station’s featured shows anchored by DJs such as Zane Lowe, Julie Adenuga and Ebro Darden. To access those playlists, open Apple Music, tap on the Radio tab, open the Beats 1 radio station, scroll down and select a featured show and tap on the Playlists tab.