2. The human element remains. Iovine spent most of his time touting the new service’s “human touch.” Its many playlists (some likely inherited from Beats) are hand selected. The executive described it as “a revolutionary music service curated by leading music experts,” which is pretty much what Jay-Z and his posse said during the rollout for Tidal earlier in the year. “Algorithms alone can’t do that human task,” said Iovine. “You need a human.”
Since Apple apparently is still negotiating their deals with the labels, here's what I think would be a forward-thinking strategy for them: Structure the deals so as to guarantee that the ARTISTS get a much bigger cut per play than they currently get from other streaming services.
Later, Apple vice president Eddy Cue demonstrated the service by moving through music purchases and playlists, highlighting a search engine that finds both local and streamed files. He touted a new release page as “all human curated,” describing it as “fun and easy.” He created a Cuban-based playlist and did a little dance.
3. Global radio. Iovine’s swipe at algorithm-based music selection was an implicit indictment against Pandora, which delivers music based on pre-selected parameters. With Apple’s new radio offering, which will be free, the company is looking to direct the conversation. As such, it announced the arrival of Beats 1.
A worldwide station that promises 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-per-week live radio by a batch of DJs headed by Zane Lowe, Beats 1 will broadcast from studios in Los Angeles, London and New York. Lowe, who gained fame at the BBC1, is considered one of the best interviewers and music curators in the world. An accompanying ad showed listeners in cities across the world all vibing to the same song. (Whether this is good for multi-culturalism is another thing.)
4. Apple looks to Connect for fans When Apple bought Beats, they also built a bridge to Reznor, who served as Beats’ creative director. Reznor helped announced the third component of Monday’s roll-out, called Connect. It allows artists to interact directly with fans with what Reznor described as “tools to grow, nurture and sustain careers.”
One career that doesn't need a boost got another one on Monday: Drake, who discussed the artist pages. Individual pages will allow creators to upload videos, lyrics, images, outtakes all in the same place, allowing instant Twitter and Instagram-like communication with fans.
5. Questions remain Questions prompted by the announcement include: What will happen to the perpetually buggy feature Apple Match, which allows shared libraries across computers? Chances are it’s going by the wayside, replaced by streaming. Ditto “Genius,” the (ahem) algorithm-based recommendation program that has been a (mostly unused) mainstay of iTunes for years. Also missing was any mention of a social platform in contrast with Spotify, which allows followers shared playlists and endless discovery based on what in-network connections are listening to.