Design: Really slick. I like the Rdio app but recently it's been getting a bit confusing. I've always hated the Spotify app even though I was a paying customer since it first arrived in the UK. The Beats app admittedly has a lot going on but I found it pretty easy to navigate and the artist page layout is quite nice.
Features: The artist page actually recommends playlists to help you get introduced to a new artist or the 'deep cuts' of an artist you already know which I find quite nice.
Creating playlists is simple and unlike Spotify you can set a cover image and a description.
The sentence based playlist feature (mad libs for music) works ok. It hasn't thrown up anything completely wrong and I expect it'll get better over time.
The home page is kind of the best part of the app. It presents you with albums and playlists you might like and seems pretty good at recommending stuff.
Overall I think they have two things up on everyone else: design and playlists. On Spotify and Rdio finding good playlists is difficult. Spotify has been getting better at this but it isn't great yet. Beats seems to have spent a lot of time crafting A LOT of really great playlists and they seem to be where I'm spending most of my time. The human curation thing seems to have worked.
At this point it's hard to tell who'll come out ahead. Beats is ad-free but subscription only. If they can convince people to pay for it (and I think they might be able to through brand power/marketing) I think it'll be a good thing for artists and might take away some of the stigma streaming music services have with them. I think I'm going to continue using it as my main service but at the moment I don't know how they will charge for it. It comes with a 7 day free trial. Currently it's pretty easy to get around the US only limitations but if their payment system restricts sales to US addresses I won't be able to use it until it expands to the UK.
Totally agree. Beats has taken the best of both of Rdio and Spotify, and along with the human curation, built a pretty solid product.
The web interface leaves a lot to be desired at this point, but looking forward to seeing what they come up with here.
This new service, $10 a month. Not quite sure what it offers over Spotify. Anyway, past experience with their product means I'm just not going to be interested in this.
And you can't even tell them that Beats sucks, as I learned the hard way. It's not socially acceptable to inform someone that they wasted several hundred dollars, especially when they identify with the brand so closely.
Branding and design is a legitimate category for a company to compete in and the people behind the headphones are certainly successful in it. They recognized that most people don't really care how they sound because the vast majority of people are not audiophiles and just want to look cool.
The curation is where this service really excels, also the UI is pretty tight.
I've heard bad things about the headphones, so never tried them.
These frequencies sound good to human ears.
So, when someone compares Beats to non-Beats, they hear that those frequencies are louder and the very fact that there is a noticeable difference is enough to create the illusion in some gullible people that Beats 'sound better'
Of course, in the long run, they don't.
I'm not defending Beats at all, but I'll defend that low frequency / high frequency setup all day. Not everyone listens to classical.
It depends which model you buy. Their 'Pro' model is marketed towards sound engineers so I doubt they mess with the EQ on those. They also claim they are "The Headphones Used To Mix In Every Major Studio." which I seriously doubt. AFAIK it's always recommended to mix with monitors, not headphones.
I care if they can produce better playlists that way. As a Spotify user for many years I can honestly say that after just a few hours with Beats I find the playlists are a lot better and a lot easier to find. They are recommend loads to me and most are ones I like.
My favourite thing is that if I visit an artist page and I haven't listened to them before it has an 'Intro to [artist name]" playlist. If I do know the artist it also has a 'Deep cuts' playlist. I've also seen '[Artist name]: influences' playlists which are an interesting idea. NB: I doubt they have these playlists for every artist but they've been there on most I've searched so far.
I don't get any of that on Spotify. Most of the playlists I get recommended on Spotify are "Hangover songs", "Workout mix", "Christmas tunes" etc. etc. They are nice but a lot less useful.
I forget the stats, but Beats headphones have a ridiculous market share...
In other words, if you only use people's listening preferences, you can only recommend established tracks well. Adding an editorial component lets you get ahead of the curve.
So there are other alternatives to human curation when it comes to getting ahead of the curve.
Unless they show that they actually know what they are doing and not just trying to use technology to gain more control over music consumers, I'll have to wait this one out.
1. No way to transfer my MOG playlists and favorite bands/songs? That sucks.
2. Tried to sign in through the AT&T family plan for 90-day free trial. Got a text with a code, which AT&T says was accepted, and Beats says was not. ???
3. No web-only option for $5/month. I suppose that was too much to hope for.
4. No information about how the 5-person family plan works. Do we share one login (and favorite bands)? I hope not; we have very different tastes.
This service seems really half-baked. Might end up being good, but for the moment is behind were MOG was, which is pretty bad. MOG was basically a zombie service for the last few months, as they obviously had all their attention focused on this launch. The web interface never had basic stuff like their featured playlists.
Here's to hoping they get it all ironed out.
Edit: What it looks like to me and everyone I asked to have a look. Big bug. Can't even see the pricing. http://imgur.com/ydTIPso
EDIT: pricing MONTHLY $9.99 YEARLY $119.88
What are the advantages I will gain if I switch from Spotify?
- The answer seems to be the nice layout!
What are the disadvantages?
- Spotify gives me limitless account (with ads) for free, this one not.
- Spotify is even available as a web app,and desktop client which i use most. This one???
- "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Swedish Store, but it is available in the U.S. Store."
I am not trying to be disrespectful to what these guys had done. It looks beautiful.
Music industry is really really tricking area when it comes to application development. Even Spotify had hard times to make its service up and running for years.
I might be totally wrong. That's why if you believe in something, just don't mind negative people. keep going!
I'm happy about this. Maybe they can convince people music is worth paying money for and instead of wasting time selling ads they can spend time and money building a good product.
>> "- Spotify is even available as a web app,and desktop client which i use most. This one???"
It's available on Android, iOs, Windows Phone AND the web at http://listen.beatsmusic.com
>> - "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Swedish Store, but it is available in the U.S. Store."
Like most music/video services it's launching in one location (US) and planning to expand to others soon. e.g. iTunes Radio is still US only. Spotify took years to branch out of Europe.
>> What are the advantages I will gain if I switch from Spotify?
After a few hours of use the main benefit seems to be playlists. I've described how they work in another post on this thread so won't repeat but they seem infinitely more useful to me on this than playlists on Spotify (which I've been using for around 5 years).
Spotify takes my time which is valuable to me instead of my money for the free version, and I like listening those ads about the new released albums, not really annoying. So "music is worth paying money" and they are getting money from those ads because Spotify users listen them. Like youtube, but there you don't earn anything though :)
Other than that, It is always good to have competitors and i wish them good luck :)
But is it just me, or can you not fast forward / seek in Beats Music?
>That’s why you’ll never hear an ad on Beats Music.
Yeah, that's not lasting.
Also, spent about 15 minutes on their site and still couldn't find the web player...maybe launch day issue?
Edit: found listen.beatsmusic.com (thanks to a comment here)
Problem is: I like some harcore, some jazz, some classical, some punk. Taste is very personal. That's why I like to curate my own music.
