'Industry Scuttlebutt' Hints Apple May Be Planning February Revamp for Beats Music

Tuesday September 23, 2014 11:54 am PDT by Juli Clover
beatsApple might be planning to unveil both its revamped music subscription service and its new branding alongside the upcoming 2015 Grammy Awards, reports Re/code, citing some "industry scuttlebutt."
When will Apple show off the new version of its subscription service and its new brand? Here's a guess backed up by some industry scuttlebutt: February -- presumably timed to the Grammy Awards, which will be held Feb. 8.
News of an upcoming rebrand first surfaced yesterday, after TechCrunch reported that Apple would be shutting down Beats Music. An Apple representative quickly refuted the claim saying it was "not true." Re/code went on to suggest that while Apple won't be shuttering Beats Music, the company may have plans to "modify it over time," changing the brand name.

Apple first acquired Beats Music back in May, and at the time, announced plans to leave the service untouched. There were no plans to integrate Beats Music into iTunes, with the company suggesting the streaming music service would remain as a standalone product. Beats Music was largely seen as Apple's answer to popular services like Spotify, aimed at improving declining music sales.

In recent weeks, Apple has made quite an effort to promote Beats Music, adding it to the list of "Apps Made by Apple" and recommending the app to new iOS users. Apple also added a Beats Music channel to the Apple TV last week alongside the release of iOS 8.

Thus far, there is no word on what Apple is planning for Beats Music, but a source at TechCrunch has suggested that Apple might roll the streaming music functionality into iTunes.

Tags: Beats Music, Apple Music Guide
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camnchar
71 months ago
"Industry scuttlebutt" -- my favorite source.
Rating: 11 Votes
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PatriotInvasion
71 months ago
Anyone else notice that the Apple Watch OS home screen looks strikingly similar to the Beats Music setup layout?
Rating: 6 Votes
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jfischer
71 months ago

Not scuttlebutt again! Ruining everything!


You're thinking of Scuzzlebutt.

Scuzzlebutt is a basket-weaving monster who lives on top of a mountain in South Park. He has a piece of celery as an arm and Patrick Duffy as a leg.
Rating: 6 Votes
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ValSalva
71 months ago
Will we get another free U2 album?
Rating: 6 Votes
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mr666
71 months ago
The danger in "re-branding" is that people who were already a bit confused are then totally unable to get their heads around the choices for "multi-media", as it was once called, or "A-V" if we go back 50 years.

Right now, new Mac OS users are confused as to why iTunes categorizes and plays movies, QuickTime plays but doesn't categorize movies, and iPhoto categorizes but doesn't play movies. Add to that the annoyance that iMovie is really i-Create-Movie-Projects, not a full tilt app for everything about movies, and you have a tangled mess. One app strictly for movies and one strictly for music would settle the dust a bit, and ensure that new users don't throw up their hands and go right back to Windows. The syncing of all data (contacts, email, music, movies, photos, etc.) should be handled by one centralized app, not by iTunes or anything else. The problem would be what to call an "i" app that is dedicated to sync..... hmmm... wait a moment. I sync I know the answer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISync
Rating: 3 Votes
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3282868
71 months ago

But for those who sync their iPhone and iPad content (apps, contacts, calendars, etc.) through iTunes... are they going to be told to sync their iPhone to "Music"?

The iTunes application on OSX is a very beefy app that does A LOT of things. For better or worse, stuff just kept getting added over the years.


Revamp "iSync", it's there, has been well before the iPhone as a conduit for syncing Contacts, Calendars, etc. in OS X with non-Apple devices.

A lot of us at Apple agree, iTunes should be "stripped down" to music. iBooks has its own bookstore, iMovie could handle Movie and Television purchases, the OS X App Store could bridge with iOS App's, allowing iSync to handle syncing.

For those of us using iTunes 12 beta, notice how this is halfway achieved? Each store is now accessed by the category you are in, that is you cannot access the Movie Store if you're in the Music section in iTunes.

The only issue would be non-OS X systems, and that is why Apple has not changed iTunes. Engineers would have to create MS counterparts for iMovie, iBooks, App's, etc. unless they leave iTunes for Windows untouched (which they could).
Rating: 3 Votes
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iLoveiTunes
71 months ago
Just BEAT it ;):D
Rating: 3 Votes
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Mad Mac Maniac
71 months ago

Yes, TechCrunch did yesterday. LOL. :o


Well... So there are 4 feasible options of what Apple could do with beats music (applies to any acquisition)
1) kill it entirely. don't use it
2) kill the branding, but incorporoate its features into your own services
3) Keep the branding, but modify the service in accoradance with your corporate strategy
4) keep the service, completely unchanged. Allow the service to run independently

1 is idiotic. 4 is completely unlike apple. Either 2 or 3 are most obviuosly what Apple would do. But when you hear whispers about 2 it can sound an awful lot like 1. Heck, Apple media is so sensational that the official report could actually be 2, but then everyone blasts 1 accross the internet because it's a good headline (then burry the 2 details in the story)
Rating: 2 Votes
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keterboy
71 months ago
It'll be called Apple Beats (:apple:Beats) and probably be a standalone app with many more features and a new high quality flac-like lossless audio format :rolleyes:
Rating: 2 Votes
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kmj2318
71 months ago
Music.

Everything is done in the appropriately named Music app. Kill the iTunes store app. Rename iTunes on OS X to Music. Remove videos and give it it's own app like iBooks.

Would solve the weirdness of the same icon on iOS and OS X being called different names and doing different things, and that the music icon will be strictly for music.
Rating: 2 Votes

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