On June 8-12, Apple hosted its annual international conference in California, officially named Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). WWDC is an annual showcase of the newest developments in Apple’s product lines. For those unfamiliar with WWDC, it is essentially like those presentations Steve Jobs did back in the day that Apple users were always so hyped about. Many exciting announcements were made at this year’s conference, though nothing quite revolutionary by any means.
The most significant new product discussed in the presentations is Apple’s new music streaming service, Apple Music. In May of 2014, Apple acquired Beats Music and continued operating the application’s streaming services. This year it is to be re-branded and re-launched. Apple Music was endorsed at the conference by high profile artists such as Drake, who specifically supported the new Connect feature that focuses on exposing users to local unsigned independent artists. The Apple Music application will have the Siri voice commands feature, so users can have a hands-free music searching experience. Apple Music will be a subscription based service, at $9.99 USD per month, with the first three months free. The app will also have a family sharing feature, so multiple members of a family or group of friends need not pay separate monthly fees. This particular fee will be $14.99 USD per month. Apple Music will be released June 30 worldwide. The app will not be exclusive to Apple devices; versions for Windows and Android devices are expected to be released this fall.
As some are aware, iTunes Radio was launched in 2013. This service is expected to merge with Apple Music, as the app will include Beats 1, the first of many new exclusive internet radio stations. Beats 1 will be hosted by former BBC Radio DJ Zane Lowe, and users will have the option to skip tracks. In terms of the relation with iTunes, Apple Music will be the music streaming service, while iTunes will still serve as a store in which to purchase digital audio from, so the two will coexist.
Perhaps one of the most interesting stories developing out of this announcement is how Apple Music will compete with current services in the market such as SoundCloud, Jango, Songza, and most notably Spotify. While Apple Music requires a monthly subscription, Spotify uses a freemium business model: free users have limited access to “premium user” features, such as ad-free listening, and the ability to skip and select songs at will. They have a free 30-day trial of premium, or the first three months for $0.99 CAD per month. Spotify’s regular subscription fee is $9.99 CAD per month, but the family subscription plan definitely does not match up to Apple Music, with the plan essentially working out as a buy one get one half price model. Overall Apple Music and Spotify are similar in many ways. Perhaps the most defining feature of Apple Music will be its ability to stream Taylor Swift songs.
Over the past 15 years, Apple has done its part to revolutionize the music industry to what it is today, first with the iPod and then iTunes. Although the concept of subscription-based music streaming was opposed by cofounder Steve Jobs, Apple Music is being released onto the market with high expectations, so how well the service competes in the first year will definitely be something interesting to watch out for.
In addition to the launch of Apple Music, several other announcements were made regarding software updates to current Apple products. Most notably was the announcement of Apple’s new desktop operating system, Mac OS X 10.11, better known as OS X El Capitan. El Capitan will be the successor to 2014’s Yosemite, and while it lacks any distinguishable new features, El Capitan’s main focus will be on its significantly improved and refined performance. El Capitan will be available this fall as a free upgrade for Mac users.
The new iOS 9 update for mobile devices was also announced for this fall, with a beta currently open for any Apple users interested in testing (and quite possible crashing) the new and improved features. Notable new features mentioned at WWDC include improvements to Apple Pay such as a partnership with Square (a very well known credit card processing service specializing in mobile payments) and availability of the application in the United Kingdom. Additionally, improvements were made to Apple Maps, particularly in the transit feature in the app. Whether the new improvements will encourage Apple users to actually use the app at all over Google Maps is the question. Other interesting mentions from the conference are the multi-view features being implemented for iPad and desktop (similar to the split view on Windows), and the updated watchOS, which will operate more independently from the iPhone in terms of computational capabilities.
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