7 ms·

Beats Music launches

53 points by aaronmoodie 13y ago

Raphmedia 13y ago
I don't understand the text on the website. Is it some kind of attempt to look funny? " home.whatever.p", "HOME.ELEGANT-AND-FUN.LI3.HEADING"... ?! Or is the website completely busted right now? 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 http://imgur.com/ydTIPso
- warp 13y ago
  It's busted in firefox here, works in chrome.
  - Raphmedia 13y ago
    Eh, weird. Here, it's busted in chrome and works in FF.
- duiker101 13y ago
  Seems like you are missing localization and you see the keys for the text. EDIT: pricing MONTHLY $9.99 YEARLY $119.88
- facorreia 13y ago
  I like the big "HOME.HERO.HEADING" at the top. And "HOME.WHATEVER.HEADING" is quite amusing...
- rawrBeats 13y ago
  Google Search has an amusing result as well... http://imgur.com/2ycZr0X http://imgur.com/2ycZr0X https://www.google.com/search?q=beats+music https://www.google.com/search?q=beats+music
Dirlewanger 13y ago
Nice website, recommendation seems kinda cool, but I'm sure like most people here, I don't see this going too far. >That’s why you’ll never hear an ad on Beats Music. Yeah, that's not lasting.
TomGullen 13y ago
Not a fan of Beats. Tried a pair of their headphones in a shop and they sounded terrible. Build quality was flimsy as well. I think the only new thing they bring into the market is style, and that's not enough for longevity imo. 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.
- aaronmoodie 13y ago
  I've been giving it a run through this morning. Haven't gotten too far in, but I'd already say Spotify and Rdio have some serious competition on their hands. 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.
- edgarallenbro 13y ago
  Beats are EQ'd to increase the volume of the high and low end frequencies. 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.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> "Beats are EQ'd to increase the volume of the high and low end frequencies." 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.
    - JonnieCache 13y ago
      They are not marketed to engineers. They are marketed to people who think they need headphones as good as those used by engineers. In reality of course, engineers typically use headphones that sound as boring and "lifeless" as possible, for obvious reasons. Ironically, they often also buy (relatively) cheap ones, as they get used to destruction.
antoinec 13y ago
Thanks for telling me that you are not available in my country AFTER I register....
- bestest 13y ago
  yeah, quite misleading: AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE and then: HOLD UP. BEATS MUSIC IS NOT YET AVAILABLE IN YOUR COUNTRY. very annoying.
  - jellicle 13y ago
    By "everywhere" it is meant "only in the United States".
sbarre 13y ago
It looks like they are basically copying Songza's concierge model (which may not be original itself but it's a pretty popular implementation of that idea)..
brentm 13y ago
Whenever a brand like Beats lends their name to or builds a service like this with a much hyped press launch I feel like it's almost always doomed. I tried my account this morning and that's probably the end. It's just another streaming radio app, nothing at all new. Their entire value claim is based around the idea that not just an algorithm is picking the music, humans are involved too. That's great, who cares? Humans are already involved for the other radio apps, maybe not special "music experts" but direct plays on Spotify are certainly factored into their radio algorithm. In fact it's more democratized that way. This needed to be magnitudes better than Pandora, Spotify radio and iTunes Radio to get anyone to care once the press goes away, it does not appear that is the case. I will be impressed if anyone is still talking about this in 3 months.
- sbarre 13y ago
  Here's the thing though, they can bundle a free trial period (longer than the default on the website) with every pair of Beats they sell, and they will probably get enough adoption to keep going in the long run. I forget the stats, but Beats headphones have a ridiculous market share...
  - brentm 13y ago
    I don't disagree with that. The brand is huge and will find a way to at least keep the lights on here but how many people are really going to decide to spend their $9.99 a month on this? Most people won't even pay Spotify $9.99 a month for radio and a virtually unlimited music library since oh yea it's all also available for free.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "Their entire value claim is based around the idea that not just an algorithm is picking the music, humans are involved too. That's great, who cares?" 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.
djim 13y ago
their tagline/value statement is weaksauce: "A NEW MUSIC SERVICE CURATED BY PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE MUSIC IS EMOTION AND LIFE." who gives a shit?
- cliveowen 13y ago
  Beats me.
paraschopra 13y ago
Not available in India. Rats.
zman0225 13y ago
I bet every song is equalized with extra bass.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
I've been using this for the last 4 or 5 hours. I'm not in the US but have a dormant US iTunes Account so I was able to download it through that. 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.
- aaronmoodie 13y ago
  >> "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." 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.
benjamta 13y ago
Hmmm. I reckon I'm quite good at choosing the music I want to listen to. Not sure I want to pay some one (or a service) to select music for me.
dtf 13y ago
Is this the "Daisy" project?
- josephagoss 13y ago
  Yes. http://evolver.fm/2013/08/09/project-daisy-gets-a-name-beats-music/ http://evolver.fm/2013/08/09/project-daisy-gets-a-name-beats...
cmicali 13y ago
Selection, UI, and curation/recommendation all are very good. I hope this creates some competition for Spotify, because I think they need a fire lit under their product plans. (It's 2014 and I still can't save a collection of music outside of playlists) But is it just me, or can you not fast forward / seek in Beats Music?
- uses 13y ago
  You have to tap the "now playing tray", then there is a circular progress bar which you must track your finger around. It's incredibly easy to move from 99% to 1%...especially problematic when the circle turns into a volume slider.
whizzkid 13y ago
This looks to me more like an app designer/developer company's showcase than a music service (sorry for being negative, i might still have the monday feeling) 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!
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "- Spotify gives me limitless account (with ads) for free, this one not." 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 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).
  - whizzkid 13y ago
    Reasonable arguments I have to agree except the first one. 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 :)
jmcatani 13y ago
"I'm at work and feel like saving the world with your ex to old school dance" gives me some pretty funky jams. I am happy. Thanks Reznor!
jccalhoun 13y ago
So is this just basically MOG with a new name? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29
phren0logy 13y ago
I am (was?) a fairly happy MOG subscriber. Some thoughts: 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.
- warfangle 13y ago
  The AT&T trial ($15/mo) .. once you complete the trial, do you begin paying Beats? Or AT&T? Is it included on your data plan, or does it supersede? This whole thing strikes me as ... shady. But everything about the Beats brand strikes me as shady.
ohwp 13y ago
Why would I like to listen to curated music !? 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.
- JonnieCache 13y ago
  To branch out without getting completely lost, assuming that isn't what you want.
brady747 13y ago
Seems that I can't 'shuffle' play my own library by genre (or 'mood'). Which makes Beats about the thousandth company to not offer this (common sense?) option. I can do this with Google Play Music (thankfully). Personally, there are plenty of ways to get 'curated' music...make it easy for me to play what I want. 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)
pla3rhat3r 13y ago
The biggest issue I have with Beats (or any streaming music service for that matter) is that it's just curating existing music. Even their tagline includes the word "curating." This goes to the heart of what's wrong with the entire music industry. It seems that the industry is happy with keeping things the way they are instead of finding ways to be prolific. Curating what we already have is not going to push the music industry forward. Hopefully Beats is different than other music services and actually pays the bands. If not, who gives a shit about another service trying to separate us from our money?
jksmith 13y ago
If the tracks are more than 5-10 cents a piece, what's advantage over what I've been spoiled to (gomusicnow, and now iomoio)?
sehr 13y ago
Service is down right now, just returning standard JSON errors.

53 points by aaronmoodie 13y ago

I don't understand the text on the website. Is it some kind of attempt to look funny? " home.whatever.p", "HOME.ELEGANT-AND-FUN.LI3.HEADING"... ?! Or is the website completely busted right now? 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 http://imgur.com/ydTIPso

warp 13y ago
It's busted in firefox here, works in chrome.
- Raphmedia 13y ago
  Eh, weird. Here, it's busted in chrome and works in FF.
duiker101 13y ago
Seems like you are missing localization and you see the keys for the text. EDIT: pricing MONTHLY $9.99 YEARLY $119.88
facorreia 13y ago
I like the big "HOME.HERO.HEADING" at the top. And "HOME.WHATEVER.HEADING" is quite amusing...
rawrBeats 13y ago
Google Search has an amusing result as well... http://imgur.com/2ycZr0X http://imgur.com/2ycZr0X https://www.google.com/search?q=beats+music https://www.google.com/search?q=beats+music

Dirlewanger 13y ago

Nice website, recommendation seems kinda cool, but I'm sure like most people here, I don't see this going too far. >That’s why you’ll never hear an ad on Beats Music. Yeah, that's not lasting.

TomGullen 13y ago

Not a fan of Beats. Tried a pair of their headphones in a shop and they sounded terrible. Build quality was flimsy as well. I think the only new thing they bring into the market is style, and that's not enough for longevity imo. 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.

aaronmoodie 13y ago
I've been giving it a run through this morning. Haven't gotten too far in, but I'd already say Spotify and Rdio have some serious competition on their hands. 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.
edgarallenbro 13y ago
Beats are EQ'd to increase the volume of the high and low end frequencies. 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.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "Beats are EQ'd to increase the volume of the high and low end frequencies." 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.
  - JonnieCache 13y ago
    They are not marketed to engineers. They are marketed to people who think they need headphones as good as those used by engineers. In reality of course, engineers typically use headphones that sound as boring and "lifeless" as possible, for obvious reasons. Ironically, they often also buy (relatively) cheap ones, as they get used to destruction.

antoinec 13y ago

Thanks for telling me that you are not available in my country AFTER I register....

bestest 13y ago
yeah, quite misleading: AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE and then: HOLD UP. BEATS MUSIC IS NOT YET AVAILABLE IN YOUR COUNTRY. very annoying.
- jellicle 13y ago
  By "everywhere" it is meant "only in the United States".

sbarre 13y ago

It looks like they are basically copying Songza's concierge model (which may not be original itself but it's a pretty popular implementation of that idea)..

brentm 13y ago

Whenever a brand like Beats lends their name to or builds a service like this with a much hyped press launch I feel like it's almost always doomed. I tried my account this morning and that's probably the end. It's just another streaming radio app, nothing at all new. Their entire value claim is based around the idea that not just an algorithm is picking the music, humans are involved too. That's great, who cares? Humans are already involved for the other radio apps, maybe not special "music experts" but direct plays on Spotify are certainly factored into their radio algorithm. In fact it's more democratized that way. This needed to be magnitudes better than Pandora, Spotify radio and iTunes Radio to get anyone to care once the press goes away, it does not appear that is the case. I will be impressed if anyone is still talking about this in 3 months.

sbarre 13y ago
Here's the thing though, they can bundle a free trial period (longer than the default on the website) with every pair of Beats they sell, and they will probably get enough adoption to keep going in the long run. I forget the stats, but Beats headphones have a ridiculous market share...
- brentm 13y ago
  I don't disagree with that. The brand is huge and will find a way to at least keep the lights on here but how many people are really going to decide to spend their $9.99 a month on this? Most people won't even pay Spotify $9.99 a month for radio and a virtually unlimited music library since oh yea it's all also available for free.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "Their entire value claim is based around the idea that not just an algorithm is picking the music, humans are involved too. That's great, who cares?" 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.

djim 13y ago

their tagline/value statement is weaksauce: "A NEW MUSIC SERVICE CURATED BY PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE MUSIC IS EMOTION AND LIFE." who gives a shit?

cliveowen 13y ago
Beats me.

paraschopra 13y ago

Not available in India. Rats.

zman0225 13y ago

I bet every song is equalized with extra bass.

k-mcgrady 13y ago

I've been using this for the last 4 or 5 hours. I'm not in the US but have a dormant US iTunes Account so I was able to download it through that. 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.

aaronmoodie 13y ago
>> "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." 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.

benjamta 13y ago

Hmmm. I reckon I'm quite good at choosing the music I want to listen to. Not sure I want to pay some one (or a service) to select music for me.

dtf 13y ago

Is this the "Daisy" project?

josephagoss 13y ago
Yes. http://evolver.fm/2013/08/09/project-daisy-gets-a-name-beats-music/ http://evolver.fm/2013/08/09/project-daisy-gets-a-name-beats...

cmicali 13y ago

Selection, UI, and curation/recommendation all are very good. I hope this creates some competition for Spotify, because I think they need a fire lit under their product plans. (It's 2014 and I still can't save a collection of music outside of playlists) But is it just me, or can you not fast forward / seek in Beats Music?

uses 13y ago
You have to tap the "now playing tray", then there is a circular progress bar which you must track your finger around. It's incredibly easy to move from 99% to 1%...especially problematic when the circle turns into a volume slider.

whizzkid 13y ago

This looks to me more like an app designer/developer company's showcase than a music service (sorry for being negative, i might still have the monday feeling) 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!

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "- Spotify gives me limitless account (with ads) for free, this one not." 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 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).
- whizzkid 13y ago
  Reasonable arguments I have to agree except the first one. 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 :)

jmcatani 13y ago

"I'm at work and feel like saving the world with your ex to old school dance" gives me some pretty funky jams. I am happy. Thanks Reznor!

jccalhoun 13y ago

So is this just basically MOG with a new name? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29

phren0logy 13y ago

I am (was?) a fairly happy MOG subscriber. Some thoughts: 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.

warfangle 13y ago
The AT&T trial ($15/mo) .. once you complete the trial, do you begin paying Beats? Or AT&T? Is it included on your data plan, or does it supersede? This whole thing strikes me as ... shady. But everything about the Beats brand strikes me as shady.

ohwp 13y ago

Why would I like to listen to curated music !? 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.

JonnieCache 13y ago
To branch out without getting completely lost, assuming that isn't what you want.

brady747 13y ago

Seems that I can't 'shuffle' play my own library by genre (or 'mood'). Which makes Beats about the thousandth company to not offer this (common sense?) option. I can do this with Google Play Music (thankfully). Personally, there are plenty of ways to get 'curated' music...make it easy for me to play what I want. 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)

pla3rhat3r 13y ago

The biggest issue I have with Beats (or any streaming music service for that matter) is that it's just curating existing music. Even their tagline includes the word "curating." This goes to the heart of what's wrong with the entire music industry. It seems that the industry is happy with keeping things the way they are instead of finding ways to be prolific. Curating what we already have is not going to push the music industry forward. Hopefully Beats is different than other music services and actually pays the bands. If not, who gives a shit about another service trying to separate us from our money?

jksmith 13y ago

If the tracks are more than 5-10 cents a piece, what's advantage over what I've been spoiled to (gomusicnow, and now iomoio)?

sehr 13y ago

Service is down right now, just returning standard JSON errors.