Apple's Keynote & Music: Digital Crowns, Phablets, U2, Space Odyssey, RIP iPod
Yesterday Apple unveiled perhaps its most anticipated product since 2010’s unveiling of the iPad, the Apple Watch. Questions around how the company entertains trademarking the word Watch aside, the Watch only constituted the “One More Thing” portion of the Keynote. Apple also unveiled a new payment system via NFC “Apple Pay” and - most importantly for the company’s bottom line - two new iPhone models, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.
Far from wanting to compete with the likes of Recode and Engadget though, who did an excellent job in covering the event, I want to take a look at the keynote from a music perspective.
iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
Apple’s iPhone announcement didn’t discuss music directly, there were many more references to the display’s resolution and the advancements in the camera technology, but looking at the technical specs music lovers will be happy to hear that both the 4.7” and the 5.5” versions sport the best iPhone battery performance ever for audio playback, 50 and 80 hours respectively.
The phones obviously still support lossless music formats, but there is no mention in the specs of HD Sound or of special support for the playback of high-definition audio files, something that a few Android phones have started to incorporate (like the HTC One). Pono and the newly announced TIDAL hi-fi service still have to see the light of day, nevermind proving themselves on the market, so it is unlikely that Apple will jump on the HD sound bandwagon before they do.
Apple Watch
Apple knew that it had to come into the market with something new and something different than what we’ve seen so far in the smart wearables space. And - at least on paper - it delivered with the Digital Crown, a way to bring the traditional crown of a watch into the 21st century. The Digital Crown will enable easy navigation of the watch’s apps, the ability to zoom in on maps and much more, all without restricting the user’s ability to see the screen. The Apple Watch will be able to play back music from its on board storage but also to retrieve music stored on a user's iPhone. Changing track will be as easy as swiping on the screen. As of yet though no official word on how much storage the Apple Watch will have or even if there may be different configurations.
The Watch app ecosystem will live alongside iOS’s but will be distinctly separate. From a music standpoint this will likely see Spotify, Beats Music, Rdio develop dedicated Watch apps, but Watch will also be extremely interesting when it comes to music recognition apps like Shazam - which will be fully baked into iOS 8 - and perhaps even event-related apps like Songkick.
NFC
The iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and the Apple Watch will all be equipped with NFC, enabling wireless payments across thousands of stores in the US. NFC could be perhaps the biggest step towards reducing cues at gigs, whether at the merchandise table or at the bar. Recently I attended the Kate Bush “Before the Dawn” tour and with demand for merchandise being off the charts people had to wait up to half an hour to be served, much of that having to do with payment processing times. If Apple can push NFC into the mainstream we may all be able to cue a little less.
Timberlake and Fallon
Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon feature in the first iPhone 6 advert to hit the web, but only as humming voices. The two are humming along to the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, and the advert features the tagline “Bigger than Better”. Certainly bizarre but the two do make for a nice comedy rendition complete with harmonies.
U2
U2’s appearance had been rumoured for around a week before the announcement. What role would the band play in the keynote? Would there be a new “interactive” album?
The answer was in a sense a little underwhelming from a technical perspective but hugely significant for both the band and Apple. U2’s 13th studio album entitled “Songs of Innocence” received a “Beyonce” treatment and was rolled out during the keynote to all 500 million iTunes users around the world for FREE. No opt-in required, it simply appeared in their iTunes library. This made it the largest album rollout ever, although technically none of those users had asked for it. “Songs of Innocence” is also available exclusively for streaming on Beats Music, signalling the growing synergy between iTunes and the newly-acquired streaming service.
This will raise some eyebrows in the industry. It feels in part like a “take that” to streaming services like Spotify that have been taking a big chunk out of iTunes download sales, but at the same time it consolidates a notion of music being “free” with the general public that is not particularly healthy for the music industry. Obviously we’d all like to know how much this cost Apple. $10 million, $50 million? We may never find out.
Also, how will this affect U2, their fan base, their ability to tour? And, most importantly, was U2 a good choice considering that the band today is hardly considered innovative, hip or futuristic?
Hey, perhaps they realised that those that could afford the high-end Apple Watch Edition made of gold were also old enough to be U2 fans…
We’ll keep our eyes peeled on the wider relase of the album which is likely to drop after the exclusivity window with Apple expires on October the 13th.
Finally
Aside from the U2 splash, music services didn’t feature heavily in the Apple announcement. Even though Siri is built Apple Watch, the live demonstration didn’t feature the “Shazamming" of a track.
As expected, it was too early for the company to roll out anything Beats-related. Any hardware integration between the two companies will likely be reserved to next year’s keynote.
Finally, although this was not officially announced during the keynote, after the usual refresh of the Apple Store following the announcement, users found that the company had removed the iPod Classic from its product lineup. This may not be something that 99.9% of Apple customers care about, but since the iPod was the first step towards Apple becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world, it’s a significant departure and perhaps signals that the company recognises that the clock ticking on music downloads.
(Andrea Leonelli)