News - 14/04/2015

Apple’s iOS 8.4 beta revels revamped music interface: getting ready to integrate subscriptions?

Apple’s iOS 8.4 beta revels revamped music interface: getting ready to integrate subscriptions?

Apple yesterday released the beta version of its iOS 8.4 software, which sports a brand new design for its “Music” app and interface.

In the release notes, posted by 9to5Mac, Apple describes the new Music app as offering “powerful new features and an elegant new look”, and it hints at more to come: “the music is just getting started”.  

The design of the app has been streamlined to make it more intuitive and fun to use, and it now allows users to customise playlists with their own artwork and description. 

The company is to include a ‘recently added’ tab allowing users to quickly reach albums and playlists they added recently - taking a page out of Spotify’s interface. Artist pages are also being revamped with high-res photos making their appearance.

iTunes Radio has been tweaked to improve the music discovery experience, allowing users to quickly return to their favourite stations and making the radio selection process more straightforward.

Finally the company included a ‘MiniPlayer’, which echoes the mini player that was introduced into the Mac version of iTunes a while back, as well as a global search function, allowing users to search for music from anywhere in the music app.

These tweaks likely offer a glimpse into what Apple has in store for the release of its Beats-based music subscription service slated for this summer. 

One of the possible moves Apple could make is to integrate the new subscription offering right into the Music app, rather than into a separate app, making it a seamless experience that would expand a user’s personal library to all available music in Apple’s catalogue. This is not a given though, since it would precipitously accelerate the drop-off in download sales.

The tweaks to the playlisting experience in particular are telling: the company is reportedly  paying a large number of music journalists to deliver succinct contextual copy around thousands pre-created playlists - MusicAlly reported yesterday, and in time it will make sense for user-generated playlists to become part of that ecosystem.

The timing of the music subscription service unveiling remains a question mark. According to rumours the new offering will be unveiled at WWDC, but it is unclear as to whether the unveiling will be closely followed by a release or if Apple will want to time the release of the music subscription service with the release of iOS9 which is likely to come in September alongside the new iPhones.

 

(Andrea Leonelli) 

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