Top Bananas | Tag Archives: Apple Music

Give Me the News with Siri

Posted on January 18, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple announced that Siri’s “Give me the news” feature is now out of beta, which allows users to ask Siri for the latest news everyday.

What do most people use Siri for? For many people, they don’t. Siri is useful for hands-free computing, but for many people, there’s no compelling reason to use Siri right now beyond convenience.

That’s why Apple’s latest Siri feature is important. Just by asking Siri, “Give me the news,” you can retrieve news from your favorite source such as Fox News, The Washington Post, or the BBC. This task can be especially handy for Apple’s upcoming HomePod.

What will people use HomePod for everyday? Chances are they’ll want information such as news, weather, or traffic reports. HomePod and Siri need to focus on the needs of hands-free computing. If you needed a computer but couldn’t touch it, what would you want to do?

While driving, Siri makes sense in CarPlay so you can control your stereo or get driving directions without taking your hands off the steering wheel. HomePod has no other user interface beyond Siri so it can be a news source, but it needs to do so much more than just play music. Right now, HomePod looks like it’s designed to steer people to Apple Music subscriptions, which is fine but that’s not a pressing need that most people want.

Hands-free computing through Siri and HomePod can be a revolution, but it needs to target a unique niche. The iPhone is essentially a computer in your pocket so that’s why the iPhone redefined the smartphone market. Instead of requiring a keyboard and a mouse, the iPhone replaced that user interface with a touch screen. HomePod and Siri need to replace the touch screen with a voice interface, but it also needs to go one step further and solve a pressing need.

The iPhone made it easy to have a computer wherever you go, which helped spawn driving directions, ride-sharing services, and services like Yelp to find and evaluate businesses. What will HomePod and Siri do in a similar fashion? If Siri and HomePod can’t find unique niche to fill, HomePod risks becoming like Apple TV, an interesting product but nothing necessary or critical.

HomePod is coming soon so we’ll get to see how sales go and how useful people find HomePod and Siri. The “Give me the news” feature is a start. Now let’s see where else Siri and HomePod can go to make everyone want HomePod in their home or office just like everyone wants a smartphone today.

Apple Services Growing Rapidly

Posted on August 16, 2017 by admin Posted in Business Leave a comment

What it is: Apple Services has continued growing, earning up to 13% of Apple’s total revenue.

Apple is more than just an iPhone company. While people eagerly buy the latest iPhone, Android smartphones dominate the market place. The big difference between Android and Apple is that Android device makers only make money selling hardware. In comparison, Apple makes money selling iPhones and then they make a continuous stream of profits selling services such as iTunes downloads, Apple Music subscriptions, and App Store purchases.

That’s why Android rarely gets updated on smartphones because it costs time and money for manufacturers to test the latest Android updates on their older devices. Even worse, they don’t make any money testing the latest Android updates on their devices. The only way Android device makers can make money is by selling you a new device so their incentive is not to update their devices.

Apple, on the other hand, makes money selling you iPhones and then makes a steady stream of profits from their Apps Store, iBooks, iTunes, and Apple Music. Apple has a huge incentive to make sure the latest iOS update runs and works on as many devices as possible because they’ll make the money up in services. Tim Cook recently boasted that Apple’s services division will soon be a Fortune 500 company on its own if it were independent of Apple.

Services is what will keep Apple profitable long after iPhone sales flatten. Apple doesn’t necessarily need to capture a huge market share of smartphone sales to be profitable. They just need to capture a small percent of the market share because they’ll make more peony selling services to those existing iPhone owners. Services will become so important that eventually Apple could make more money on services than on actual hardware sales.

HomePod – the Smart Speaker

Posted on June 5, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Music, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple announced HomePod, their smart speaker coming in December.

Amazon started the virtual assistant market with Echo then Google followed up with Google Home. The big problem with these early virtual assistants is that they focused more on natural language processing and less on audio quality. On the other hand, wireless speakers offered superior audio quality but no natural language processing capability whatsoever. To fill this gap, Apple introduced HomePod for $349, which will start shipping in December.

The main idea behind HomePod is to be an intelligent home assistant. Not only will it focus on music more than its rivals from Amazon and Google, but it will also focus on controlling a smart home as well. HomePod costs more than the cheapest Amazon Echo or Google Home, but those products also offer less as well. Whether Apple can sell more HomePods at a high price remains to be seen, but the added value is clearly there. Whether people want to pay for that added value is the big question.

The key advantage of HomePod is its link to HomeKit devices. Unfortunately, HomeKit isn’t as widespread or common as Apple would like. That means HomeKit compatibility is a nice feature, but not a compelling one to most people. Siri integration is fine, but nothing Amazon and Google don’t offer already. Linking HomePod to Apple Music is also nice, but Apple Music is a subscription service and not everyone relies on it.

So HomePod’s two key features (HomeKit and Apple Music) distinguish it from Amazon and Google, but don’t necessarily make it a must-have feature. The huge difference will likely be in the audio quality.

Right now, Amazon and Google offer mediocre audio quality. HomePod will clearly blow these rivals away. The best way Apple could demonstrate this would be to let people hear the difference in audio quality from all three devices. For people who value superior audio quality, HomePod will win. For people who care more about a low price, Amazon and Google will win.

HomePod is a nice new product, but not a revolutionary one. As HomeKit devices become more common and useful, then HomePod will also become more common and useful. HomePod won’t be the overnight success product that everyone wants Apple to introduce, but it’s a start and that might be enough.

The Future is Streaming Music

Posted on March 24, 2017 by admin Posted in Business, Music Leave a comment

What it is: Beats 1 host Zane Lowe says streaming music is the future.

At one time, music stores filled the retail store landscape. If you wanted to buy music, you had to buy a CD and play it in a CD player. When Napster arrived, it allowed people to illegally share MP3 files of individual songs, which helped decimate the music industry. Then Apple came along and legitimized music downloads with iTunes and the iPod.

Yet in a short time, the iPod has become obsolete along with iTunes. Digital downloads is still possible, but a far more popular way to enjoy music is streaming. Instead of clogging your iPhone or iPad with MP3 files, you can just listen to music over the Internet. Streaming music depends on reliable WiFi connections, but as WiFi becomes readily available in more places, streaming music becomes a viable alternative to digital downloads.

As streaming music has grown, digital downloads as shrunk. This sudden shift caught Apple by surprise so they spent $3 billion dollars acquiring Beats Music, which had already established a streaming music service along with establishing and maintaining ties to the music industry. When Apple rebranded Beats Music as Apple Music, they also created a live streaming radio station dubbed Beats 1. The goal of Beats 1 is to provide a streaming music subscription service with curated musical content. If people enjoy the radio station, they can pay a subscription fee. If they enjoy a particular song, they might be tempted to buy it through iTunes.

Apple Music thus acts like a way to introduce people to different music and get them to buy a digital download. Of course, Beats 1 only covers a limited range of music, which opens the door for additional Beats stations in the future. It’s no surprise that Apple’s first radio station is named Beats 1. That means Beats 2 and Beats 3 won’t be far away when you consider these other stations could highlight other music genres. Soon you’ll be able to listen to music stations in Apple Music that caters to your particular musical tastes.

Apple Music may not be the runaway success people expect but it’s going to grow in the long run. Zane Lowe is just stating the obvious when he says streaming music is the future and Beats radio stations are just one way to offer human curated content for listeners to enjoy. Rather than rely on computer algorithms to pick songs and artists, humans can more readily tap into current trends and offer explanations and descriptions of the artists and story behind individual songs.

Streaming music is the future of music and Apple Music strives to become the leader. Despite Apple being caught flat-footed over streaming music, Apple Music must claw its way to the top against competitors like Spotify or Pandora. The one advantage of Apple Music is that they can afford to pay for human curated content, but whether that’s an advantage or not remains to be seen. The only certainty is that Apple Music is the future of music and iTunes digital downloads is not.

Pokemon GO Highlights Apple Services

Posted on July 21, 2016 by admin Posted in Business, Software Leave a comment

What it is: Most people think of Apple as the iPhone company, but Apple is quietly making money selling services as well.

Selling hardware isn’t easy. Just ask all those Android device manufacturers who keep losing money selling smartphones and tablets, or all those PC manufacturers who have to keep cutting prices until their profits practically evaporate. When you sell hardware, it’s mostly a commodity.

Apple has resisted this commodity business by offering devices only they sell such as the Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. While you can always find alternatives to Apple products that are often cheaper, they’re also less reliable and often poorly built as well. That’s why Apple can get away with charging more because they offer higher quality materials for people willing to pay more to get more.

Yet even Apple can’t resist steadily dropping prices on devices. Apple released the iPad mini after Android manufacturers started flooding the market with low-cost, small Android tablets. Apple also released the Mac mini so they could sell lower-cost Macintosh computers.

With the smartphone market getting saturated and fewer people buying smartphones for the first time, Apple can no longer rely on increasing harder sales. Instead, Apple has been slowly moving towards services. The recent popularity of Pokemon GO indicates that Apple will make $3 billion dollars from this single video game alone.

That’s because Apple is more than just hardware sales. Apple also sells streaming music subscriptions and apps where Apple takes 30% of any money an app makes. That means a popular app like Pokemon GO has the potential to earn Apple more money than Nintendo since Nintendo has to split their profits with another company that developed the Pokemon GO app.

Apple will likely continue selling devices, but once people own those devices, Apple wants to make more money selling those people services. That’s the huge drawback with most Android manufacturers (except for Samsung) because once they sell you a smartphone or tablet, Android manufacturers can’t make money from you until you buy another device from them.

While Apple can make money from existing customers, Android manufacturers have to make money constantly finding new customers, which is time-consuming and expensive. In comparison, Apple can make money selling to new customers and then make more money selling to existing customers.

Apple Pay gives Apple a cut from every transaction. In-app purchases give money to Apple as well as sales of new apps. Streaming music subscriptions give money to Apple, so Apple has plenty of ways to make money to existing customers. Considering that customers often keep their smartphones for several years, Apple services provides another way to make money from them without trying to sell them a new device.

Chances are good Apple will eventually make more money on services than selling actual hardware. When that happens, selling new hardware will just be a happy extra.

Capturing the Student Market

Posted on May 6, 2016 by admin Posted in Business Leave a comment

What it is: Apple announced a special student subscription price to Apple Music that’s 50% off the original price.

There’s one reason why major computer companies offer discounts to students. It’s not because students don’t have much money but because they know that today’s students will become tomorrow’s decision makers in corporations, so they want students of today to start using and get dependent on their products as soon as possible. After all, if you’re familiar with Microsoft Office or Windows, what will you likely want later when you grow up, get a job, and start buying your own computer equipment? What will you likely suggest if you run the IT of a major corporation that typically buys thousands of PCs at a time?

Getting students hooked on products early is the key to educational discounts. That’s why Apple recently offered a 50% discount to students who subscribe to Apple Music. What makes this student discount especially attractive is that it lasts for four years. Unlike products, services like Apple Music continue billing you. So once students graduate college four years later, a large percentage of them will likely continue their Apple Music subscription at full price out of inertia.

Apple likely makes money whether someone pays full price or a student discount to get Apple Music. All they care about is capturing future customers as early as possible. That’s why companies like Microsoft and Adobe offers software discounts and why Apple and Dell offer hardware discounts.

The big question is when will other subscription services offer similar student discounts to capture students as early as possible? Netflix could certainly do this along with Hulu along with other music subscription services like Spotify or Pandora. The big difference is that Apple can afford to offer subscription services at half off while other companies may not want to go through that hassle and expense of attracting students when many of their customers are likely existing students who pay full price anyway.

Whether Apple Music can increase their growth or not through student discounts remains to be seen. What’s far more important is making Apple Music the best service for listening and finding music. As long as Apple focuses on making Apple Music delight the customer, the price won’t matter. If Apple has to rely on discounts to attract people to Apple Music, that’s a clear that they’ve already failed.

If lowering your price is the only incentive to attract customers, you’ve already lost. Apple can afford to offer steep educational discounts on services that don’t cost them much to provide to additional student customers, so it’s a no-lose proposition for them. However if Apple can’t make Apple Music better, they’ll risk losing any new subscribers they attract in the first place.

Right now, Apple Music is just an okay service but nothing exciting. Apple needs to make Apple Music revolutionary. Until that happens, all the student discounts in the world won’t help in the long run.