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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Creating playlists is simple and unlike Spotify you can set a cover image and a description.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.
I am (was?) a fairly happy MOG subscriber. Some thoughts:<p>1. No way to transfer my MOG playlists and favorite bands/songs? That sucks.<p>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. ???<p>3. No web-only option for $5/month. I suppose that was too much to hope for.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Here's to hoping they get it all ironed out.
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?<p>Edit: What it looks like to me and everyone I asked to have a look. Big bug. Can't even see the pricing. <a href="http://imgur.com/ydTIPso" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/ydTIPso</a>
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?
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)..
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)<p>What are the advantages I will gain if I switch from Spotify?<p>- The answer seems to be the nice layout!<p>What are the disadvantages?<p>- Spotify gives me limitless account (with ads) for free, this one not.<p>- Spotify is even available as a web app,and desktop client which i use most. This one???<p>- "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Swedish Store, but it is available in the U.S. Store."<p>I am not trying to be disrespectful to what these guys had done. It looks beautiful.<p>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.<p>I might be totally wrong. That's why if you believe in something, just don't mind negative people. keep going!
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)<p>But is it just me, or can you not fast forward / seek in Beats Music?
Nice website, recommendation seems kinda cool, but I'm sure like most people here, I don't see this going too far.<p>>That’s why you’ll never hear an ad on Beats Music.<p>Yeah, that's not lasting.
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.<p>Also, spent about 15 minutes on their site and still couldn't find the web player...maybe launch day issue?<p>Edit: found listen.beatsmusic.com (thanks to a comment here)
So is this just basically MOG with a new name? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOG_%28online_music%29</a>
Why would I like to listen to curated music !?<p>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.
their tagline/value statement is weaksauce: "A NEW MUSIC SERVICE CURATED BY PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE MUSIC IS EMOTION AND LIFE." who gives a shit?
"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!