Since Apple acquired Beats Electronics for $3 billion last summer, it has been widely rumored that Apple would release its own streaming music service. On Monday, that finally happened.
Apple announced a new service — simply called Apple Music — to compete with market leaders like Rdio and Spotify, the latter of which just announced that it has 20 million paying subscribers.
Apple Music will be released on June 30th for iOS and Mac, and in the fall for Windows and Android.
Given Apple’s big news, we hit the streets of Seattle to ask folks how they listen to music, whether that be Spotify, Pandora, CD or even vinyl.
We also collected a few opinions about the new music service from Apple.
How do you listen to music?
Sara Thibadeau: “Pandora, because I’ve set up a bunch of customized stations so it knows what I like.”
Charles Brochet: “Radio. I don’t know the [station], but I listen to a lot of classic rock.”
Rae Black: “YouTube. Because I can watch the videos, also.”
Lee Williams: “Pandora. It comes up with songs for me so I don’t get bored listening to the same thing repeatedly or have to find different bands to listen to.”
Brooks Larsen: “On my mobile phone, through Pandora. I like where the stations go. I kinda know who I like but I like suggestions to go: ‘Ok, you might also like this.’ And then I usually grab those and make it a new station.”
Bean Ramsey: “Spotify. All the way. Mostly because Spotify has a wide range of music. I used to use Rhapsody back when Rhapsody was a thing and it’s a similar kind of concept, and also it has the radio capability of Pandora.”
Have you heard about Apple’s new music service? If so, are you interested?
Sara Thibadeau: “It’s like radio on the internet, hasn’t that been done? It didn’t seem new to me.”
Charles Brochet: “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard about that, yeah. I don’t like Apple.”
Bean Ramsey: “I have. I haven’t tried it out, though. I haven’t heard too much about it, but I might be if I learned more about it.”
Brooks Larsen: “I have a lot of thoughts. I was involved in the transactions with Beats early on. I’m a lawyer and I work for HTC. So I was very involved in Beats and Beats music…. I would not switch just because of the brand Apple. If it was a compelling music service, then I might switch and I might pay for it. I do free Pandora by the way, so I’m cheap. Plus I work for HTC, so I’m not exactly grabbing onto Apple. But even so, I love music, and I listen to it a lot. If Apple were awesome, I might switch, but I wouldn’t switch just because of an Apple brand. They’ve invested billions of dollars in it, but I tend to be a consumer that tries to think more about what I buy.”
Eli Etzioni and Michael Sherman are GeekWire summer interns hailing from Claremont McKenna College and The Bush School, respectively. Eli is a surf enthusiast that enjoys writing and hiking. Michael is a technophile with aspirations to be an entrepreneur and/or politician.
