How Connect in Apple Music Should Work


Apple Music has received a bunch of criticism lately, largely centered around users being confused by what’s in their library vs. what’s streaming, and how to make sure they don’t accidentally delete anything. There are plenty of articles about this right now, and I have nothing new to bring to that conversation, but I would like to talk about Connect.

What is Connect?


Connect tries to be a combination of social media, Vevo, & SoundCloud — a single location for an artist to be able to post new content for fans. In addition to artists, you can (somewhat confusingly) also follow radio shows and genres. I follow Apple Music Hip-Hop and OVO Sound Radio, and it’s OVO Sound that I’m going to use as my example for how Connect should work.

Right now all I see when OVO Sound has something new is an item in Connect, as seen to the left. I didn’t know it would be in Connect, I had to go looking for it. Additionally, note that my only option is to go listen to the entire radio show back again, with no context for why I might want to do that.

Unless you pay attention to Twitter or blogs, you’d have no idea that last night on OVO Sound Radio Drake premiered new songs, one of which is a response to Meek Mill’s claim that Drake has a ghostwriter. This is why the show has 154 comments, but you’d never know that.

This is also why the replay for OVOSOUND Radio shows up in the ‘New’ section, but again — no context for why, and no option to skip to the new songs. All I know is that oh, here’s a picture of Drake, and an option to re-listen to an entire radio show because…..?

I’m not sure if this is a failure of Apple Music or a failure of OVO, but the users of Apple Music sure don’t care who’s fault it is. They just know that there is supposedly some reason why they should listen to an entire radio show, and to be honest they’re probably going to skip right over it.

Here’s how Connect & Radio should work together:

(Using OVO Sound Radio as an example)

  1. If I follow OVO Sound Radio, I should receive a push notification when a new episode has started.
  2. While the episode is playing, I should have an opportunity to talk about the show with fellow fans in Connect.
  3. Immediately after the show, I should be able to listen to the replay in Connect.
  4. When a show debuts new songs, they should show up in Connect ASAP after the show has completed. OVO has used SoundCloud to debut new songs (streaming only, although download workarounds exist) in the past, and this is presumably why Apple is paying Drake and OVO to be exclusive with Apple Music.
  5. If the new songs are particularly noteworthy or newsworthy, the genres in Connect should start posting them — Apple Music Hip-Hop, as an example, should have had something about Drake’s response to Meek Mill, with a quick way to play it back. Speed is crucial here, because people will simply post radio rips of the new song(s) outside of Apple Music as soon as they possibly can.
  6. By the next morning (on the East Coast), if a particular radio show has made news on Twitter and various blogs, there should be something in New — which they did! Unfortunately, they just provided a way to listen back, and no context for why you should. So provide context! Allow people to listen to each of the new songs, and also allow an option to play back the entire radio show. Crucially, have an option right in this curated section to follow OVO Sound for future radio show updates.

This particular example relies on a Beats 1 radio show, but ideally Connect should be Apple’s answer to SoundCloud. If Drake (or any artist) comes out with something new, they should be able to upload it and push it out to anybody who follows them immediately. As the conversation grows and if Twitter & others take notice, the appropriate curated genre page should pick it up and promote it as well. Songs that are particularly noteworthy would push their way into the New section, creating this perception that if people want to know what’s coming next, they need to be active in Connect.

Connect could solve a problem both for artists and fans — a single place for artists to put out new content, and a single place for fans to find out what their favorite artists are working on. It’s up to Apple to make it actually work.

Update:

Since publishing this on the morning of Sunday, July 26th, two things happened that make me feel like Apple is getting the hang of this (or at least hope so):

  1. Sometime on Sunday, Apple Music updated the ‘OVO Sound Replay’ graphic to let people know this is how they could hear ‘Charged Up’, which is Drake’s response to Meek Mill.
  2. On Monday night Drake tweeted out that the three songs he premiered on OVO Sound Radio were now available on SoundCloud. They were also made available in Connect, as standalone songs.

While I’d love to believe that the Apple Music team read my post and thought “yeah, this Dave guy knows what he’s talking about”, I’m assuming that Drake and OVO control when songs get pushed to Connect. The concerning thing for Apple Music is that their deal w/ Drake doesn’t include exclusivity for these types of tracks, but it’s good to see Connect being used in a way you’d hope it would be.