Apple Music Relaunch set for WWDC
Mark Gurman, 9to5mac:
Nearly a year after Apple Music’s debut, Apple is preparing to announce its streaming music service’s first end-to-end overhaul, according to multiple sources familiar with the changes. The changes are expected to be shown off at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in mid-June, and Apple currently plans to launch the updated service across its product lines that currently support Apple Music this fall as part of new operating system versions.
No big surprises here. Apple Music got off to a rocky start, and while it seemed to recover a bit, there has been a clear need for some rethinking.
The new version of Apple Music, which Apple recently announcedhas 13 million users so far, focuses on a redesigned user-interface, a few new functions, and reorganization as well as simplification of existing features. The new user-interface ditches the current colorful and translucent look in favor of a simpler design that emphasizes black and white backgrounds and text. For instance, the user interface in the albums view will no longer change in appearance based on the color of a particular album’s art. While the new interface will eschew color in the user-interface, album artwork will become “huge” and a larger part of the interface in order to avoid a dull black and white look, according to people who have seen the updated Apple Music service…
While the most of the Apple Music service will be redesigned, much of the emphasis is on the “For You” feature, the tab that recommends songs, albums, artists, and music videos. This section will be simplified and better promoted to increase usage of the feature. While the interface will change, the functionality will use algorithms similar to today’s Apple Music recommendations engine, according to sources. The new service will also discontinue the “New” tab, which is a jumbled list of top charts, genres, featured music launches, and curated playlists. It will be replaced with a section called “Browse” which better organizes the aforementioned content. The Beats 1 Radio service is unlikely to see notable interface changes this year.
Probably a good move. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the connect tab gets ditched all together, I’ve yet to see one person use it.
