Surprise, surprise! Former Google CEO and current Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt has a bone to pick with Apple Music.
In an article published over the weekend, Schmidt takes what appears to be a shot at Apple over its choice to embrace human curation for its streaming service.
Schmidt writes:
“A decade ago, to launch a digital music service, you probably would have enlisted a handful of elite tastemakers to pick the hottest new music. Today, you’re much better off building a smart system that can learn from the real world — what actual listeners are most likely to like next — and help you predict who and where the next Adele might be.”
In an effort to differentiate itself from its data-driven rivals, Apple has taken the opposite approach to most. When Apple Music was first introduced in June 2015, Jimmy Iovine told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper, “Algorithms are really great, of course, but they need a bit of a human touch in them, helping form the right sequence. You have to humanise it a bit, because it’s a real art to telling you what song comes next. Algorithms can’t do it alone. They’re very handy, and you can’t do something of this scale without ‘em, but you need a strong human element.”
Of the two approaches, I have to say I agree with Apple’s more — particularly when it comes to being exposed to new artists I’m unfamiliar with. Algorithms may be great for a lot of things, but there’s something pleasingly different about having expert voices in the mix, too — particularly when they’re the kind of big name curators Apple has managed to net so far.
It’s not only Google that has taken potshots at Apple, of course. Apple has also taken plenty of shots at Google, not least with Tim Cook’s outspoken opposition to data mining, which is how Google makes its money.
Geez, guys, didn’t you agree to play nice not all that long ago?
Source: BBC
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
5 responses to “Alphabet’s chairman talks Schmidt about Apple Music curation”
There isn’t any love lost between Apple and Google, since I believe Schmidt was a director at Apple at one time and walked away from Apple when he stole the iPhone concept and took it to Google to compete directly with the iPhone.
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Shows how out of touch he – and Google – are when they think human interaction is “out of date”.
Eric Schmidt is a nerd who feels that those who know about music are elitists and artificial intelligence will bring “democracy and fairness” to music. I always saw Mr. Schmidt as a Nazi. Apparently he was a failed musician in much the way that Hitler was a failed artist. I’d bet he wrote a little book called “Mein Kampf” as well…
I feel for kids today instead of getting their music choices from guys in indie record shops who looked like they’d been awake for 3 weeks solid, partying like lunatics they now get them from a bit of code or some gimp sat in a cubicle.