Once Apple Music finds its groove there’s going to be no way for rivals to compete with the service, according to Beats co-founder and Apple exec Jimmy Iovine.
“Curation is a big thing to us, and no one is going to be able to catch us or do it better,” Iovine says in a new interview, in which he stresses Apple Music’s not-so-secret weapon — human focus.
#FightingWords.
As with the recent Eddy Cue interview in USA Today, Iovine acknowledges some of the criticism Apple Music has faced, but puts this down to the fact that, surprisingly enough, building a central repository for the world’s music isn’t all that straightforward.
“I’m very happy with the content that’s forming, and what it is, and the image of it, and the vibe of what we’re trying to do is getting out there. So it’s easy for me to say I like it — but there’s a lot of work to do,” Iovine tells Wired.
He does, however, get in a few potshots at Apple Music’s rivals. In particular, he claims they do fans a disservice by treating music more like a utility than, you know, something creative.
“When I met a lot of our competitors in the field the first thing they said to me was, ‘Look we don’t have anything to do with music, we’re a utility,'” Iovine notes. “[But] no matter how you shake it, when you listen to a radio station that was programmed purely by an algorithm you will go comfortably numb.”
Iovine claims that Apple will also go further with Apple Music’s “Connect” feature.
“We have to prove [Connect’s value to artists], and we will slowly prove that. That will be the piece of the service that comes along last, or later, and we have some real plans. We’re building it out a lot more, it needs a lot of technical work as well. But we believe we’ll get there and it’ll be a great place for artists to communicate and with a lot of independence and freedom to do what they want to do. But we’re still building it.”
Yesterday it was reported that Apple Music has seen 11 million signups so far, although it’s yet to be seen how many of these people will convert into paying subscribers once the free trial period expires.
