Apple sells more phones on the first DAY of releasing a new one than there are Roon subscribers. And you think they need Roon to be successful?
Not sure what all this music not found on Tidal/Qobuz is, but the whole original point of Roon is to assimilate your local collection with your streaming. So go buy those and help out the artist/label. Personally, I don’t have the time to even listen to an nth of what I’ve added to my library from Qobuz, including several new discoveries yesterday. As we say in America, time for people to ‘get real.’ Apple integration is NEVER going to happen.
I am aware I have an iPhone and do yearly upgrades as well. The point is to create options. Not everything is found on Tidal/Qobuz that’s on apple. Also locating cds or downloads can be challenging as well.
I feel like it’s an opportunity for Apple to open the door to better sound quality for majority of their users. Especially small group of audiophiles as well.
Roon is catered to audiophiles and Apple isn’t, it’s focused on convenience. Look at Spotify numbers the largest streaming service and it still continues to grow.
But people don’t realize there is an alternative. Still to this day I get asked why I don’t use Spotify.
If Apple’s only motivation is to get folks to buy Apple what do you suppose the motivation is for Spotify and the rest? Surely not to make money because I don’t know if any of them have ever turned a profit.
What else would it be? They are a commercial entity and their cash cow is hardware.
Making money is their motivation. In speculative Internet ventures, this does not mean immediate money, but building market share and making money later ideally when the competition gives up.
So how does allowing Apple Music on other platforms fit in with this? Are they going to convert Windows people to Mac? Or Android to iPhone? Maybe but that is certainly a long game. (Full disclosure: I left Windows six years ago but it wasn’t because of music.)
I’m not privy to Apple’s long term strategy, but I can imagine in the long term that if you get people hooked on some Apple apps and an iPhone, they are more likely to jump ship - and the iPhone US market share is over 50%, so clearly they have Windows users. In any case, their apps on Windows still gives them the full control of the Apple ecosystem that they apparently want - see the list by Danny in the link I posted
Neither am I privy. Just speculation. I see another technical hurdle which I haven’t seen mentioned maybe because it’s a small subset of users. I have LOTS of music that is not on any streaming service I’ve found, for example, my beloved Kate Rusby that I’ve been listening to all week. I have those albums uploaded to Apple Music so I can still listen to them on the go when ARC craps out(which, to be fair, hasn’t been happening as much lately). Anyway, I’m not sure how they would handle the music that is available both locally and on the AM cloud service. Like I say, probably a small subset.
Anything in the local library that does not match to anything in Apple Music is uploaded in 256 AAC. There are certain restrictions, such as the file can’t be more that two hours long and some others that I don’t recall. I have official releases and boots not available on AM which are uploaded. When this was first implemented it was a cluster. They were matching live tracks to studio tracks and misidentifying stuff. At some point after a couple years they implemented an audio analysis feature which pretty much eliminated the misidentified tracks. I must be one of the few people here using this since I haven’t seen it mentioned. I’ve been an iTunes and Apple Music user for years.
Gave up using iTunes over 10 years ago as soon as I discovered LMS. Hated iTunes but it did get get me streaming not from a iPhone or iPod in a dock but from an Airport to my amp.
If this is true then why did Apple have any discussions at all with roon. In fact they made more progress than other companies. I think Apple wants as many peopy as possible to use their services and hopefully buy their hardware. But of course they want control over this as well. It’s possible Apple and roon work something out eventually. Just don’t see it happening any time soon.
Apple may not care about audiophiles in the past but the introduction of hires audio on their platform and the release of Classical changed things. Now pulling audiophiles to their platform is definitely on their radar.
It’s a convenience thing for me. I’ll always have Apple because I’m on the Apple One plan with my family which includes Apple TV, news , fitness, iCloud all of which I use. $30 plus tax for my family of four, my son in law’ and my sister in law. So it would be nice to have it tied to Roon but if it doesn’t happen that’s ok too.
