Monday, July 13, 2015

Beats 1 Could Be Start of Apple's Attempt To Disrupt More Than Just Music

It's interesting that Apple has supported podcasts and podcasting for years and, without much effort beyond updating the podcast app on iOS, the podcasting community has grown in sophistication and numbers of quality podcasts as well as tens if not millions of listeners.  And now with Beats 1, Apple may well be focusing and evolving at its usual pace when disrupting markets the whole streaming music and podcast market - creating a network not unlike SiriusXM with content that already exist.

In this Macworld post, it focused on how Beats 1 can be the start of something at Apple to take on SiriusXM There have been calls in the past that Apple should buy SiriusXM but I always found that to be a big unlike Apple.  After all, Apple had the podcast app that allowing users to curate podcasts to their own tastes and interests.  And yes, there are music podcasts already.  And more content than even Sirius can hope to have.

There was also a time when it looked like Apple was going to allow users to pay and subscribe to podcasts as well.  While that obviously did not happen, we can look for Apple to possibly create more "stations" or 'channels" along side Beats 1 and allow users to flip through them depending on what they want to listen to.

Also keep in mind that about a year ago, Apple integreated actual radio feeds from ESPN and NPR as well as some local public radio stations into the radio tab of the Music app and it remains there even now.

In response to Macworld's post, Apple does not need to take on SiriusXM directly.  Macworld suggests that while Beats 1 is free but additonal "stations" might not be.  It is debatable whethere they will be based on Apple's own produced shows or content or select podcasters invited to fill time slots that require subscriptions to access them.


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