Apple Music Was Always Going To Win (gizmodo.com) 161
Apple Music is about to overtake Spotify as the most popular streaming music service in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend. Gizmodo: [...] Here's where the inevitability comes into play. Because all Apple devices come preloaded with Apple Music, countless consumers start using Apple Music without knowing any better. It's effectively become the streaming music analogue of Microsoft pushing people to surf the web with Internet Explorer. The big difference is that people eventually have to pay for Apple Music, which is the same price as Spotify. As many suspected when it launched three years ago, Apple Music was bound to succeed simply because Apple is big enough and rich enough to will it so. Think about it this way: Spotify gained traction quickly after its 2011 launch, largely because music enthusiasts had seen its streaming model succeed globally and wanted to try this neat new thing. After all, there wasn't anything quite like it at the time, and Americans love to feel innovative.
But eventually, Spotify would cease to feel special and new. As the years passed, practically every major tech company launched its own music streaming service. And then, in 2015, Apple unveiled Apple Music in 2015 -- which was really just a rebranded version of Beats Music. Because Apple could preload the service on iPhones, Watches, and Macs, the company could effectively tap into a new revenue stream without actually inventing anything.
But eventually, Spotify would cease to feel special and new. As the years passed, practically every major tech company launched its own music streaming service. And then, in 2015, Apple unveiled Apple Music in 2015 -- which was really just a rebranded version of Beats Music. Because Apple could preload the service on iPhones, Watches, and Macs, the company could effectively tap into a new revenue stream without actually inventing anything.
Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought the iPhone only had about a 1/3 market share in the US. Hardly Microsoftâ(TM)s 95+% they had in the heyday of Windows and the browser wars. Come to think of it, how how does Apple Music become the biggest service when itâ(TM)s only available on a minority of devices?
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No idea how many people use it, but Apple Music for Android is a thing.
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Right, but without a dominant market position, it isn't anti-competitive. Microsoft did this with a market-dominant position, as stated. Windows was on 95% of desktops, so anything they did would become a de-facto standard. Its as if one were to get mad that car makers dictate who integrates the radio. Its ok that they do this, since none of them are market-dominant. Apple has less market share than Android, which saves them from the anti-competitive assault from the fed.
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Right, but without a dominant market position, it isn't anti-competitive.
No it is still anticompetitive, it's the same behaviour it just doesn't fall afoul of anti-trust laws. If the government considers Apple's market position to be dominant then that anticompetitive behaviour becomes illegal but it's the same anticompetitive behaviour.
Not compatible with enough Android devices (Score:3)
When I checked Google Play Store five minutes ago, I found that Apple Music for Android was incompatible with my Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8" tablet (SM-T350) despite that it runs Android 7. What am I missing?
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Re: Not compatible with enough Android devices (Score:2)
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While 1/3 Market share is very respectable it is hardly enough to get people using Apple Devices who are not Apple Sheep to use it. Especially if they find that their other devices may not work with it.
iTunes got dominance, not because it was Apple or even a good product, but because it was one of the first places that offered legal Music Download, and its integration to the popular iPod was important too.
However today, the iPhone isn't nearly as popular as the iPod is. There are a lot of good alternative
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It's only preinstalled on a minority of devices.
It is available for the most popular mobile OS too [google.com].
Manufacturing an incompatibility (Score:2)
It is available for the most popular mobile OS too
I opened Google Play Store on my Galaxy Tab A 8" and searched for apple music. Many of the top 16 results imitated the Apple Music eighth notes icon, but not one was published by Apple. I opened Chrome on the same tablet, navigated to your comment, and clicked the link to the app only to see a notice in Google Play Store: "Your device isn't compatible with this version." Nor does it give me a list of devices, and I've noticed the app is also incompatible with a lot of other Android devices [androidcentral.com].
Is Apple manufact
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I thought the iPhone only had about a 1/3 market share in the US. Hardly Microsoftâ(TM)s 95+% they had in the heyday of Windows and the browser wars. Come to think of it, how how does Apple Music become the biggest service when itâ(TM)s only available on a minority of devices?
I think the usually given reason is that they may have 1/3 of the market, but they have 2/3s of the users willing to pay money for things.
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Over 10mil installs on Android, with a 3.5 rating, having 211k ratings.
3.5 is fairly bad. Given that there isn't a 0 star rating, it equates to a 6.25 rating on a 0-10 scale.
Re: Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party (Score:4, Insightful)
It does - on the other hand, it's an app made by Apple, which means there's probably a pretty significant proportion of the android crowd giving it 1* reviews for no reason other than it being made by Apple.
Re: Preinstalled app used more than 3rd party (Score:4, Insightful)
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Where do I go to give the 1* Apple review?
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OMG, it also equates to 9626.4 / 13752! Or 1.4 / 2!
It's the same ratio no matter what bounds you apply, but futzing with the bounds can sure make it look worse or better, can't it?
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It's the same ratio no matter what bounds you apply
No, it isn't. 3.5/5 where the bounds are 1-5 is not the same as 3.5/5 where the bounds are 0-5.
What people are most used to are arguably 0-10 and 0-100 scales, and 1-5 scales are misleading, and deliberately so. Google has chosen to not allow 0 stars, because, well, they get a portion of the cut on sales, and giving the impression that something is better than it is in their economic interest.
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No one is used to a 0-10 scale because thatÃ(TM)s 11 units which is highly irregular. Same with a 0-5, being a very strange six units to humans since it looks, to the layman, like there are five units.
On the contrary. Your hand can display 0-5 fingers. Two hands can display 0-10. It's the most natural system in the world. You don't have 11 fingers (unless you killed Montoya Senior).
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No one is used to a 0-10 scale because thatÃ(TM)s 11 units which is highly irregular. Same with a 0-5, being a very strange six units to humans since it looks, to the layman, like there are five units.
On the contrary. Your hand can display 0-5 fingers. Two hands can display 0-10. It's the most natural system in the world. You don't have 11 fingers (unless you killed Montoya Senior).
I count on my fingers in gray code you insensitive clod!
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If Spotify wants my business they can program their app in something more efficient than JavaScript and node. Just having their shitty app open cuts my battery life by several hours. iTunes might be bloated but it has negligible effect on my battery life.
sounds about right (Score:2)
the company could effectively tap into a new revenue stream without actually inventing anything.,
they sound surprised apple would ever do such a thing
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If the money is just laying there on the ground you can't blame them for picking it up.
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no I don't, its kind of how apple has always worked, after all "great artists steal"
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It's not the ability to innovate that makes companies successful, it's the ability to exploit innovations.
Pandora (Score:2)
So I haven't been using Pandora since 2008 or 2009?
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Its not about the tech. Its about the licenses. Pandora was moderately popular but Spotify managed to get all the major licensing deals and by that, beat out much of the competition. Average users don't care if you got a 0.38% better compression ratio or if you provide better deals for indie artists. They care about listening to the latest pop song right now. If you don't happen to have that one, your market share will suffer.
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Pandora lets you give an example song, and plays similar songs.
The others let you play specific songs.
If you didn't know that was the difference ... well now you do.
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And? Spotify has a bigger library so it will probably have the song that I want to hear. Not just a similar song. Also once Spotify plays the song I want to hear, it will go on and play similar songs too.
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And ... THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER (poster I replied to) asserted that there was no difference between Pandora and Spotify. Spotify lets you select songs, and in my opinion is therefore superior to Pandora. Spotify has a function that Pandora lacks, and that was the purpose of my comment.
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I thank you for the education and I apologize for my misinformation. I gave up Pandora when Spotify began offering this service. Apparently Pandora just added this less than a year ago.
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http://blog.pandora.com/us/pan... [pandora.com]
"March 13, 2017"
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Whereas in 2010, they were saying this:
Pandora is NOT an on demand music service. It is more of a music discovery service where it will play songs similar to the ones you already like.
Pandora is not a jukebox (Score:2)
To avoid the higher royalties that record labels and music publishers impose on jukebox-style services, Pandora's lower service tiers behave more like a radio than like a jukebox. When the user chooses an artist, Pandora automatically builds a format out of recordings similar in genre to those of the chosen artist.
Hasn't worked for Google (Score:3)
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As for Google Plus, I've never understood why it didn't take off. It's lacks a false sense of security, and has some pretty solid communities. One benefit of it being less popular is that it also has fewer morons on it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hasn't worked for Google (Score:5, Informative)
I can't do anything with the app until I respond to the popup
I just started the app and I don't see that popup. I can't recall ever seeing it.
Let me hit Skip. OK, now it's a bunch of recommendations. My music library is nowhere to be seen.
1. Start app
2. Hamburger menu
3. Select "Music Library"
These covers consist of a gray box with a darker gray circle containing a music note in them for 90% of my library, because it doesn't recognize the CD I ripped.
The only part of my lib that has missing art are singles for which there is no album (but I guess it could look up the album that contains that song) and audio books that I uploaded (but actually it found the cover with the audiobooks for most of them). You probably f'ed up your rips and didn't include meta data.
Underneath each is the label JUST KIDDING, no it's about 14 characters from the start of the label.
On my device, it's 21 characters for the title and much more for the artist. I don't see the problem. It's a compromise between fitting and many elements on the screen as possible and providing enough information to identify the element.
so let me use the search. I try "Beethoven symphony 6" and I get.... directed to... some Beethoven "radio station"?
I search for an artist for which there's an album in my library. The first entry was an "artist" link. The second was a list of albums, for which my album was the first in the list.
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I'm not saying anything based on two data points. If you're ready to draw conclusions on that we are going to have to revoke your Windows Vista login password.
I'll leave you with this. If 1000 people look at the sky and see the full moon, and another reports a gigantic fire breathing dragon, does that mean the night sky is inconsistent?
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Cut down on caffeine? I have no real issues with Play Music and I've been using it for years. If I get a pointless suggestion like "Music for Saturdays" I just ignore it. The "Radio" feature works amazingly and unlike Spotify, doesn't choose songs that I have given a thumbs-down to. Only annoying thing they've done semi recently is move the Playlists drop-down to a new position but it's nothing I haven't gotten used to. Play Music is so much better than Spotify. I haven't used Apple's streaming music
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Apple's iTunes stinks just as much. As another poster said, it's really gone downhill since about version 9. Screens full of useless crap, bloody album art instead of a list view, byzantine editing of playlists. Blech.
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GPM is a trainwreck. Their catalogue is a mess, with tons of artists lumped together because of similar names, albums with duplicate tracks and a host of other problems.
They never fix anything, no matter how many times you report obvious errors.
In contrast, Spotify generally fixes content errors within a week or two.
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G+ failed to take off because it was a much weaker competitor to the well-established Facebook, providing fewer features and absolutely nothing in the way of benefits.
And then Google tried to force the issue by forcing you to merge all your various Google accounts (Youtube accounts in particular since well.. Youtubers like to bitch about things.. a lot!), forcing you to use your real name, constantly bugging you to +1 things, etc. That in-your-face campaign got massive blowback (especially the account merg
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Even stranger to compare is Myspace VS Facebook, and Facebook VS G+. I think if Google had have waited a bit longer, they probably could have taken over - with the reports that we have been seeing lately of people leaving Facebook, it would have been a great time
Re: Hasn't worked for Google (Score:1)
They forced people onto it.
So you had a lot of people try it when they didn't feel like it, go meh, and never use it again.
It's integration with their other services was terrible, and yet they forced that too.
It was a huge PITA.
I was bummed, I had a small group of friends that we all used buzz. It was perfect, showed up in email (not blocked by most companies), only friends, we already chatted with the messenger in email.
If they integrated picassa into it, and let it slowly grow, it had a shot.
But pushing e
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I think Google also has a music service?
You mean Google Play Music? Or are we talking Youtube? Or maybe Youtube Music? Or are we talking about the new streaming service they are building (seriously):
https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]
My question: is there anyone here that fails to see the problem with this marketing strategy?
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Isn't it the same marketing strategy as Allo, Duo, Hangouts, and Messages?
Itunes just sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter that it came from apple, or Atari or whomever. Not using apple hardware ensured I never got wrapped up in that nightmare that is iTunes.
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When used on MacOS, iTunes is pretty good, On windows it might be another story.
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I concur. The default interface of the last few versions are worst than the ones before them, though - probably because of the popularity of Apple Music. But after a few changes, it can be made usable again.
Re:Itunes just sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
iTunes was the most useable at version 9. When they added this ridiculous interface we see today where even on the "large screen" iPhone 7+ / 8+ it can show all of four albums at a time instead of 10+ in a list with scaled album art and ABSOLUTELY NO LANDSCAPE FUNCTIONALITY WHATSOEVER, it's been downhill ever since.
Remember CoverFlow? Bring that back for if someone cares about the album art. Otherwise, just give us a damn list like the iPod has had since 2001 - it's more efficient and just works better.
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It doesn't matter that it came from apple, or Atari or whomever. Not using apple hardware ensured I never got wrapped up in that nightmare that is iTunes.
The iTunes Windows software nightmare I went through (years time ago) was enough for me, never again. I still feel violated.
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Part of the problem was that iTunes installed QuickTime. I'm not sure whether that's a requirement anymore, but it was a showstopper, especially for people who needed to be at a specific and different version of QuickTime to support other programs or specific hardware.
Another showstopper was how iTunes would full-screen itself no matter how many times you resized it to a manageable size, and steal focus. It seemed made for single-tasking people who can't deal with overlapping windows.
From a music playing
Re:Itunes just sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Then how do you know it's a nightmare. Going off of some anecdote that dates back to the Bush Administration?
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It's successful because that's what you use if you wanna sync music to your iPhone.
I do have an iPhone and I agree, iTunes sucks 500 fetid donkey scrotums per square inch. It mangles my music, and the music sync selection window is so shockingly poorly designed that I can only assume it was designed that way so that Apple could harvest free energy from Steve Job's spinning corpse.
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You do have the option of converting the music to certain non-AAC formats like mp3, but the choices are limited. FLAC for example, isn't an option in itunes.
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In my personal opinion it assumes far too much control. The requirement for online access is another huge FSCK'up I just want to play a cd, or rip one to my generic mp3 player it could be one and done but no you have to have a library, I OWN the cd and should not have to have it in the cloud. Like I said I've set ITunes and ICloud, and Ifart up for my GF and I was able to resolve the issues but I won't have it on my PC so 'our' music in the form of my CDS is spread between 2 machines and there is constant c
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It's true that iTunes for Windows is an abomination, for many of the same reasons that Microsoft products for OS X and iOS were fucking horrible a few years back - they tried to extend the UI paradigms of the OS you are not running into the one you are. iTunes for Windows tried to have Mac-like window widgets and such, and it just confused the hell out of Windows users, and bloated the thing up in order to not just render a regular window view.
Microsoft has mostly fixed this with their iOS apps, but I imag
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Let's not forget that installing iTunes always brought along several megs of iPod drivers, Bonjour platforms, and who the hell knows what else, even if you never intended (and still don't intend) to let any Apple hardware within 30 meters of your Windows computer.
Beats UI was awful ... (Score:2)
... I hope it's been improved since Apple took it over.
Beats took over MOG, which was great. Beats UI was horrible, so I dropped it (or rather didn't switch to it - they didn't even do a real migration) and went with Spotify.
Logic Fail (Score:1)
Apple Music Was Always Going To Win
Keep in mind this is Unites States only (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA: "Globally, however, Spotify remains in a league of its own, with nearly twice as many paid subscribers as No. 2 Apple, and slightly faster subscriber growth."
I'm a happy Spotify customer. It works on every platform we have in our house, including Linux
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Apple actually nodded to reality and produced an Android app for Apple Music too.
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Apple music only works on Apple devices as far as I know.
There is an Apple Music App for Android and iTunes on the PC includes Apple Music support.
Re: Keep in mind this is Unites States only (Score:2)
For me, it's about Siri (Score:5, Interesting)
I used Pandora and Spotify until I got my iPhone 6, which was my first that had Siri. Being able to use voice control for my music in the car made Apple Music the obvious choice.
Since the catalog is pretty much the same for on-demand specific music between the major services, the one that is integrated into my phone just makes sense. If Amazon or Spotify stood out in some other way, I would consider them, but they don't.
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Neither does the iPhone if the app implements SiriKit.
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Unfortunately third party music apps can't use SiriKit due to Apple limitations.
As an iPhone user who prefers Spotify, it is extremely frustrating and very typical of how Apple seeks to control everything.
Can't read the article - Paywalled (Score:2)
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Sorry, I'd love to comment on your story, but I'm not paying the WSJ for the privilege.
Please pick from the list below:
1. I hate ads. I'd rather pay for my content directly.
2. I don't mind ads. I'd rather see ads then pay for content.
3. The artists, IT folks, and so on that produced the content do not deserve to be compensated.
I hate cross-site tracking (Score:2)
Those who hate cross-site tracking can answer a mix of 1 and 2 in a constent manner.
1. I hate ads. I'd rather pay for my content directly.
I'd rather pay for my content directly, but I'm not buying a month's subscription to ten different sites just to read one article on each of those sites. So how do I spend 1-5 cents on a single article or pay $10 per month for a bundle of sites? Adult Check would have been great for this, but the publisher of Perfect 10 magazine sued it out of business when too many publishers on Adult Check's network displayed infringing ph
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Shhhh! You'll upset the true believers [justjokey.com] (time to re-write this joke).
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When Apple's music store became the runaway clear succ
I don't care... (Score:2)
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I don't want instant access to 'every song' because almost every song isn't worth my time to listen to.
{{POV|date=February 2018}} (Score:2)
Too big to litigate out of existence (Score:1)
It probably also helps that Apple's war chest is so large that the music cartels cannot litigate them out of profitability or existence.
I Hate to Quibble but... (Score:2)
Apple Music was bound to succeed simply because Apple is big enough and rich enough to will it so."
So what happened with Microsoft Edge browser. It is right there on the taskbar of every new Windows computer and every computer that was "voluntarily" upgraded for free to Windows 10. Is Microsoft not big enough or rich enough to make Edge a leading browser?
I think Apple Music is a mess but the rivals are worse IMHO. Perhaps people actually do make informed choices based on preference.
Misunderstanding history (Score:3)
It's effectively become the streaming music analogue of Microsoft pushing people to surf the web with Internet Explorer.
That's misunderstanding either the situation with Apple Music or the situation with Internet Explorer. Apple isn't sabotaging Spotify and making it crash on Apple devices. As far as I know, Apple isn't actively trying to redirect you to using Apple Music with every update of iOS. Apple isn't pushing to have record labels to produce only music that works on Apple Music.
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"Apple isn't sabotaging Spotify and making it crash on Apple devices"
No but they are blocking it from Siri, being the default application and hooking into the OS in any meaningful way, plus signing up ON THE DEVICE costs 30% more than Apple Music for their protection money.
I had both installed, every time I got in my truck Apple Music would come up on bluetooth, even though I like Spotify. It did this every single time I got in the truck until the latest OS update where I could "uninstall" Apple Music.
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Vox does it. You need to install a helper service for it to work, but it does. Works just fine on MacOS.
Anti trust (Score:1)
Apple should be investigated for anti trust here. This is the same type of bundling that got MS in trouble with Windows/IE.
What's more.. Apple grants Apple Music access to OS-level functionality not available to any other music streaming service on iOS (namely, voice control through Siri).
I'm a Spotify user and I will not be compelled into using Apple Music. But damn, I really need voice controls when driving!
I joined because of Apple Music behavior in car (Score:2)
I always used either Spotify or Google Play as I could get them at cheaper pricing. I finally switched to Apple Music for one reason. Quite often when I got into my car, Apple Music would play the same song every time. It wasn't even a song that I liked. It was a song that was free that they offered at some point. It seems like if you have a third party music app and you get out of the car with that music playing, You later inside the house stop playing that third party app and launch other games and s
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