Earlier today, Apple launched their much anticipated Apple Music streaming service. The iPhone app includes dedicated tabs called "For You", "New", "Radio", "Connect", and "My Music". The first two tabs offer areas for music discovery, while "Radio" provides themed stations as well as Apple's own Beats 1 Radio. Meanwhile, the last tab, "My Music" provides you with access to the rest of your existing music catalog as well as any new songs you might add from Apple Music.
The "Connect" tab, however, is a new service from Apple which is described as a place where "musicians give their fans a closer look at their work, their inspirations, and their world." Similar to a social network, it allows users to "follow" their favorite artists and see additional content.
If "Connect" doesn't interest you, MacRumors reader Eric points out a handy tip to replace the "Connect" tab with a dedicated "Playlists" tab which he describes as "much more useful".
Under Settings -> General -> Restrictions, Apple allows you to disable "Apple Music Connect" which removes the Connect tab and provides the alternate Playlist functionality.
Thanks Eric
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My band is on iTunes and we make over $1,000 a month from downloads. But we were not deemed fit to join Ping as an artist.
To me that was the main reason Ping failed. Social media is about turning your friends on to new music, pictures, videos etc. When your only artists are Lady Gaga and Elton John no one is excited to share them. Your friends already know about those artists.
With Connect, my band was approved today as a verified artist. And if that Trent Reznor video is honest, it looks like any band on iTunes, no matter how small, can become verified. That gives me some hope that Connect will take off and actually work as a way for artists to give (and sell) new content directly to fans.
Perhaps using it as a chat box will be something we can do to promote our Connect page. My hopes are up. Don't disable it so fast!
Between this and Aperture, I'm finally looking at moving my content away from Apple apps. Just need to figure out how to get my music database (playlists/ratings/song count) into Synology Audio Station.
Does anyone know whether Connect is the only feature that is related to 'following' artists? Or are these used for something else too?