The Dr Dre-owned Spotify competitor Beats Music has gone live in the United States, with the app appearing in the App Store. The long-awaited streaming music offering launch also signals the future closure of the MOG service, shuttering on April 15th, though it appears that MOG subscribers will not get directly migrated over to Beats Music.
Currently only out for iOS, with GigaOM noting a lack of a Google Play app for the moment, Beats Music offers unlimited streaming from its collection of 20 million tracks for $10 per month. Though it can allow users to play individual tracks, it touts a number of personalization and music discovery methods. Human-curated playlists for various subjects populate the home screen, with suggestions for tracks based on an initial set of questions on sign-up followed by tracking music played by the user.
Beats Music
One way the app suggests music is through a Mad Libs-based “The Sentence” function. By completing a sentence starting with “I’m” using a number of different words or phrases, the app will attempt to provide music that matches the statement. Aside from sharing the sentence and the resulting playlist through social media, users can also improve the accuracy of the app by rate tracks as they are played, using icons representing loving or hating a track.
Users of MOG will find that their monthly billing arrangements will cease on March 15th, reports TechCrunch, with yearly subscribers receiving a pro-rated refund. Despite being operated by the same parent company, existing MOG users will be contacted and offered a one-month free trial of Beats Music from March 15th, though playlists from MOG will apparently not transfer over to the new service.
Beats acquired MOG music in July 2012, paying $14 million for the service.
