Apple Music ditch artist-to-fan social platform Connect
Apple are renovating artist pages on their music streaming service but as they do so they’re getting rid of their under-appreciated Connect platform.
Apple Music has come a long way since it launched all the way back in 2015. The service has grown from a disorganised Spotify into a streaming service that stands on it’s own as one of the biggest in the world. It’s changed in many ways but has retained it’s social platform that allows artists to connect with fans, until now.
Apple have started notifying artists that they will no longer be able to post content to their artist pages as they slowly remove Connect from Apple Music. Content that has been posted to Apple Music Connect in the past is being removed from the For You section and Artist Pages in Apple Music. The content can still be found through search results on Apple Music but these will also be removed in May.
Apple say: “We’re always looking for ways to enhance our focus on artists and help them better connect to fans. So we’ve given Artist Pages an all-new design and added new, personalised Artist Radio. Today we’re streamlining music discovery by removing Connect posts from Artist Pages and For You.”
Apple Music provided a feed where artists could post and connect with their fans. When fans came to their page they could see any updates from the artist and keep up with their latest goings on. Clearly Apple felt the feature was under-utilised by artists and fans alike and have decided to get rid of the feature. They don’t appear to have any plans to replace it with any other social features currently.
The new year will no doubt see updates to Apple Music that introduces new features, though it’s unlikely Apple will take a bet on another social platform just yet.