Apple streaming to drop Beats name, to include social networking for musicians?

Latest reports from the United States are that Apple’s upcoming music streaming service will drop the Beats branding, and go out as Apple Music.

It may also include social networking tools for artists that are steps ahead of Apple’s ill-fated two-year experiment Ping system, according to 9to5mac.

Apple Music will use Beats technology, look, and curated playlists. Users will be able to search through both the Beats and iTunes catalogues at the same time, and select whether they want to buy a track from iTunes or stream it.

As for the social networking functions, Ping allowed artists to post messages and music recommendations. Apple Music will apparently have an Artist Activity function to allow artists to share track samples, videos, photos and release/concert news, and cross promotions with other artists and labels. Presumably Apple has now come to grips with social media since Ping.

Hints of these features were in the new iOS 8.4 beta released this week. Users can port over existing Beats Music libraries stored in the cloud. But it’s not known how much of these tools will be restricted to premium subscribers only.

As reported in TMN previously, Apple was forced to charge US$9.99 a month (instead of the original $5.99) and offer no freemiums as a result of pressure from major labels.

Apple is still working to complete deals with labels ahead of the launch of the streaming music service, but it is on track to be announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday June 8. The launch is expected to be in late June.