Apple is trying to make live music discovery fun and easy with new features on Apple Music and Maps. With Maps, the company is launching city-specific music guides featuring curated concert venue lists while Apple Music is adding playlists that tie in with an artiste’s set list for a tour. And there’s more.
The new concert-discovery feature on Maps includes over 40 new Guides curated by Apple Music editors that highlight music venues, initially across 10 cities worldwide. Featured cities include Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York City, and San Francisco in North America; Berlin, London, Paris, and Vienna in Europe; Tokyo, Melbourne, and Sydney in the Asia-Pacific region; and Mexico City in Latin America.
The new Set Lists space on Apple Music focuses on major tours, letting fans listen to set lists and read about the productions. Look for Set Lists in Apple Music’s Browse tab, which highlight a “selection of major tours” and invites audiences to listen to playlists. “For the first time on the app, fans will also be able to browse artistes’ upcoming shows in their area by launching Shazam’s concert discovery module,” Apple says. The company acquired Shazam in 2017.
With the changes, Apple Music will be in a stronger position to compete with the likes of Spotify, which revamped its discovery functionality last year. The new Guides feature will make Apple Music appear more personalised
A few months ago, the company introduced Apple Music Classical, which, as the name suggests is for classical music listeners. It has been a big success.
“I’m getting so many notes about Classical and from people that said that they finally have a place for them. The big unlock for us was realising that you could never combine the music and classical music together in one service, that you needed a separate app. And that was a huge unlock. I’m just getting tons of favourable feedback,” Tim Cook recently told us.
In August 2021 Apple acquired Amsterdam-based classical music streaming service Primephonic to ensure listeners “get a significantly improved classical music experience”.
