Accessibility Amplifies Apple Music’s first decade
Apple on Monday issued a press release in which the company celebrates Apple Music’s 10th birthday by sharing some big announcements about the service. The headliner is a new three-story campus based in Culver City, which Apple says sprawls more than 15,000 square feet and houses two radio studios and a 4,000 square foot soundstage. The new campus is designed to “anchor a global network of creative hubs” in other cities such as Berlin, Nashville, New York, Paris, and Tokyo, according to Apple.
“Apple Music Radio has always been a home for storytelling and artistry, serving as a space for bold conversations and surprising moments,” Rachel Newman, co-head of Apple Music, said in a statement included with today’s announcement. “With this new studio, we are furthering our commitment to creating a space for artists to create, connect, and share their vision.”
Amongst the other news is the advent of a playlist Apple calls Replay All Time, which the company describes as “a special version of the annual Replay experience that allows listeners to see and stream the songs they’ve played the most since joining Apple Music.” Replay All Time can be found in the Home tab in the Music app, Apple said.
As with Apple Podcasts, Apple and music have been constant in my everyday digital life since getting my first-ever Apple product, the original iPhone, in 2007. Until Apple Music debuted in 2015. I spent a lot of money buying songs and albums in iTunes and synced my music via cable to myriad iPods and iPhones of various vintage. Those purchases remain available to me today, of course, along with the streaming content Apple Music provides. From an accessibility standpoint, the “all-you-can-eat” model of streaming Apple Music is great because I no longer need to fiddle with a physical cable to sync data, which involves somewhat tortuous tests of my lackluster hand-eye coordination. It’s also easier on my wallet too, since I needn’t budget money on individual albums from my favorite artists. Likewise, that the iPhone subsumed the iPod’s functionality—the Music app in what was then known as iPhone OS 1 was literally named iPod—means I have an “all-in-one” device and needn’t carry a separate iPod along with a cell phone, a setup I contemplated prior to getting the iPhone. It’s more accessible for me to carry one small object than two (admittedly small) objects, especially when you have relatively compromised muscle tone in your hands and less strength overall to accommodate weightiness. Moreover, from a software standpoint, it’s meaningful how the Music app supports accessibility features such as VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and most recently, Music Haptics. It makes the listening experience more accessible—and thus more enjoyable—that I can follow along to the words in a song in the app’s Lyrics View on the Now Playing screen, for example. And once again, with the nature of streaming and technologies like iCloud sync, I can move from my iPhone to my iMac and beyond and have all my music ready when I’m ready to listen.
I look forward to using Apple Music into 2035 and beyond.
