if you look at Spotify, you find they have all these features that music lovers would use, even though they may not be the majority class of users. This feels to me like Apple is marketing themselves as what Spotify is (the leading competitor in this space), but their product development falls short of their marketing.
God, how arrogant. It's one thing to be opinionated about music, it's another to judge another's enjoyment. Talk about making music something miserable to share with others.
Personally, the spotify client is a piece of shit for me--buggy, slow, and it can't sync any music not in its library. Somehow spotify's marketing manages to leave that out, and Apple Music is a much better option for me. Clearly you don't really love music if you're limited to Spotify's catalogue. ;)
It was meant in jest
Who are you to define the love of music? No better than Apple.
Here's a starter: I don't think taste is subjective and those that do believe it is just haven't developed any (yet). There is no shame in that, the shame should be not wanting to extend yourself.
I'm not saying everybody has to have the same taste, clearly everyone can enjoy different things. But there is a clear difference between having taste (of some sort) and not having any. Ask any designer, visual artist, musician, or apparently, Linus Torvalds.
This is btw not meant to disparage the great-grandfather comment about enjoying music at all, it's started this discussion, but is not related to it.
Likewise when I look at Apple Music I find all these features that music lovers would use.
I guess neither of us speaks for "music lovers".
Beats1 is incredible for music discovery and has no peer on Spotify for example.
“Hey Siri, play the top song from 1987.”
“Hey Siri, play some Delta Blues.”
“Hey Siri, who’s the guitarist on this song?”
“Hey Siri, play some sad music”
“Hey Siri, play something I might like.”
“Hey Siri, play John Williams radio.”
“Hey Siri, what album is this from?”
And with HomePod, it also sounds great.
> their product development falls short of their marketing
There's a difference between Apple saying "We love music" and saying "We make software for people who love music".
In their minds, they have taste and know best for the users they want. Apple makes the rules, users play by them or choose to go somewhere else.
Overall, you can't say it doesn't work for them.