Apple is bringing concert discovery to two of its flagship apps, Apple Music and Apple Maps, the company announced today. On the Apple Music app, fans will gain access to a new feature called Set Lists, which allows users to browse and listen to the set lists from favorite artists on tour, and read more about their productions. Meanwhile, on Apple Maps, Apple is adding a new concert discovery feature that includes over 40 new Guides curated by Apple Music editors that will highlight music venues initially across 10 cities worldwide, as well as the ability to browse venues’ upcoming shows via Shazam’s concert discovery feature.
The Shazam feature rolled out last spring, as part of a suite of features that allow concertgoers to discover nearby live shows by leveraging information from artist discovery platform Bandsintown. Now, that discovery will also be available through Maps, Apple says.
The changes aim to make Apple’s services more competitive with rivals, like Spotify, which now has robust concert discovery functionality in its own app following a revamp last year that brought a Live Events Feed that’s personalized to users’ interests. Apple’s new Guides, however, aren’t customized for the end user — they’re curated by Apple Music editors, similar to a guidebook offering. And the Apple Music app is only personalized in the sense that fans are now able to browse shows in their local area.
Apple says the new Guides to music venues will begin rolling out today in Maps in cities including 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. They’ll be available within the Maps app at apple.co/MusicVenues and will range from symphony halls, like Carnegie Hall in New York or Musikverein in Vienna, to techno clubs in Brooklyn and Tokyo, to live jazz in Paris, and more.
The company may have been able to leverage some of the IP from its acquisition of classical music streaming service Primephonic, which served as the basis for the new Apple Music Classical app, to help with content about the classical music venues in its curated guides.
Meanwhile, Apple Music’s new Set Lists will also launch today at apple.co/setlists, and will initially include artists like Sam Smith, BLACKPINK, Peso Pluma, Kane Brown, Blink-182 and Ed Sheeran. Apple didn’t provide any sense of how often these Set Lists would be updated with more artists and tours, but we’d expect to see more over time.
While useful additions for Apple customers, the features won’t have anyone jumping from Spotify to Apple to gain access. Spotify today does a better job at alerting fans to the shows from the artists they actually like and regularly stream, rather than just a handful of big names. And, as it announced at its Stream On event in March, it also offers growth and discovery tools for artists, which includes allowing them to market their merchandise and live events in the app, as well as get their new releases in front of fans within the main music discovery feed. Users can also tap a button to save an event to their own calendar in the Live Events Feed and browse other shows worldwide, too.
Apple’s new features are arriving starting today but may take some time to reach its global user base.
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