Apple should not inject ads into their Apple Music playlists

The ads themselves appear to be first-party ads to advertise radio shows on the Apple One. However, they do not appear on Beats Radio or Apple One, and they are not in user-saved playlists.

Instead, ads play between songs in automatically created or curated playlists, such as those of certain genres. And it doesn’t matter if they were selected using Siri or via the touch interface.

Camel Test the behavior with users who have paid subscriptions for Apple One and Apple Music Family Plan, and receive multiple advertisements for radio programs in automatically created and curated playlists. We tested it in both the US and UK, and had interstitial entries in both regions.

Examples of ad sites we received on Apple Music.

Entries have apparently started appearing in Apple Music for a number of users at some point after the $4.99 cheaper audio plan was introduced. However, ad spots still appear to subscribers at a higher level.

Humans running a channel need a break for whatever reason. We know, because some Camel The staff had had live radio parties before. We will gladly accept and accept advertisements on this type of programming.

Although ads can be skipped in the algorithm-generated stream, they are still annoying – and unexpected – for listeners who pay a premium for music for an unpopulated channel.

There are two possible explanations here. The feature could be a bug that affects playlists when it should only appear on radio stations. Although the feature started rolling out after the Voice Plan debuted, Apple advertised this cheaper subscription as ad-free as well, so there’s no excuse for this plan to get first-party ads.

The second explanation is that Apple doesn’t consider these ads at all. It may be seen as part of its organizing strategy, or as a “discovery” feature. There is evidence of this, as advertisements for relevant radio programs will appear in playlists of the same type.

In either case, the behavior must stop. Apple cannot advertise Apple Music as ad-free if it keeps such ads in the Service. They may be first-party “Discovery” ads, but they are still ads.

One of the main draws of Apple Music is the fact that it is an ad-free streaming platform, unlike the free tiers of Spotify and Pandora. Apple Music isn’t free either – you pay for the fact that you don’t have to listen to ads.

Showing first-party ads to customers is also not a good look while Apple is in the midst of antitrust criticism. Apple has been growing its first-party advertising business, but has repeatedly denied claims that it seeks to boost the sector while hampering competitors with privacy features.

It is unlikely that Apple will maliciously stifle its competition in the advertising market, given the small size of its own advertising business and its pro-privacy stance. However, placing your ads in the place of an exclusive ad on a paid service is bad optics.

The fact that these ads appear in playlists is unacceptable. Placing a “discover” ad for a radio show makes sense for radio listeners, but not people who want to listen to music without being interrupted by an annoying ad. Apple should not have these ads in the cheaper Apple Music Voice plan unless you explicitly stop advertising this service as ad-free.

If Apple wants to place ads for its own radio shows in Apple Music, it needs a free tier app with access to playlists, tracks, albums, and songs. This wouldn’t be a bad idea for Apple, although it seems unlikely given the company’s desire to provide a premium service. Of course, the ads do not belong to an “ad-free” service – even if they are first-party ads.

Apple should have a completely ad-free premium service — including Apple’s own — that costs money every month as much as it does with Apple One, Apple Music family plans, or an individual Apple Music user. It should also have a less expensive tier like Apple Music Voice with these interstitial ads, or it can have a free and heavily ad-supported tier, like the Spotify free plan.

Camel He participates in a conversation with Apple about it. We will update this piece accordingly as the information comes out.

We hope this is unintended behaviour.