By Shelly Brisbin

October 26, 2022 3:19 PM PT

Apple Music should be more social

I’m as prone as anyone to grumble about the state of this social network platform or that one. Hating Facebook has always been cool. Hating Instagram is more recently cool. Hating Twitter? Well, what time is it? I’ll let you know how I feel after I read the news. All of that to say, I use social platforms for work and entertainment, but it’s a grudging thing because the platform owners don’t prioritize the same things I do. I am the product, not the customer.

But see, I like socializing online. I like talking to friends I’ve made or kept via the Internet. I like browsing their lives that way and giving back little pieces of my own. I like picking up links to new, funny things.

But this isn’t a story about how I wish evil companies would stop doing things to make more money that also happen to wreck my happy social playground. It’s actually a story about a platform I wish was more a part of my social existence: Apple Music.

After wandering in and out of subscriptions to Apple Music for a number of years, I decided to make the service a permanent part of my life sometime in 2021. I don’t need to blame the late-middle pandemic, but if that feels right to you as an explanation, be my guest. I just decided I liked being able to call up the latest Beyonce or the original Broadway cast recording of “Kiss Me, Kate,” and I like integrating it with my existing music library. It’s been fun.

And then I remembered the last time I’d been really excited about Apple Music and why. It was 2010, and Apple had announced Ping, a social network for iTunes. It was mostly intended as a way to keep up with artists, but I was excited about connecting with friends. I have a Spotify account precisely because several good friends put curated playlists there, and I like checking out what they think is cool and comparing myself unfavorably. Having an Apple UI and integration with iTunes on top of that sort of thing seemed even better. Alas, Ping did not. It went away barely two years later, and Apple Music, which has grown a lot since then, only retains the barest social hooks.

And I’ve realized as I’ve been swimming in Apple Music again – making playlists, finding and saving new stuff from artists I like, and sending the results to my phone, Sonos, Echo, and even the smart TV – is that just as I never host a party without a lit soundtrack, I don’t want to use Apple Music without a robust social component.

Here then, is my somewhat tongue-in-cheek social wishlist for Apple Music.

Shared Playlist Creation. When I threw a birthday party for my husband, our friend Tim was a huge help. He power-washed our patio, for goodness sake. But we also collaborated on the playlist for the party, and his suggestions were good. I seem to remember exporting an iTunes playlist and emailing the file to Tim, like an animal! I’d much rather collaborate, a la Keynote or Pages, with one or more friends to build my party soundtrack.

Who’s My Best Friend. Dana, who used to live across the street, argues with me about whether or not she introduced me to the music of Eleni Mandell. She’s wrong. I found her myself. But Dana and I do share some freakishly in-tune music sensibilities. What if Apple Music could tell me, by library holdings or play counts, which friend of mine is most musically compatible? Or least, for that matter? No, that Apple would never do.

Who Loves This Song. I was at karaoke a while back, searching for a song to sing next, knowing that only two singers remained before it was my turn. And my mind froze. What, in the wide world of songs that are popular enough to have karaoke versions, should I sing? I know—I’ll ask one of my friends to duet with me on something we both like. If I could only figure out what that is. Besides the narrow lane of karaoke singers who are blocked, this feature could also provide a fun way to find out who in your friend group might care that Neko Case has a new record and want to chat about it.

A (Somewhat) Free Tier. Look. I’m a realist. Apple doesn’t give stuff away. Maybe the 5 GB of iCloud storage, but that’s about it. But it’s figured into the price of your device, and it’s gone in a flash of backups and family photo shoots. For a social network to work, everyone has to have some level of access to it. All the collaboration and music-sharing features I want will do me zero good if Tim, Dana, and my karaoke pals aren’t Apple Music users, too. Sure, I can share a playlist via a web link, so they can see what I like, but they can only preview the tracks. There’s no means to subscribe or comment. Spotify gives me that option at the price of more advertising than I’d like. So this desire of mine, at least, is fully made of pie in the sky.

I’ll just keep publishing playlists I think some friend or other might like, though I’m not assuming that checking in on such things is part of their social rounds. For most folks I know, it is not. And for most folks, Ping is just a funny memory.

I’m not sweating the new $1 per month price hike for Apple Music, but I’d feel so much more cheerful about it if the service provided the social satisfaction I crave.

[Shelly Brisbin is a radio producer and author of the book iOS Access for All. She's the host of Lions, Towers & Shields, a podcast about classic movies, on The Incomparable network.]