Samsung is at it again with making changes with and involving their suite of apps today. Remember how over the weekend, a Samsung employee let slip that Samsung Hub would be ‘going away’ and not be preinstalled on Samsung devices anymore? Well, today’s findings support a removal and modernization of Samsung’s apps platform.
Earlier this year, Samsung debuted their newest application, called Milk Music, which was similar to Pandora in that it was a streaming radio application. What separated this new app was the user interface, which was vibrant, colorful, and used a dial to choose which ‘mood’ you want the music it plays to fit. The drawback, however obvious, is that it is a Samsung app, and therefore had two special requirements: 1) sign into the app to actually use it using your Samsung account/login, and 2) be using a Samsung Galaxy-line device to actually download the app at all (or have it show up in the market for you, really). These requirements highlight that it is something that Samsung hope becomes essential to Galaxy owners, but it hasn’t gained much footing, with Spotify, Google Play Unlimited, Pandora, SoundCloud, among the many streaming music services, both free and paid with arguably similar if not better interface and concepts/business models.
Today, Samsung sent out a mass email to all the customers that have bought any music from their Music Hub app or store, to let them know that the Music Hub would cease to function and that the service would stop on July 1, 2014, and to download all of their purchased music form Samsung’s cloud, because it would be inaccessible after July 1. It also calls you to redeem any remaining or lingering vouchers for products there before the specified date.
Does this email signal the complete death of Samsung’s interest in music as a forum for customers to enjoy? Likely not, since their Milk Music app is still in digital circulation on the Google Play Store, and has over half a million downloads, with over 14 thousand of the 18 thousand total reviews being 4- or 5-star reviews of the app. We’ll have to wait and see what Samsung’s next move is, musically, because nobody except Samsung itself knows where this step will lead to next.