Apple is seemingly killing the Beats 1 name

At first it might have seemed somewhat obnoxious, and all too familiar for listeners of linear radio.

Apple Music’s 24/7 live radio station, Beats 1, has until now constantly thrown the station name between songs in loud idents. Shows would begin with blaring ‘Beats 1 is now live’ voiceovers.

In particular Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig would begin with a button-mash of the Beats 1 name. But now, in its place, silence.

Billie Elish’s new Beats 1 show is now referred to as a Apple Music radio show. Zane Lowe’s daily show just tells audiences ‘this is Apple Music’. Even the Beats 1 List Live tends to avoid the show name altogether.

Funnily enough this comes into line with other apparent plans to phase out the Beats brand in Apple’s hardware division.

While Apple’s AirPods earphones were never a Beats product, new headphones from Apple will apparently just be named with variations of the AirPods name. Reliable Apple leaker Jon Prosser referenced the change in the above tweet, which would be especially notable for the similar product names. Currently there are already Beats X headphones, so surely AirPods X would replace those.

Beats 1 shows no longer feature the Beats 1 logo in cover art either. Even old videos on the Beats 1 YouTube page, many up to 4 years old, just have the Apple Music logo in the thumbnail.

And in a way it makes more sense for Beats 1 radio. There has always been a conflict between which playlists were Beats 1 playlists and which were Apple Music playlists. Did the Beats 1 name imply there was a unique level of curation, or were the teams the same.

Now theres a simple answer: everything is a part of Apple Music radio and every playlist comes from Apple Music. Perhaps people who wouldn’t try to open a ‘Beats 1’ link might just know that it’s part of their Apple Music subscription too.

I’d put money on iOS 14 bringing with it a new name: Apple Music Live or just Apple Music Radio.