Back when Apple launched Apple Music in June 2015, it included Connect, a new way for artists to connect with fans, by allowing them to share news, pictures and more.
Now, Apple has announced the Apple Music Connect feature is now shutting down (via 9to5Mac):
We’ve made a few changes to Apple Music that we’d like to tell you about.
We’re always looking for ways to enhance our focus on artists and help them better connect to fans. So we’ve given Artist Pages an all-new design and added new, personalized Artist Radio.
Today we’re streamlining music discovery by removing Connect posts from Artist Pages and For You. This means you’ll no longer be able to post to Connect as of December 13, 2018, but all previously uploaded content will still be searchable until May 24, 2019. You can still create Artist Playlists with the latest version of Apple Music.
Connect pages were rarely updated by artists, usually showing outdated posts. Clearly, the feature did not gain in popularity as expected by Apple. Personally, I never visited Connect pages at all.
A new support document from Apple also details, “Connect posts from artists are no longer supported.”:
In 2016, rumours swirled Apple was going to demote Apple Music Connect in iOS 10, due to lack of popularity. Apple eventually moved the Connect tab from the main section of the music app, eventually put on the back burner within the For You section.
Sadly, Apple is just not good at social networks. Apple Music Connect is following the same fate as Ping, a social network for artists which debuted with iTunes 10 back in 2010, but shut down two years later.
