Samsung Milk curdles in Oz, developing ‘hum’ app

Things have gone sour for Australian users of Samsung’s Milk Music. The company has emailed them to advise, “With a heavy heart, we will be closing the service in Australia on April 28, 2016. After this date, you will no longer be able to stream music or access your cached music from Samsung Milk Music on your Samsung device.”

Existing subscribers will be given a free three-month subscription to Google Play Music.

It’s the second of Samsung’s streaming services to fail in Australia. The earlier Music Hub service went dark in December 2014 after three years.

Milk Music launched overseas two years ago with 13 million tracks and 200 (later 255) personalised radio station service to take on Pandora. It arrived in the Australian market in February 2015 with curated stations as UK Alternative, Classic Electronic, EDM Hits, Old Skool Hip Hop, Dream Pop, Jazz, Dubstep and Motown.

Customers were offered as many as six skips per hour per station but a constant criticism by users was that they were never in control as they did with some of its rivals.

Samsung’s strategy for the Milk brand also included short-form video content Milk Video (it closed late last year after 12 months) with plans to include sports and other forms of entertainment. The aim was to add value to Samsung devices and draw new ad revenue.

However its initial ploy of making Milk Music exclusive only to Samsung devices misjudged consumer expectations, and it was soon left behind.

In recent months, all indications were the end for Milk Music. Staffers left or were transferred to other divisions in the company. Milk Music was not mentioned at its product presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, or at the unveiling of the new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smart phones. In recent weeks, new subscriptions were stopped, as were automatic renewals of current subs.

The growing demise of Milk Music was accompanied by rumours that Samsung was buying out the Jay-Z-led Tidal (denied by both sides) or a similar service.

At SXSW, Samsung announced it was building an app that makes music from the most painful and meaningless humming and play the sounds back as a MIDI-like recording. Called Hum On!, it uses analysis software to detect the pitch and duration of your voice. It then leverages machine learning to “create a suitable accompaniment in the same way a musician considers melody and chords.”

It can edit out bum notes and change it to sound rock or R&B or orchestral by pressing the appropriate button. Hum On! is currently in beta for Android. Samsung encourages musicians to use the idea on social media or in the background of videos.