Remember Milk Music? Course you do — few streaming platforms had such a novel name, or such a brief flash in the pan before turning sour.
Milk Music was Samsung’s March 2014-launch online music streaming service powered by Slacker Radio. It was amazing initially, but after precisely one month of free streaming sans ads plus six free track skips, it split into a proposition that was free if you put up with ads, or ad-free provided you paid for it (with your Milk money).
The point is, wireless earbuds are both ubiquitous and handset-specific now — I’ll always ask which phone you have, before suggesting the best set of earbuds for you. Brands build ecosystems using proprietary tech built into their wearables, handsets, laptops and wireless listening gear to keep users from going elsewhere and crucially, to dissuade customers from giving their coin to other companies.
Make Milk Music great again?
And so as I settled in to watch Samsung’s S26 Galaxy Unpacked, I felt sure that Samsung would announce — either through acquisition or partnership — an inbuilt music streaming service to really take the game to the Apple’s formidable AirPods, iPhone and Apple Music walled garden.
Alongside the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro (with admirable, better-than-Apple Samsung Seamless Codec for 24-bit / 96 kHz audio to a Samsung handset) it seemed a very natural (re)expansion, to my mind. And no, I wasn’t looking for minor tweaks to Samsung Music, which is essentially a local file player with Spotify integration. I mean a fully working platform for playlist curation and proprietary personalized spatial audio.
As I viewed the keynote, starlit constellations of Buds and a watch started encircling Samsung’s newest S26 handset — what better metaphor for an ecosystem?! — which made me think, ‘It’s happening; we’re on here.’
Then, the script, delivered in anticipation of something new and groundbreaking:
“Galaxy AI ensures your ecosystem works together effortlessly. But true intelligence shouldn’t just make your life easier; it should make it feel more alive. It should flow seamlessly from the screen to the world around you — and nothing transforms a moment like immersive, full-spectrum sound!”
Was it finally landing? Was Samsung about to make Milk Music great again? No. The huge electronics giant was about to wow me with hardware, wider woofers, dual drivers, two dedicated amplifiers in the stems and jaw-dropping hi-res chops, but no Milk.
And I had to know why.
Spilling the tea on Milk Music
I hurriedly sent a note to my esteemed colleague Lance Ulanoff at the Unpacked event. I begged him to put the question to Drew Blackard, Samsung’s SVP of Mobile Product Management: is a Samsung Music — or Milk Music — relaunch on the horizon, to solidify Samsung’s immersive audio ecosystem?
A response came: “You probably remember many, many years back we had a Samsung Music service, Milk Music.
“I can tell you it’s not something that’s on the radar right now. Never say never, of course, but our priority services today are Samsung Health, Samsung Wallet, Samsung Care Plus.
“These are ones that we’re putting a lot of investment behind, that we see driving a lot of user loyalty and engagement.
“Of course, I’m a huge music fan. I love the idea of that, but it’s nothing on the horizon that I can speak to.”
So, no Milk Music 2026. I think it’s clear that Samsung got burned when dipping its toes into Milk, and is still reticent to retread old ground. And I have to say that to me, this seems like a misstep.
Was Milk Music the Betamax to Apple Music’s VHS?
Let’s unpick why didn’t it work out the first time for Milk Music. It’s not as if the timing wasn’t good; Apple Music launched in 2015, at the height of Samsung’s Milk Music experiment. I remember it clearly, because I was an early adopter of Apple Music. It was heavily baked into my iPhone 6S, which came with a bundled set of EarPods in the box. I was funnelled quite vigorously into a six-month free trial — and the rest is history.
Like Apple Music, Milk Music was available as an app for use solely with Samsung headsets at launch, but crucially, Samsung only made it available in the US. By January 2015 (long after the free trials without ads had gone with the sands of time) it was rolled out to other markets as a more accessible website, but it never gained wide acclaim in the UK. I know because that’s where I reside, and very few of my Gen X music-loving friends have even heard of it.
So, did Apple simply see what Samsung did and use that as a blueprint? Given that at launch, Milk Music had 13 million songs, spread across 350+ stations, it was hardly small fry. And even though it had only two audio quality options (where ‘High-Quality’ was a mere 96 kbps) users seemed to like the sound.
When Apple Music launched in 2015, the cited catalog was 15-million strong, and the Cupertino giant managed to up the audio quality to 256 kbps. So rather than Milk Music being the Betamax to Apple Music’s VHS, it seems Apple just bamboozled the industry using its solid back history — and did it that little bit better.
Apple has had historic success in music-adjacent tech (first the iPod and iTunes, then the iPhone with bundled in-ear headphones). Also, it bought Beats in 2014 to accelerate its streaming offering — Beats Music was effectively rebranded as Apple Music. But Steve Jobs was always heavily plugged into the music industry. Who could forget the thrill when Apple first launched the iPod on October 23, 2001, highlighting the MP3 Music Player’s ability to hold 1,000 songs in your pocket?
But if Milk Music is not coming back to complete the Galaxy ecosystem, I worry that no matter how good the new Buds 4 Pro sound, or how fantastic the AI experience is, the fight against AirPods and Apple Music cannot be won.
Apple’s still taking Samsung’s Milk Money
Right now, the unavoidable truth is that Samsung smartphone owners are downloading the Apple Music Android app and paying Apple to step out of the Galaxy ecosystem (and get better music quality than they can with Spotify, because the Buds can handle that). And although I’ve yet to hear them, on paper Samsung’s setup should also sound better than AirPods when using a Samsung source device, in that it’ll be capable of delivering more audio information over Bluetooth.
It just feels like Samsung is missing the final piece of the puzzle — a solution that would finally all-but demand ecosystem loyalty, by giving fans no valid reason to leave.
Apple is able to put up those high walls in its garden because of its music ecosystem (think head-tracked Dolby Atmos spatial audio only to its own earbuds, only using Apple Music to an iPhone) and Samsung has started implementing this with head-tracking, translation and spatial side-sauce when its earbuds are paired to its own handsets.
I understand Samsung’s reticence to head back into that particular game, because with a 0% current stake in the music streaming space and one failed attempt in its not-too-distant past, a new Samsung-specific music catalog, offering audio streaming, podcasts and downloads, would require significant investment, either via a robust partnership or acquisition of an existing platform.
But as things stand, Samsung cannot keep you within its Galaxy Buds and S26 music streaming ecosystem because it simply doesn’t have one. And although I truly suspect that from what I’ve seen, Samsung’s Buds 4 Pro will outshine most of the competition, they cannot trounce AirPods Pro, for the sole reason that AirPods truly come alive with Apple Music, to your iPhone.
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becky.scarrott@futurenet.com (Becky Scarrott)
