While Apple hasn’t explicitly spelled out the end of Connect, it sure seems like that is the inevitable outcome at this point. The company has updated its support documents for Apple Music to reflect that Connect posts from artists are “no longer supported.” Seeing as getting artists to share personal posts was one of the primary purposes of Connect, there won’t be much reason to preserve the feature.
Apple hyped up Connect as a way for artists to have a more personal relationship with their fans when it launched Apple Music in 2015, but the feature has fizzled. Most artists haven’t been active on the platform, and Apple has been pushing Connect out of the spotlight for years. In 2016, the company removed the dedicated tab for Connect from the Apple Music app and relegated posts from artists to the very bottom of the “For You” section, which provides listening recommendations. User-to-user social features like sharing playlists and seeing activity likely aren’t going anywhere, but it seems like 2019 could be the year the social tools for artists in Apple Music Connect finally goes the way of iTunes Ping.
