“I got to test Apple Music a day early,” Edward C. Baig writes for USA Today. “Apple Music certainly looks visually appealing on the iPhone 6 Plus preloaded with the iOS update, especially the way Apple extracts the colors and themes from an album cover and displays it across the entire display, though it also took me awhile to get comfortable finding my way around–there’s an awful lot packed into a section labeled New. This fresh version of iOS comes out today, and you’ll need it to access Apple Music.”
“The core of a paid subscription on Apple Music is that you can listen to almost any track or album whenever you want, as if you owned the music,” Baig writes. “Stop paying and the only tracks you can play in Apple Music are those that you purchased or ripped off a CD.”
“The similarities to Beats itself are apparent . Upon signing up, your first step is to tap on circles representing musical genres (Classic Rock, Hip-Hop, Classical, etc.) Tap once on a genre you like, twice on one you love. Next you do the same for favorite artists,” Baig writes. “For all its promise, the Connect area seems pretty thin at the outset. ‘It’s somewhat of a discovery social network and you can’t do that until it opens. Day one is day one,’ Iovine says.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, Connect is “pretty thin at the outset,” It has to be built while the service is live! And Beats 1 is pretty silent; it needs to start, too. Sheesh.
MacDailyNews Note: We expect Apple Music to arrive around 8am PDT / 11am EDT with the release of iOS 8.4 and the Beats 1 to go “on the air” an hour later at 9am PDT / 12 noon EDT.
Apple Music arrives on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch (via iOS 8.4 update), Mac or Windows PC (via iTunes update). Apple Music is coming to Apple TV and Android this fall.
SEE ALSO:
Mossberg on Apple Music: ‘The most full-featured streaming music app; the first I’d consider paying for’ – June 30, 2015
SPIN takes first look at Apple Music: Usability is remarkably streamlined for such a complex product – June 30, 2015
