“Reviewers have praised the new app, officially known as Apple Music, but said it is somewhat confusing. Apple bulls are divided on the issue,” Louis Bedigian reports for Benzinga. “‘This thing is a disaster,’ Cody Willard, chairman of Scutify (a financial social network) and Futr (a futuristic messaging app), told Benzinga. ‘It’s not intuitive. If Steve Jobs were here, he would have never let that thing roll out.'”
“Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report, told Benzinga that Apple Music is ‘fantastic’ and that it’s ‘game over’ for its competitors. ‘It’s first service I’ll pay for,’ said Udall. ‘I [can] get the family plan, which is a much better deal. ‘Apple Music’s family plan retails for $14.99 per month,” Bedigian reports. “‘Their custom playlists completely hit the mark, which is what they were missing before,’ Udall added. ‘Simply put, they nailed it. Game over for much of the rest of industry. Spotify and Pandora have a very much tougher competitor now to deal with.'”
“Willard praised Apple — and particularly Steve Jobs — for streamlining the operating system and the apps that Apple offers. He said the firm took a different route with Apple Music,” Bedigian reports. “‘It looks like Apple threw everything, including the kitchen sink, into this music app so it can be all things to all people,’ said Willard. ‘Instead it looks like it’s going to be nothing to nobody. Somebody needs to fire Jimmy Iovine… The iTunes app on your computer itself has gotten to be a lot more pain in the ass than it used to be. Apple’s famous ease-of-use reputation is suffering between iTunes and Apple Music…'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Music is not too confusing. It’s a celestial jukebox (Apple Music), Internet radio in three parts: a live, worldwide radio station (Beats 1), curated radio stations and user customizable radio stations (Apple Music Radio), and a promotional vehicle for artists to (Connect) with fans.
Yes, the iTunes interface for Apple Music has a steeper learning curve that most expected.
SEE ALSO:
Apple Music, both on iOS and OS X, is an embarrassing and confusing mess – July 10, 2015
No.
Yes it is.😖😩😠😡
Hey Apple, we need at least the songs lyrics… search the words. this is a joke. sorry to say.
Yes.
But iTunes has been convoluted for awhile now.
Yes…and that includes the entire UI for iTunes. Since iTunes 11, confusion has been the overriding theme of all iTunes versions, including IOS.
Beats 1 is fine but I can’t make any sense of their subscription service. Very confusing indeed.
Really? Why? Besides, you have at least two months to figure it out.
You are implying that 2 months to figure out an interface is a good thing…
I am a software designer. Telling users they have X months to figure something out is ridiculous. iTunes is a mess. I love Apple but iTunes lack of organization should have been fixed long ago.
MDN called the iTunes interface an “unsettled, rather awful UI” three articles ago.
I just don’t get the fuss about iTunes. I’ve never had any difficulty with it. I’ve never looked at any Help. Yeh, it took me a few seconds, on a few occasions, to figure out changes. I guess a few seconds is a catastrophe to some people.
No problems with AppleMusic. But then again if it doesn’t crash on me, I can say I’m satisfied. I would think Spotify would be more confusing because it has a lot more depth but I simply learn the features I like to use and then it’s no problem.
It’s like saying Microsoft Word is too confusing. I can be if you don’t take the time to learn it. It’s something you master little by little. AppleMusic is nothing that tough to learn and use. I’m not sure where all this confusion is supposed to be. I’m fairly certain any teenager or maybe even younger could figure it out enough to enjoy using it. It’s a standard point and click interface. What’s awful about that interface.
Microsoft Word is about as confusing as it gets, superficially it looks welcoming but the more you look the more confusing it gets its like a Coder has taken responsibility for the interface design, just no logic to the nested menus at all with teasers of easy but limited changes and then a totally different structure to anything more complex or accessing fine tuning to stop it wanting to dictate to you how to set up your pages. I learnt ID in a week, I have never learnt Word in a similar way and most of us only use it when we have to, not as part of our chosen work flow, which it and its creator want to make us suffer for daring to choose to do it seems.
Only had a brief look at Apple Music and it is like recent iTunes more confusing than needed but with a fraction of the time I have put into Word I have made far more progress in understanding its underlying logic though of course being very different software with different functionality makes true comparisons rather difficult.
Me neither. I’m not a power user, but navigation is pretty easy. I’m sure people want certain features that aren’t present, but downloading albums for offline use and reviewing recently added albums to your music couldn’t be much simpler.
Doesn’t seem much different from previous version and not that difficult.
It’s fuzzy around the edges but solid in the center.
I like it and will be keeping it.
The ui is a mess.
So UI Genius, how would you provide all the same functionality and make it easier (bet you couldn’t)
Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I had to be a UI designer and not an end user to not like something. Apple Music interface is a mess. It’s not intuitive at all. The solution isn’t to demand that users come up with something better. That’s why they PAY people at Apple to figure it out and why I’m asked to pay $15 a month to use it.
Well stated.
If you think someone has to be a UI Genius to know that they don’t like a UI, you’re probably one of the designers who has been working on iTunes.
Compared to early versions, yes it’s confusing. Drastically lacking context. Too many features. It’s not user friendly. Trying to do too much while keeping it simple, so it’s a tug-of-war.
I would totally like to see who complains the most base on age.
Although it doesn’t seem full feature and buttons are rather small, the interface is not confusing. Maybe for my grandparent.
Yes, but no. Been using it no problems for the past couple of days. Lovely steaming albums I’ve always wanted and having it the iTunes echo system.
I’m 61, and while I may not care much for most of what’s played on Beats 1, I enjoy the app very much. It’s a lot of content on a small screen. Not everything is front and center UI-wise, but it’s not as complex as people are making it out to be.
Yes.. It’s fucked the fuck up. I can’t even edit a playlist?
They want me to pay for this? lol.
No, no one wants you to pay for it; you would just constantly bitch about it anyway.
“‘Apple Music’s family plan retails for $14.99 per month…”
If you can’t even read the article lovekamp, I suggest you not claim that someone commenting is just bitching.
shinolashow, I agree with you. With the new iTunes, I can’t even put my ripped CD tracks into playlists now.
Fucked. Up.
Not unless you’re an idiot.
Some aspects are good, especially the ability to add songs to playlists on the fly.
I have experienced damage to my library which will take some time to fix. Not really sure how extensive the issue is.
The other issue was a playlist was stripped of a lot of songs. Really weird how that happened.
Still this is a new venture and I am remaining open minded how this plays out.
Steve would also never have allowed a name as stupid and devoid of creativity as Futr, or yet another “ify” into the market. What the hell is the deal with “ist”, “ify”, and “ly”?
Unless you’re bit.ly or Spotify, those letters being plunked at the end of a common word (we have Wristly now!) is so epically lazy it’s hard to fathom.
These asshats are the modern day equivalent of “Kwik Mart”, “EZ-whatever”, etc.
I wonder how “the kitchen sink” came to mean overly excessive. I use mine all the time, to the degree that I consider it a core component to the kitchen.
I don’t think it’s confusing. If someone can’t take some time out to get to know the new iTunes and the new Apple Music features, they’re just lazy. Most people are the cause of their own computer problems because they don’t take the time to learn.