Apple’s new Music “app first asks what genres and artists you like. By tapping in your preferences, you essentially create a virtual music nerd, ready to recommend you things based on its encyclopedic knowledge and library of 30 million songs,” Hardeep Phull writes for The New York Post.
“You’re instantly given dozens of playlists to dip into,” Phull writes. “The more you listen, the more the service gets to know your tastes. Also sweetening the deal is Beats 1, a radio service programmed by a variety of experts, such as ex-BBC DJ Zane Lowe and hip-hop don Ebro. Beats 1 is alone worth the monthly fee, even if it’s a more haphazard way of finding new sounds.”
“There’s nothing to lose by taking advantage of the service’s three-month free trial,” Phull writes. “But the truth is, even after the free sample, you probably won’t want to lose your nerdy new friend.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
If one’s musical tastes are limited to the popular and the trendy and the marketable, then, sure, Beats1 makes some sense. Otherwise, no. I’ve always been in pursuit of music, and talent, with no commercial potential. In fact, that was a radio show I used to listen to here in Boston all the time. Great music, great knowledge, great selection. No pandering to commonalities or tin pan alley. Apple Music is not such a place.
don’t knock tin pan alley! that music is now classic!
I prefer Classical Music and already have what I like. I have good speakers and enjoy playing it through iTunes. I have listened to the classical radio a few times but I prefer choosing what I want to hear. For me, there is nothing for me in the streaming service even if it were free. I can see how this is wonderful for others and have no complaint with the service.
Different strokes for different folks!
Heck, when I signed up and put in the genres I wanted it ended up giving me almost everything except what I wanted. I find it rather non-intuitive, but I haven’t really messed with it much. Kinda doubt that I will subscribe after the 3 month trial, but maybe I’m an exception.
I thought so too, then I tried something on the computer. You can select more like this, never this song, etc. The system started getting the picture very quickly.
Not sure how to do on iPhone.
I think there’s a typo in the headline–it should read “Why Apple Music is worth A penny..” This makes infinitely more sense..
no Def Leppard Pyromania = no deal
No Anjunabeats in Ibiza 2015😖
No Trout Mask Replica
I just checked – you’re right! That sucks, but there’s still more than enough other stuff to warrant the cost of admission. (in my case – and probably yours 2ndmate – that would not include Beats1)
clearly a service for the lowest common denominator…..I have my own eclectic taste in music and rarely does iTunes provide similar. So it’s a service for the unwashed masses then, good luck with that Apple….always the one to think different, not.
We all can’t be as special as you.
It sure is.. Every penny… Awesome service.
Software has to be refined and polished a bit more imho
It keeps learning.
Yeah, so far it’s been worth every penny I’ve spent on it….
Exactly.
The MDN Take is commendably concise.
yeah right still doesn’t make the crap smell like perfume
I’ve added about 50 albums of music I wouldn’t have even known about to my playlists. It’s so easy to discover and check out music related to artists you already know about. They’ve turned out to be excellent. So that’s $10 – or nothing at the moment but assuming I continue – for $500 of iTunes store purchases in effect. Bargain of the century. And in the future, unlimited music of all kinds for my collection. You have to suss out how it works by clicking on everything that’s clickable… it’s hardly intuitive but it works, and then you get the hang of it. But what’s on offer is incredible.
Beats1 is garbage. Every time I turn it on I hear rap crap and hip hop slop. Not my cup of tea. DEFINITELY NOT worth the price of Apple Music.
This article reads like it was written by Apple PR. I think Apple Music is totally crap. And I a flaming Apple FanBoy💥😱😖😡⌚️👀🚀😰
All I have to say is, be mindful of your data plan. You can burn up 3 gigs pretty quickly.
As with any other steaming service.
I Just made my third playlist in a week. The first playlist started with a tune, which was released a few years ago by The Decemberists. Then I followed that diddy with the similar music recommendations and filled-out the rest of the playlist. Most songs were from 2006, and this surprised me because during that time I was listening to thousands of songs every week and never heard any of the Apple Music recomendations before.
The second playlist was derived from the “For You” section and also included a few cuts from one of the Pitchfork playlists. This list contains a mix of both new and old stuff. And the third playlist was made by listening to tracks from Apple’s top hits sections, which is all new music.
So, over the past week I have spent several hours navigating the app and listening to a lot of music. As I stated in previous posts, there are a lot of quirks in the software. For example, there is no way to navigate to an album via a playlist published on Apple Music. The name of the band/artist has to be typed-in and searched. This is a PITA, but even worse is losing the playlist, especially if it’s in some level never explored before. Secondly, songs must be added to your music collection before they can be added to a playlist. I thought I had created a playlist, but half the songs were missing, and since I listen to parts of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of songs to make an interesting playlist, trying to remember all the songs and their order in the list was a freak-out moment. Luckily, there is a list of all the songs heard buried in the app, so all was not lost.
The bottom line is there are frustrating moments navigating Apple Music, but there is A LOT of cool music that I have never heard before and the avenue for discovering music keeps updating. I’m becoming addicted and now feel the urge to make another killer playlist!
“For example, there is no way to navigate to an album via a playlist published on Apple Music.”
Tap on the three dots. In the upcoming window tap on the picture of the album cover in the top left.
Sorry for not clarifying. There is no way to navigate to an album from a published playlist in Apple Music – iOS on an iPhone. There is an option “Show in iTunes Store”, which does navigate to the album the song is on in iTunes, but not Apple Music. There should be an option, “Show Album” which navigates the user to the album within Apple Music. In addition, after listening to a few tracks on the album the back button should let the user navigate all the way back to the playlist.
Can’t help but it works both on my iPhone 6 and my iPad Air. Not as an option but with a tap on the album icon in the top left I get access to the whole album.
Wow, found it. Thanks. It’s confusing because that element does not appear like the rest of the options. Plus, the back button is active which is excellent. Thanks again! 👍🏻
” Secondly, songs must be added to your music collection before they can be added to a playlist.”
I have no problems adding songs directly to a playlist. But only to playlists I created. If I add to a playlist it is added to my music collection at the same time.
The first playlist I created had no issues. All the songs were there and in the correct order. The second playlist created did not contain some of the songs in the playlist. I tested the third playlist and the first couple of songs were not added to the playlist. To get it into the playlist the “Add to My Music” had to be selected first and then “Add to Playlist”. iPhone 6 Plus, Verizon, 8.4
Have signed up for the three month trial, have used it once.. in every probability will not be signing up for paid subscription. Not a big fan of subscription service definitely not of the paid subscription.
Paid for my music. Not paying again for it.
Yes. I paid for vinyl albums, cassettes and digital, I’m not paying again either.
Your vinyl and cassettes wore out, and so you bought digital. So did I. But the digital will NEVER wear out. Why should you pay again after that?
And THAT is why the music labels have worked so hard to convince everyone to rent their music. Very P.T. Barnum of them.
I should have added, that it is just more bloatware from Apple. As if they don’t already force you into having all the garbage on you iPhone that you can’t delete and if you do you void the fracking warranty. I was considering buy another iPhone but Apple is really starting to be another jerk-off Microsoft.
Love it myself, have heard a lot of great songs in the last week. Cancelled my Spotify subscription at day 3.
i was a subscriber to Beats Music before it was incorporated into the new ios music app. Beats had a MUCH BETTER user interface. Everything about it worked, and was extremely intuitive. Apple messed it all up. Plus, it was WAY easier on the eyes. It used to be all text on beats, now I have to scroll through pictures, videos, etc. without ever really finding what I want. After inputting my artist preferences, Beats gave me perfect recomendations, without all the mainstream music that I have no interest in. Now itunes pushes whatever THEY want you to hear/buy. They should have used the Beats interface, and just added a tab for music that was on the phone. Extremely disappointing.
Completely disagree. If anything, Music is too similar to Beats. I subscribed to MOG before it was taken over by Beats. MOG had such a clean, straightforward interface. As soon as the screen popped up, you knew exactly what you were looking at. You didn’t have to study the screen to figure out what to do or where to go next. It was a pleasure to use. That all changed with Beats, with its hodgepodge of staggered graphics that made it more difficult to find the words and links to things. It’s a little better in Music, but still too graphics-heavy for me. I know you can’t please everyone with a single interface style. Maybe a future update will give you a choice between graphics-heavy and graphics-lite. Now, having said all that, I think version 1.0 is a great start, mainly because of Siri. She can play any song on demand, create playlists and stations, skip forward or back, add songs to a queue, rate songs, identify songs, on and on. To me, Siri is what separates Music from all the others. Some polish on the interface will just make it that much better.
Love it. 2.0 will be amazing.
Starting to look like the musical version of the Apple Watch.
Will pass.
I won’t subscribe. I put in my music choices. I like to hear a selection of popular music, but the only thing it offers ‘for me’ is selections of one artist at a time. I don’t want to listen to all of the top songs by Kenny Chesney, but rather various artists with similar music. So far, it just makes me mad ever time I use it. Also, when I get in my car and it connects over bluetooth it will randomly play music from the 70’s or 80’s that might be in my own iTunes match collection, but that include genres and artists that I did not select.
On the iPhone the “For You” contains entire albums, playlists containing songs from a particular artist’s many albums, themed playlists of many different artist like the best Indie hits from 2010, etc. I also found the “For You” is constantly updating with new music, albums etc. It must learn what a user listens to and adjusts. The incredible thing about it is most of the music listed in “For You” is bands or albums that I do not have in my archives. I have thousands of bands/artists in my collection, so I’m super impressed.
If you are looking for pop music then try the new section and navigate to the genre you prefer. Plus, if you navigate to an album within Apple Music and begin listening to songs from the album similar bands/artists will appear at the bottom. I found this “similar music” feature to be extremely accurate. For example, I started listening to some “Cow Punk” (my definition) type music, which is kind of like a combination of country and punk and is a subclass of Indie Rock or Alternative. This type of music is very specific and Apple Music gave me similar sounding bands that I have never heard before, which is very cool.
When I signed in, it asked if I wanted my music added, and I said yes. It’s been a day now, and it seems to have uploaded about 5% of my music. That was the only question asked. Where does one find the questions about what music the subscriber likes?
Oh hey, me. It’s me responding to your question. Music must have been screwing up. One computer just gives me the message “an error occurred” when trying to log in. The other finally offered some music selections today. So it was a problem on Apple’s end. Doesn’t bode well for the QOS one might expect.
I wonder how many Spotify employees are masquerading as posters on this topic?
I’ll subscribe. I’m careful to “like” music I like and connect with artists that I like. Unfortunately, most of my favorites are dead, but, hey, they’re still sending notices, which seems odd, but whatever.
The main thing for me is that I can play new music, music I haven’t bought, constantly. And “For You” constantly suggests new music for me to listen to. Gotta make sure I listen to them and like them otherwise, ITunes seems to drop them off in favor of stuff that I have listened to.
I was going to read the article until I saw “NY Post.” Nope. Next…
Is there any way on the new iTunes to access in
alphabetical order the complete list of all artists
or groups or songs?
love it, started trying out this week.
To my amazement, I’m only paying 4.99 USD for family plan here in Thailand.
Much cheaper than in USA and Europe.