“Apple Music feels like an attempt to take on every competitive app from Pandora to Spotify to YouTube and advance the idea of online radio at the same time.,” Ryan Nakashima writes for The Associated Press.
“As a result, Apple Music feels crowded with features and buttons — unusual for a company known for promoting simplicity and ease of use,” Nakashima writes. “And as much as Apple Music tries to suit my personal tastes, I find many of its recommendations off-base.”
MacDailyNews Take: We find exactly the opposite. Apple Music has already introduced us to several artists we’ve never heard, but love. Many reviews that we’ve read echo our experience. Apple Music is uncanny with its music recommendations (provided to pick your favorites and love songs you love along the way. Did Nakashima perhaps expect it to read his mind?).
“Two innovations stand out: One is Beats 1. The concept of a radio station taken online and delivered to mobile devices in 100 countries around the world is refreshingly simple. Hosted by Zane Lowe in Los Angeles, Julie Adenuga in London and Ebro Darden in New York, Apple is presenting three tastemakers whom I’m just getting to know. They play music and conduct interviews. Live listening is fun, and I can switch when I want more control over listening,” Nakashima writes. “Siri, Apple’s ever-evolving digital assistant, can now take voice commands and launch music immediately, even responding to relatively complex commands. Ask it to ‘Play the top songs from 1973,’ and you’ll get that year’s top 25, including ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.’ In fact, if Apple Music had only these two features, I’d feel satisfied.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, who needs a celestial jukebox with virtually every song ever recorded? (smirk)
“The service benefits from being featured prominently on Apple’s mobile devices, but I’m not sure that will be enough for people to switch from another service,” Nakashima writes. “If you’ve already spent time creating playlists on Spotify, for instance, you’re not going to want to start over on Apple Music.”
MacDailyNews Take: An easy step by step proccess to import all your music and playlists from Spotify to Apple Music: http://movetoapplemusic.ramonfritsch.com
“t’s no doubt difficult to encapsulate the world of music in a product that aims to mold itself to millions of different tastes,” Nakashima writes. “But we’ve come to rely on Apple to address these very vexing problems. Usually it does so in a way that feels less cluttered.”
Read more in the full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: This reviewer comes off as pretty confused about the whole thing. The review also screams “rush job!” How long did he spend with Apple Music? How much input did he give to Apple Music about his own tastes? After reading his whole review, we’d say “not enough” on both accounts.
That said, yes, Apple Music/iTunes/iTunes Store – the whole conglomeration – is a hot mess right now. Hopefully the UI can be refined going forward.