Earlier today, on June 30, Apple released iOS 8.4 into the wild. With it, the Cupertino-based company also unleashed Apple Music , a brand new entry into the busy music streaming service market.
I’ve been using streaming services for a long time now. Ever since Zune was a thing (I really, really miss Microsoft’s model for Zune). I fell into streaming because, at some point in my life, I lost all the CDs I had been collecting over the years, and, probably right around the same time, I picked up the first laptop that didn’t come with a CD drive. So, I couldn’t realistically buy all of the CDs I had lost, or didn’t have access to anymore, so I thought streaming was the best bet.
I haven’t looked back since, but I have sort of adopted Microsoft’s old Zune strategy. I still pay for an album here and there, while also doing the $9.99 per month thing, and that helps me off-set the uneasiness I get from the low income artists get from streaming services. But, that’s just a personal thing, and I’ll keep doing it no matter which streaming service I use.
And that brings me back to Apple Music. While the company announced plenty of noteworthy things during the keynote at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple Music was the only thing I was really, truly interested in. I’ve been switching between Spotify and Rdio a lot, and usually based on a gripe I have with one that leads me to the other, and vice versa. I wanted Apple Music to be the one-stop shop for all of my Music, and that’s exactly what they announced, but on a broader scale. Apple Music has a lot going on behind the scenes, even more than it does on stage front, but I feel if any company can handle that, it’s Apple.
So, as one can imagine I downloaded and installed iOS 8.4, and by default the new Apple Music experience, and started to dig in. I went with Beats 1 Radio first, just because I wanted to listen to the inaugural broadcast and see what all the fuss was about. I can’t tell you the last time I listened to the radio, so hearing that type of layout again was pretty interesting. I will say that DJ Zane Lowe’s enthusiasm is intoxicating when he’s talking about music, and I think that was an obviously great choice for Apple to bring him on board. However, I’ll also say that throwing in random advertisement pitches for Beats 1 while a song is playing is really, really annoying. Hearing “Beats 1!†during a moment where the artist may not be singing in that moment is pretty bad.
The curation for Apple Music, and the fact that people are handling the majority of the effort rather than algorithms, is one area that piqued my interest, but only because I think it’s a cool thing to do. Giving more people something to do, and letting actual human beings try to pick the next song, rather than a computer, is pretty cool. I don’t use it all that often, though. I used to use Pandora quite a bit, and I can honestly say that, after a long while of liking and disliking songs, my radio stations were pretty fantastic. I imagine that a human choosing the next song, and building my best playlist, could potentially make that fantastic station happen faster, though.
And, in truth, I haven’t even gotten that far into Apple Music yet, because I know it’s one feature that I’m just not going to take advantage of all that often.
Instead, right out of the gate, it was all about Apple Music’s library. That’s the biggest possible point of contention for me, and something that could make me switch or drop it off the table of options instead. So, I fired up Apple Music and started adding artists. I can understand why people were so confused by Apple Music at the start, because it is quite a bit different from the other streaming services out there, especially Spotify. However, after adding a few albums, I got the gist pretty quickly. There’s a lot of tapping to be done, but, I guess that’s not all that surprising these days.
The library is a bit of an issue right now, too. As I went along, following the artists that I’ve already added on Spotify, I noticed that several of them aren’t on Apple Music at all, or are missing albums. More often than not, it’s the latter issue. What’s even more strange, is that sometimes the artist’s artwork in their small icons will actually showcase an album that Apple Music doesn’t have. And, in one instance, I searched the title of an album, it brought up the artist I was looking for, but that album wasn’t available.
Apple Music’s library is expansive, and I have no doubt it’s going to continue to grow, but right now that’s just one thing that’s keeping me from going all-in right now. It would be one thing if Spotify didn’t have the music I was missing in Apple Music, but it does. And, when I’m paying the same per month (not including Apple’s three-month free trial), well, I don’t want to be missing any music.
Another slightly annoying issue: When you look up an artist, there’s a section on the bottom-right, under the biography of the artist or band, where there’s a “Similar Artist†section. Right now, this doesn’t do anything. I wanted to add the artist’s content after seeing their icon there on the bottom right, but tapping on it doesn’t do anything. Tapping-and-holding doesn’t do anything, either. It’s just not functioning right now, which actually makes adding music take that much longer. I’m sure it’ll be fixed “soon.â€
Eventually I added the music I wanted to a Playlist, and then I started to download them for offline playback. So far, it’s taking for what feels like forever. I’ve been at it awhile now, with just over 2,500 songs to add, and, right now, it’s at 1,880. From my usage, I think I can say that both Spotify and Rdio download tracks much faster. And that could be due to an issue that keeps popping up: Unable to download. As shown in the image just above, that error keeps popping up randomly, for different tracks, and it’s definitely just an annoyance that seems to be slowing everything down. When I hit “Retry,†the song gets downloaded just fine.
I will say that the performance of Apple Music hasn’t been all that spectacular ever since I booted it up. And that’s both on the iPhone and iPad, and after a restart. Trying to add music, especially individual tracks, can be frustratingly slow. I find the most “lag†between button presses after I’ve added a song or album to My Music, and then trying to add it to a Playlist after that. In fact, on more than one occasion (I’m up to six now), simply trying to tap on another option after adding an album to My Music made the app stop cooperating altogether, before it ultimately crashed on me.
Oh, and I should probably mention Connect, because it’s a thing that exists. Right now, I’m sure that a lot of people out there that listen to some ridiculously popular artists or bands have a Connect section that’s pretty cool, with plenty to look at. Mine, right now, is . . . barren. There are only three artists to look at, but I will say this: The engagement from fans on those three posts is pretty spectacular already. I think Connect is solely in the hands of the artists, and basically we’re all just waiting for it to take off. I could see myself using it, though, so hopefully the bands and artists jump on board.
I don’t want to end on a sour note, because I do like Apple Music and I think it has great potential. While I think other apps have a better aesthetic in general (and why can’t I just slide an album to the left while in the app’s music player to skip to the next one?), I do like the way that Apple has everything laid out. It’s not a huge departure from the previous Music app, so a lot of the usage patterns are immediately familiar. And, I like the way that the “Now Playing†bar is always available at the bottom, so even as I’m browsing a collection or other facets of Music, I can still control what’s playing.
There’s a lot to like with Apple Music, but the growing pains are there, even right out of the gate. I don’t think it will take Apple long to fix most of them, either. For anyone that was looking to jump on board streaming for the first time, Apple Music is certainly an option worth trying. For those that are well adapted to other services, though, I’m not sure there’s enough differentiation to sway long-time fans just yet.
Have you tried out Apple Music yet?
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