Apple is finally jumping into the modern streaming music scene with Apple Music. Its aim is to push aside Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, Slacker and others to be the one and only place you play music, by combining your private library, the vast iTunes catalog and live radio stations in New York, Los Angeles and London.
Apple Music follows two earlier music streaming projects from Apple; iTunes Radio and iTunes Match. Neither rose to the same level of popularity as Spotify or Pandora, so Apple's trying again, this time with the backbone of Beats Music, the streaming service it acquired along with the rest of the Beatsheadphone empire in 2014. It's also folding elements of both services into Apple Music.
With a variety of features, Apple Music tries to cover all bases; as a streaming music, Internet radio service, and a place to play tracks you've purchased from iTunes. It relies on a team of humans to set it apart, employing music editors whose entire job is to create playlists and pick out music for you in the app. There's a big social element too, with a feed where you can follow your favorite artists to get behind-the-scenes updates. Though it works a lot like other streaming services, Apple Music combines features from all of them and adds in Beats 1, a live curated 24-7 radio station. No other service has a dedicated broadcast station, making Apple's product a bit more unique.
In its early days, Apple Music looks like a promising alternative to Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora and others, but only time will tell if it takes off in the same way. However, after spending a few hours with it, Apple Music is already far more complicated than its competitors, and that's bound to turn off a lot of would-be subscribers.
What does it cost and how can I get it?
Apple Music costs $9.99 (£9.99, AU$11.99) monthly, with a $14.99 (£14.99, AU$17.99) family plan option for up to six people. There is also a free version of Apple Music, but you can only use it to play music you've purchased from iTunes, listen to Beats 1 and play radio stations with ads.
Starting today, when you sign up for Apple Music, you get a free three-month free trial, with all of the features available. After that, you'll be charged $10 per month unless you cancel. Apple will charge whatever credit or debit card you have on file with your Apple ID. You can cancel the auto-renewal by tapping the person icon at the top left, tapping "View Apple ID" and tapping "Manage" under the Subscriptions header.
To get Apple Music, you'll need to update your iOS device to iOS 8.4, which is rolling out Tuesday June 30. The update changes the earlier Music app that came with your device into the Apple Music app. Whether you subscribe to Apple Music or not, the new Apple Music app will still be on your iPhone, iPad or iPod and you'll use it to manage music already on your device or that you've purchased from iTunes.
There's good news for Android fans, too. Apple Music will be available for your phone or tablet in late 2015 as a standalone app you'll be able to download from Google Play. Apple TV compatibility is expected later this year as well. We'll update this review when both versions come out.
Getting around
If you're coming from the older Music app, the new Apple Music app will look a bit different. Instead of tabs for artists, songs, albums and radio, Apple Music is organized by what kinds of music you want to hear: Suggested music for you, new music, live or Internet radio, or your collection of purchased tracks. The tabs at the bottom of the app help you jump around to each section.
After hours spent with the app, I'm still struggling to find my way around. The New tab in particular is stuffed with too much content, including new music, recently released popular music videos, top charts and themed playlists. On top of that, there are submenus that take you to more playlists created by music editors and various brands, such as Rolling Stone magazine and Shazam. Scrolling through the page, it's hard to focus on any one spot and hard to decipher one section from the next. To make things more complicated, you can change the genre at the top of the New tab to adjust the music selection.
One of the biggest problems plaguing the design is that there are too many submenus that you can get lost in and have to back out of several times to return to the main page. There's also not much organization, with playlists, albums, videos and other groupings thrown together in no discernible order. I'm already longing for Spotify, which has a cleaner design, with everything clearly laid out.
Stream what you want
Like other music streaming services, Apple Music lets you play music that you haven't purchased by streaming it over the Internet. For the monthly fee, you get access to the iTunes catalog, which boasts 43 million songs worldwide. However, there are a few exceptions; not every song or album will be available for streaming over Apple Music and some music is not available in every region.
Notable exclusions are The Beatles, Garth Brooks and Tool. Taylor Swift almost didn't release her music through the service (she's taken her music off Spotify), but later changed her mind. Currently, almost all of her music is available through Apple Music.
For the most part, you can treat the music available for streaming as if it's yours, adding it to playlists and downloading it to your phone or tablet to listen offline. The catch is that you don't actually own those tracks and if you cancel Apple Music, you cannot listen to it any longer.
Apple Music also lets you play music you've purchased from iTunes right alongside music you don't own. The service scans your library of music to find songs and anything you've already purchased you can stream right from iTunes. For songs it can't match, it uploads those tracks to your iCloud account so you can stream those as well.
When you pick a playlist or album to play, everything is added to the Up Next queue. You can view it by tapping the song that playing, shown at the bottom of the app, and then tapping the bullet list icon at the right. In Up Next, you can see the upcoming songs and your play history. You can clear this list or add more music by searching for it.
[via Cnet.com]
