It’s hard to know what to make of Apple Music when you first turn it on.
On one-hand, it’s a 30-million strong catalogue of music with all the bells and whistles that you would expect from an Apple product, and you can use it on anything (iPad, iPhone, MacBook or PC) that can run iTunes. (score!) On the other hand, getting used to Music’s interface is not a job for the impatient. Even after using Music for almost a week, I can still get lost in the app (fail!). It’s not a bad app, but it’s doesn’t have Apple’s usual flare for the intuitive, which would have been helpful considering its complexity.
Some background first might help.
Music was first announced at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in June — it launched on June 30 — as the long awaited for competitor to services like Spotify or Pandora. After all, Apple launched its revolutionary iTunes software over 10 years ago, offering the world its first online marketplace for music, in effect slapping a expire-by sticker on pirate music sites, such as Napster and Kazoo, which where dominant at the time. But despite its history as music distributor, Apple seemed to be letting the rise of streaming services pass it by.
So when Apple finally announced Music, the anticipation level was high. At the launch, Apple promised Music would not only offer a music streaming service, but include a social media site exclusively for artists to share extra content with their fans, and a global Radio station DJ’d by some of the top talent in the world. That was what was promised, and here is what users will get:
My Music
This is the core section of the Music App, and where it gets the most confusing. When users first go into this section, there will be two databases you can search: your own library, and Apple Music. Your library is nothing more than your existing music collection, including playlists. The Apple Music portion is where you can stream music. Going back and forth between the two is counter-intuitive and I frequently forgot which library I was looking in. The good news is Apple does allow you to merge these two if you are using iCloud. I hit the “merge” button with the trepidation of a Hollywood hero cutting the wire on a bomb, but it worked fine. No files where deleted, and I can now even save streamed music offline to play later (bonus!)
A note to UAE users, Apple isn’t giving out the number of tracks available here in the Gulf region, but the number is comparable to most other non-US markets.
For You
Not everything in Music is confusing. The “For You” section is one of my favourite parts of the app, with great content. It offers playlists based on your favourite artists as well as a selection of albums it thinks you would be interested in. If anything is clear in this app, it’s that Apple knows the music I like. They do this based on the music you stream, and I’ve definitely spent enough money on iTunes for them to get the general idea of what I listen to. I suspect they also have been snooping (with my consent, since I’ve generally been loose with my privacy settings where iTunes was concerned) in my music library. Regardless of how they do it, the selection has generally been spot on.
This area also promotes “curated” playlists, samples of which include “Inspired by: The Doors,” “Alternative Gems: 1996” and “X: Deep Cuts.” I’ve seen suggested playlists before, but never ones that were so well tailored. As much as a liked Spotify, their playlists where often filled with artists I had never heard of and I really liked only some of them. It was great for discovering new music, but there was little chance of me finding a list that didn’t involve me skipping every other song.
Apple made a big deal over their playlists being curated by real people who know the music, instead of being consisting of song picked by a algorithm that using only focuses on what sold well, when Music was launched. The extra effort shows. The app is able to suggest a wide variety of music, giving me songs I’d forget about by artists I knew well, as well as some new songs that I never knew existed.
New
If finding new music is more your thing, then — obviously — the “New” function is for you. This area of the app has both new albums as well as playlists — again curated by real people — and a Top 5 lists. All of this can be filtered by genre. The one thing I don’t understand is why Music continues to offer me music from the 1980s, even in the “New.” It seems to convince me I need a playlist called “Spotlight on 1985,” which it placed immediately under its list of “New Artists” singles. If the app is trying to make me feel old, it’s succeeding, but I have to admit, the app was right. The 1985 playlist was great, even if it wasn’t new.
Connect
The most disappointing part of the app was the Connect feature, considering its potential. The idea as originally presented at the WWDC was very ambitious. Give artists a place to give their fans something extra, whether it’s pictures, alternative tracks or something exclusive, but apparently most artists haven’t gotten the message that connect is for them. The Connect feature starts by automatically “following” any artist already in your music library. I have hundreds of artists in my library, but for the first few days, the only news post from anyone I follow was a picture that Alanis Morissette posted (yes, just one) of herself on tour and a link to a video posted by Beck. The link didn’t work either. Thinking that maybe I was looking at too narrow a range of artists, I started following entire categories of music, including Apple Music Pop, Apple Music Hip Hop and even Apple Music Blues. There was still nothing, expect filler content, was which nothing more than suggested songs by Apple. That was bad, but also aggravating was that once you have decide to no longer follow an artists, whatever news has already appeared in your news stream won’t go away. I still can’t get that Beck video to go away.
Radio
The radio feature is fairly straight forward. Pick your channel and Apple will feed you a stream of music. These aren’t your traditional radio stations, so don’t expect any commercials or DJ chatter, but the channels you can pick go beyond Rock, Pop or Hip-Hop and include channels suh as Kids & Family and Workout and The Mixtape. I had the chance while travelling to listen to Beats One, the new global radio station, that Apple promoted so heavily at Music’s launch. However, another note to UAE users, Beats 1 is not available in the country, and Apple has not announced any time frame for when or if it will launch it. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
Verdict
Despite some issues, you’re not going to find a service comparable to this anywhere. It’s crafted to the music you like in a way that other streaming services just don’t do, and the price — Dh19.99 a month for an individual and Dh29.99 for the family — is hard to beat. You can’t even go see a movie for that price anymore. As for the features such as Connect, Radio and My Music, if Apple is known for doing anything, it’s upgrading its software. A few tweeks to the user interface, and Apple Music set the benchmark for streaming music services, just like iTunes did for selling it.
