Apple Music

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  • dibec

    Just got into it. Pretty sweet. Anyone else take the plunge?

  • monospaced0

    Just trying out the free trial now. Beats 1 is pretty good, until the LA DJs come on. Haven't found a lot of great curated playlists though, mostly just stuff about specific artists. Hopefully the For You section gets better as I use the platform more.

    • Get busy clicking those hearts on stuff you like. It does help the recommendations quite a bit.jtb26
    • Though I really feel like after all these years of buying music and using an iPod and iPhone and iTunes that Apple really ought to know already.jtb26
  • qoob-5

    Cool, gonna try it out. It's nice to play all this music instantly in iTunes.

    • hahaha, why so many downvotes to this response?lvl_13
    • mine was downvoted too, and I didn't even express an opinion, lolmonospaced
    • Fuck this post in particular!iCanHazQBN
  • jtb26-2

    Apple Music is such an enormous disappointment. I set my expectations WAY to high.

    • I am not experiencing a large difference between it and its competitors so far. What were you expecting beyond streaming and some recommendations anyway?monospaced
    • A UI that doesn't suck.jtb26
    • Inovation.jtb26
    • Yeah. The iTunes one is not very good... too much like Spotify. The iOS version is better, in my opinion.monospaced
    • It's marginally better on the phone, but it's really sloppy UI across devices. Desktop is the worst. It's just a shame. They CAN do better than this.jtb26
    • I agreemonospaced
    • I have despised iTunes for a very very long time and hoped this would have ushered in an overhaul. Instead it's the same thing. Not liking it.monospaced
  • dibec-3

    I love that you can download any* song from iTunes. Screw the radio.

  • ArmandoEstrada0

    There's a hater among you.

    • I think Apple is legitimately capable of better. I'm not hating, I'm just wishing they'd love me back here a little. Instead of just doing the bare minimumjtb26
    • "We need to get streaming to market, here's a bunch of great ideas, but lets execute on them as quickly as possible."jtb26
    • I agree they put it out more out of necessity than demand. But the hater comment, that was probably regarding the downvotes all over this page. :)monospaced
    • Ah, that's an accurate observation. I've tuned out up/down.jtb26
    • I have too. I don't even use the voting here.monospaced
  • aliastime-3

    I'm digging the stations. They seem light years better than Spotify's repetitiveness.

  • jtb261

    So let's talk about this in detail. Here are my complaints:

    The on boarding was pointless. They brought this into the fold from Beats Music and it's an interesting concept that's poorly executed. The options are all pre-seeded and they're probably ok for a lot of people, but if your tastes are specific it blows. And this is what Apple is claiming they can do best.

    They're using worthless software to determine your tastes. What this should be driven by is search, and a ranking algorithm that let's you confirm what it turns up. They literally have an index of your music on the phone already in many cases that comes complete with play counts and genre. They can discern very quickly which genres you like and which artists you listen too. Use that data to seed the music selection of the on boarding bubbles and let me correct your softwares assumptions about my taste. IMO this would lead to much better recommendations off the bat. They're already using search to match my supplied data against their lists. It'd be so much better if the initial input was stronger. Then there's this:

    Connect is a big let down. If Apple tried they could make something that's as appealing as MTV was in the 80's and captures our attention the way Facebook does. But it won't, because the presentation layer is weak and the tools for artist to post are non-existent. Here is the interface by which artists are able to post to connect:

    In general it's a lot of stuff that looks like this:


    and it's pretty shit. I've found dozens of really bad layout and interaction flaws hidden deep in the app that make me feel like this wasn't well thought out at all.

    If Apple was serious about this they'd have built something as powerful as YouTube for artists to use. Instead we get another weak stab at social media from Apple.

    Ultimately it seems like they don't care about making great software anymore rather it feels like they care about selling devices, and this was just another feature requirement to edge out Samsung.

    • Here's the last thing I think the app gets really wrong.

      In lui of a better way of determining taste the UI shouldn't be so focused on programming what I lik
      jtb26
    • e, or showing me options. It should be asking me what I want to listen too. And letting me shape the experience I want.jtb26
    • hahaha at the photoMiguex
    • Nice write up bubba. I totally agree with you. They will get the kinks out. I hate not being able to search by records labels.dibec
    • It looks like it pulled in my iTunes preferences a little in the form of artists I'm "following." Not sure if that's informing content though.monospaced
    • support for Sonos is for the end of the year, so i'll waitlajj
    • I get annoyed that we can't search through record labels too dibec. I thought that would be the best way of finding/supporting new artists?Ianbolton
    • Ha! This post making it to the front page crashed my CloudApp account.jtb26
    • I might have to kill the images :(jtb26
  • georgesIII-4

    Hey, looooook

    an apple service mono likes,
    color me fuckn surprised

    • Troller McTrollersons has arrived.wagshaft
    • Did I say I liked it?monospaced
    • because I´m telling the truth and you´re a sheeple that follows shapple without any mind enlarging logic, btw you will never be as enlightened as me, ch8, m8georgesIII
    • LOL nice yurimon reference.monospaced
  • Miguex-2

    but.. but.. but..

    • any good?prophetone
    • spotify? it's the only thing that made me stop using itunes, since what... os 9?Miguex
    • That's roughly how I felt about Rdio. But Now I feel like it all sucks. I'm now one of those whiney fucking millennials.jtb26
    • Is also switched to Spotify about 4 years ago but had to go back to iTunes sometimes to listen to music I purchased and that wasn't available.monospaced
    • One thing I like is that now my streaming and my library are in one place. I am not loyal to either but do appreciate convenience.monospaced
    • I'm that guy who has a library of all sorts of obscure chins and likely have wut spotify offers anywayprophetone
    • might be decent enough to have the free version though on my wife's phone. she's more recent pop hits n junkprophetone
    • chins = choons hahaprophetone
  • sarahfailin0

    It's called getting your own MP3s. There's no ads. You control your playlist. You listen to entire albums. Hell you can even pay for them if you want to. ...Or not.

    • buying mp3 is a thing of the past. pay for wavs if you dj or buy tangible format if you truly want to support.Miguex
    • to be fair, one of the great things about all these streaming services is that you can discover new musicmonospaced
    • You can still discover new music: www.mp3.com has a Free MP3 of The Day. BOOM.nb
    • I discover/buy most of my music from Bandcamp now - I don't stream anything and gladly pay for individual albums instead of a subscription.face_melter
    • yea. Im with face_melter bandcamp ftwAl_dizzle
    • Oh yeah bandcamp is very popular among 27 - 40 year-old men.nb
    • a "free mp3 of the day".... oooooh wow! [sarcasm]iCanHazQBN
  • Miguex0

    In regards of the "I have obscure music that is not available on spotify" kind of comments.

    Let's start by saying that if it's truly obscure, chances are it won't be available on any other music service out there, that specially goes for itunes as well.

    For those that don't know, Spotify, on top of having the "online radio streams" and the "select most commercial music and stream" deals. It also offers "combined playlists" meaning that you can make your own playlist of music that you stream + music that you own (mp3, wav, aiff, etc.) all of it it's in one place, no need to switch between apps, no need to open pandora, last fm, rdio, itunes, etc. everything works under one app.

    Plus, their UI is really nice across all devices

    • The handling of local files is terrible. It finds them but just gives me a enormous list. Search is bad at returning local results over Spotify Catalogue.jtb26
    • It won't be available on streaming service, but you can actually buy the album or DL it. Indie artists make a lot more money when you buy as opposed to stream.yuekit
    • Actually, buying mp3 makes little to nothing to the artist, unless you are buying directly from them. If you want to support go to their shows, or buy the merchMiguex
    • Maybe you're right. The bottom line for me is that these streaming services still don't have a lot of stuff I want to listen to.yuekit
  • ArmandoEstrada-1

    I think for me this is a good cross between having all my music on iTunes, streaming radio and access to listen to whatever I want. With Spotify I don't have access to my music unless I'm at the computer. Correct me if I'm wrong....

    • not only you have access to your music on multiple devices on spotify, but you can continue playing the same tune across different devices.Miguex
    • so I have access to my entire music library on my iPhone that resides on my computer?ArmandoEstrada
  • monospaced1

    Listening to Beats 1 and a track I've never heard comes on and I'm really into it, so I come over and click the little ... next to the track and select "Show in iTunes Store." iTunes goes to the Store and shows me results for "Beats 1." Derp.

    I then try to create a radio station based on the track, and it just relaunches the Beats 1 station. Double derp. Isn't this supposed to be about exploration and cross selling? It's not even functioning.

    In the last day I've listened to music and have clicked the hearts on tracks I like, and in some places I select the star. Hearts or stars, Apple? Pick one, please, I don't even know the difference.

    On that note, why cannot I not easily find a list of tracks I have "hearted" or "starred?" If someone knows, please let me know, otherwise I'll add it as another derp.

    With the previous Apple Radio I was able to create radio stations based on individual tracks and artists, and did this once in awhile. Now, where are those? I used to be able to go into my radio stations and curate and edit them. Now I can't even find them except for a short list of Recently listened to stations, all of which I can't interact with. Total derp.

    Finally, I have an Apple TV that I have connected to my large stereo system. Why the fuck didn't they include a new Music app on that platform along with the iOS and desktop versions? Makes no sense. Full derp on this release.

  • yuekit2

    I think what is needed maybe is a redesign of iTunes. Considering the design talent at Apple and that this is one of their most used apps it's surprising they can't provide a better user experience.

    The changes they made about a year ago still feel like a step backwards. The search is worse than it used to be, and in general there is a poor sense of where you are in the app. So Apple Music, being shoehorned into iTunes, suffers from the same flaws.

    • it is beyond awfulmonospaced
    • its not so much that their app started going backwards, but the fact that there are app already doing what they offer and look betterMiguex
    • Yeah, recent change just feel like moving around deckchairs. They need to do an iMovie/Final Cut X style burn it to the ground and redo the whole thing.Nathan_Adams
    • This is the first version of their music streaming service. Maybe it'll get better? I still want record label search.Ianbolton
  • face_melter0

    Seems that turning on the iCloud Music/iTunes Match feature is making things all fucked with new handy-dandy DRM, rewriting track metadata, duplicating files, and just deleting shit.

    http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/1…

    • DRM is the worse, I thought they gave that up already.Miguex
    • I know... bullshit.Al_dizzle
  • Wolfboy0

    I'm glad it's free for the first three months because there are some flaws with this thing.

    I've experienced a few of the things mentioned all ready in this thread in regards to the whole thing not being as intuitive and bug free as I thought it would be.

    The one that has annoyed me was mentioned by Mono a couple of posts up where you click to make a new station from a particular track or artist and then nothing. No new station or play list. Maybe this is a hang over from the old iTunes and they'll get rid of it, but I personally would use that feature still. Or maybe this is a bug and it'll be ironed out.

    Also, they'd fucked up the listing for the very first band I searched for - Fat White Family appear twice, once with that name and once with THE Fat White Family. So their back catalogue is split between them. That is a Maps style information fuck up.

    I guess it's just bugs, but a big roll out like this should have shit like that sorted.

    Having said that, I use iTunes for my own library, I've read it'll be Sonos compatible soon and i would prefer to have one source rather for music (owned and streamed). I certainly wont be paying for two.

    I've turned off the auto-renew, so it'll all depend on how much the experience grows on me over the next three months.

  • scarabin0

    streaming does nothing for me at burning man where i can't get a connection :/

    • you can download everything for offline listeningBen99
  • Nathan_Adams-1

    I'm giving it a shot, having not been sold on any streaming service so far. Doesn't seem too bad, there's some interesting curated playlists if you dig deep enough, and some of the For You stuff has been reasonably good (despite the fairly restrictive on-boarding, it must be taking in to account previous iTunes Match and Radio data).

    Where the fuck have all the iTunes Radio stations gone though? I can see some under Recently Played, but that's it. And those that are in recently played, can no longer be tuned (hits vs variety vs discovery).

  • Nathan_Adams0

    Another odd thing, had a pretty cool playlist pop up in my For You Feed - a list of tracks all mixed by Alan Moulder. Great.

    First track was Soon by My Bloody Valentine, taken from their EP's 1988-1991 compilation. Except when it played, it was playing a different copy of Soon that was from a dodgy live bootleg that was in my own iTunes library. What's up with that? Obviously it's checking if you have a track locally already so it's doesn't have to stream a track unnecessarily, but you'd think it would be a bit more thorough then just checking artist and track name.

  • slappy0

    Created a bunch of playlists on my desktop, still waiting for them to show up on my phone...