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Apple Music
If you're well and truly lodged in the Apple ecosystem then you're probably already giving the 3 month trial of Apple Music a whirl, but if you're still undecided or on another platform and just curious hopefully this will give you a little more of an insight.
So as you may or may not know Apple Music comes bundled with latest iOS 8.4 update and replaces the old music app that you may or may not have loved. On launching it you are immediately offered to opt in to the 3 month trial. Once you're in you are then asked a series of questions based on your music tastes and favourite artists. For those with experience this differs very little from what the Beat app brought before it.
You are then presented with a number of options. The first being 'You'. This presents you with a number of playlists. These are generally dependant on the info you've previously provided and factors like the time of day. For example one of the genres I selected in the setup was 80's music and when I checked this morning I had a playlist entitled '80s Get Up and Go'. On trying it out the selections were pretty decent, there was some skipping but I was generally happy with the music that was chosen for me. As the day goes on these lists are updated accordingly.
As well as playlists you are offered a chosen selection of tracks from particular artists based on your tastes. I have found this a useful option for finding tracks that I hadn't listened to in years. This is then rounded out by a selection of relevant albums that you may want to try.
Next is the 'New' section. This is where I expect that the majority of users will do their music discovery. You can search by genre or by recent releases, a chart of top songs and a spotlight section which today focused of acts who performed at Glastonbury last weeks festival. You can also browse tracks specially curated by Apple music editors, activities and selected curators which seem come from mainstream organisations such as NME, Pitchfork and Mojo. It all seems really well put together and works seamlessly.
As with Spotify you can select songs and albums and download them to your device for offline play which seemed to work just as well as its competitor. You can also sync these downloads to your other Apple devices by turning on the iCloud Music option. You can also click on a track and stream a radio station based on that selection.
Then there's their 24/7 radio station Beats One. Let's just say it's Radio One from Apple and on listening didn't really offer me anything but you well think differently.
As well as music there are also videos presented with your selections but I did find that their quality was rather grainy.
I would talk about 'Connect' which is basically 'Ping', Apple's previous musical social experience but maybe I'm getting old but this held no attraction to me whatsoever.
Interestingly enough on installing Apple Music it defaults to only letting you stream via wifi unless you purposely go into settings and enable streaming using mobile data which I think is a nice touch considering many have limited data plans.
The app itself is really well designed and far superior to Spotify and Rdio. I found it really easy to navigate and to find the music that I was after and I think I may well be sticking with it.
Taking into account the family sharing price of £14.99 for up to six members it seems almost silly to consider any other option.
I think as a first attempt, even though it is based on a tried and tested formula in Beats I am really happy with Apple Music.
Author
Paul Wright