In just a few hours from now, Apple will be releasing iOS 8.4 for iOS devices that will bring Apple Music to all its customers. Before the service goes live though, first impressions of the service has been posted by many tech publications who got a chance to play around with it before the official launch.
Christiana Warren from Mashable was impressed with the new Music app in iOS 8.4, which despite being jam packed with features is easy to navigate. She reveals in her impressions that the new Music app in iOS 8.4 will be divided into five parts: For You, New, Radio, Connect, and My Music.
The ‘My Music’ section is where all your locally stored music files will show. But, if you have subscribed to Apple Music and stored any music for offline playback, they will show up here as well.
In this way, Apple Music immediately has one advantage over other streaming music services: It creates one library, merging your purchases with anything you’ve added to your collection from the streaming side of the equation.
She was, however, most impressed with the ‘For You’ tab of Apple Music, which is what will be greeting you every time you open the app. When first accessed, it prompts you to take a music discovery tour and depending on the selection you make, Apple Music will show you personalised recommendations and playlists.
It’s hard for me to over-stress how much I like For You. From the very beginning, the recommendations in playlists and albums that the app showed me were dead-on accurate, reflecting my various musical interests.
Straight out, I was given a recommendation of a Taylor Swift love ballad playlist and albums from The Kinks, Sufjan Stevens, Elliot Smith, The Shins, Miguel and Drake. So basically my musical brain.
As for Connect, a 2015 version of Ping, Christiana was unsure if it is going to work or not without having a look at the tools that Apple is offering to artists.
I’m not sure if Connect is going to work. It’s a great idea but to work will require that artists actively use it. Without seeing the toolset Apple is offering the artists to publish content, it’s hard for me to know whether they’ll bother with Connect or if they’ll just continue posting photos to Instagram, music clips to Soundcloud and videos to YouTube.
But I like the idea of Connect and I certainly like that it gives fans a chance to get in touch with artists. Beyond that, I like that the Apple Music editorial team can highlight Connect content for users to see.
In the end though, she sums up her first impressions of the Apple Watch by saying that it is very similar to Beats Music and that is a good thing since it had the best discovery mechanism among all streaming services out there.
Re/code’s Walt Mossberg found Apple Music impressive during his time with the service, though he did note that the service has some caveats.
My answer is a tentative yes, with some caveats. Apple has built a handsome, robust app and service that goes well beyond just offering a huge catalog of music by providing many ways to discover and group music for a very wide range of tastes and moods.
One of his caveats is that the app is confusing to use, and the lack of any guided tour from Apple when the app is started for the first time does not help either.
But it’s also uncharacteristically complicated by Apple standards, with everything from a global terrestrial radio station to numerous suggested playlists for different purposes in different places. And the company offers very little guidance on how to navigate its many features. It will take time to learn it. And that’s not something you’re going to want to do if all you’re looking for is to lean back and listen.
Mossberg says that the three key strengths of Apple Music include its ability to seamlessly integrate with your existing iTunes library, curation of albums and playlists suited to your taste by more than 300 different editors, and the relatively cheap $15 per month subscription fee for up to six members of a family.
In my brief time testing, I found that these curated suggestions and playlists were generally more pleasing and accurate, at least for me, than those created by algorithms alone.
As for his biggest disappointment with Apple Music, it was the lack of support for lyrics.
My biggest disappointment with Apple Music is that, unlike apps like SoundHound, it has no lyrics. Apple says it’s working on adding that feature.
In the end though, this is what he has to say about Apple Music.
My first impression of Apple Music is that it’s the most full-featured streaming music app I’ve seen — and heard — and the first I’d consider paying for. But it may overwhelm some users, and I’ll need to live with it more before I can reach final conclusions.
Jim did not have much expectations from Apple Music before he started using the service, but once he did, he was “downright impressed” with it. He proceeded to praise Apple Music’s curated playlist feature, which constantly delivered great music that was suited to his taste.
I did my workout today to a new Apple playlist called “Workout Warriors,” which is part of the Hard Rock section of Apple Music. I was walking down the street playing air guitar to Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Guns ‘N Roses, and Motorhead. You know you’re enjoying the music when you start playing air guitar in public.
Apple kept that part of Beats and incorporated it into the new service. As much as I love playlists, there is something special, exciting even, about not knowing what’s coming. I agree with Jimmy Iovine when he says, “the only song that’s as important as the one you’re listening to, is the one that comes next.” And Apple took care of that too.
With a mix of curation, or human intervention, and a revamped algorithm, Apple has brought their radio service to a level where it is exciting. The amount of work that went into making just the radio portion of Apple Music perform properly is astounding.
Just like Christiana from Mashable, Jim is also unsure about Connect since its success depends on artists and musicians and not on the subscribers of Apple Music.
The success of Connect lies with the musicians, not us. If they buy into the concept, people will follow them, and it will be successful.
Like others, he was also impressed with the ‘For You’ section of the app that constantly surprised him by playing back music suited to his taste.
From my use, this is really accurate. The best is, you don’t have to do anything special to make it work—just use the app. It’s like an added bonus.
I look at “For You” in those times when I’m not sure what I want to listen to—it’s always full of ideas.
Overall though, Jim was “damned impressed” with Apple Music and calls it a “quality service, with the right mix of human curation and algorithms to help users figure out exactly what they want to hear.”
I can only imagine that the service will only get better from here. The more I use it, like/dislike songs, the better it will know me.
I was interacting with Apple Music the entire time I was writing this and the radio station I started listening to improved quite a bit in those hours. I’m not skipping songs, instead I have a steady diet of Slash, Godsmack, Led Zeppelin, and Metallica. It’s hard to beat that.
Apple is all set to release iOS 8.4 at 8AM PT later today so you will be able to check out the service later today on your own. Since the first three months of the service are completely free to use, you will be able to do so without paying for it as well.
