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Poll: Was Apple Music enough to convince you to switch from another streaming service?

Apple Music has been available to the public for almost three weeks and while subscriber data hasn’t been revealed by Apple, early reviews were generally positive. The service is not without its flaws, however, and users have been quick to point them out. With the service having been available for a couple of weeks, though, we’re curious: Are you using Apple Music? If so, did you switch from another streaming service to Apple’s or is this your first venture into streaming music?

As I stated in my review, I personally switched from Spotify to Apple Music and haven’t looked back since. Apple Music obviously has its bugs, some of which will likely be squashed with iOS 8.4.1, but the exclusive content of the service easily outweighs those problems for me. Ben Lovejoy also wrote that after a week withย Apple Music, he cancelled his Spotify subscription and went all in with Apple’s service, despite its problems.

Users have reported a variety of issues with the service, not to mention the launch day outage of Beats 1. Users have complained of the cumbersome process of creating playlists, the lack of built-in support for lyrics, design flaws, and a variety of technical issues.

What do you think of Apple Music after using it for nearly three weeks? If you’re sold on the platform, from what service did you switch? Take the poll below and let us know more of your thoughts in the comments below!

For more of our views on Apple Music, check out myย hands-onย andย detailed review, Dom Espositoโ€™sย hands-on video, Jordan Kahnโ€™s pieceย focused on the issues, Jeremy Horwitzโ€™sย opinion of the UI, and Ben Lovejoy diary after a week ofย usage.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

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Comments

  1. eastpointvet - 9 years ago

    I have Apple music and tidal for now. Tidal for the hifi and their exclusives and apple music for their exclusives not to mention it’s free for now. I buy a lot of music so I probably keep both for the foreseeable future.

    • Tesia Heyeb (@Lilyheye) - 9 years ago

      I believe Apple music is good enough, for those who do not thinks, you can turn to other alternatives for reference. You can read this objective review for more options:
      http://airmore.com/android-music-manager.html

    • I also keep two apps as you, Pandora and Apple Music. Though Apple Music is nice and fresh, but I don`t intend to give up Pandora in the near future for it is a featured app in my view. You can read a simple review of Apple Music, it is suitable to beginners for knowing about it: http://www.apowersoft.com/what-is-apple-music

      PS: Joined the poll and found a large number of people switched from Spotify, I think Daniel Ek will get a headache. LOL

    • lin2logger - 9 years ago

      “Tidal for the hifi”… LOL… what completely pretentious NONSENSE. Aside from MAYBE classical music and even then in only some very VERY rare cases will you EVER be able to tell the difference between original and anything encoded (well) as an 192mps AAC. When we’re talking *256*(!!) there is not a snowball’s chance that you’ll notice ANYTHING, so get over yourself and stop pretending. And if you can, then you might want to call NASA or the likes, since they’d LOVE to talk to you! You’d be the first in human history, congrats!

      The mere fact that you don’t even know that Apple doesn’t encode *AS MP3* :eyesroll:, but rather in the far superior AAC format shows how little you know what you’re going on about.

  2. RP - 9 years ago

    Spotify is still my go-to music service. I signed up for the free Apple Music trial but i haven’t been drawn to it. Not for specific reason or anything bad, just that that Spotify is familiar. The Apple-specific bells and whistles do nothing for me, i may tune is to Beats one radio service.

    For people who do not currently subscribe to another streaming service, Apple Music could be a great treat. For those already with another service, I doubt many people will make the switch.

  3. rrobinson1216 - 9 years ago

    I switched from Spotify, though it’s still active during my 3 month trial. I love it so far, MINUS the fact that you can’t add to Apple Music from the iTunes Store itself on Mac. Come on!

    • griffinjar - 9 years ago

      Why would you want to? Just find it in Apple Music in the first place. Have I missed something here?

      • Ali Fatemi - 9 years ago

        Actually some music you can find in iTune store, won’t show up in apple music search engine!

      • Rafael Arnaldo Scheid - 9 years ago

        @Ali Fatemi – it is all under contract, nothing Apple can do about it. Unfortunately, or they expand contracts or we`ll always have this gap between sales and streaming.

      • rrobinson1216 - 9 years ago

        Well, for example, in Apple Music you can’t search for comedy as a genre – in the Store, you can. So I have to open the store, look through the genre if I want to find the new releases, THEN go search apple music for each one. If I have two devices with me it’s not as bad since you can have one open to each, but that’s one of the only downfalls for me so far. if Apple Music’s genre listing was as wide as the iTunes store itself, it wouldn’t be a problem.

  4. epicflyingcat - 9 years ago

    Cmon 9to5mac, you clearly don’t know your audience. Any sh*t Apple throws out you know they’ll grasp on to it even if it is much worse than any of the competitors (like Apple Music is).

    • James (@japple8686) - 9 years ago

      They include you. You’re on an apple fan site moron

      • matthewr1990 - 9 years ago

        Don’t be such a moron, I’m a massive Apple fan and haven’t even opened the music app yet because I know there is no way to transfer my playlists from Spotify. Plus Spotify has AC/DC, I’ll be staying with Spotify for a while.

      • Rafael Arnaldo Scheid - 9 years ago

        @matthewr1990 AM also have AC/DC. I would never open this thing if they didn`t ;) . For me, AC/DC is mandatory.

      • 2is1toomany - 9 years ago

        @matthew
        Please tell me that’s a joke because I play AC/DC from Apple Music all the time…….

    • lin2logger - 9 years ago

      Oooooh… some poor little baby has his little parties in a bunch. Gee, WONDER WHY?! Hmmmm… let me guess… you don’t own a single Apple product and are just miffed that you can’t play with the cool kids, but rather are stuck with your overpriced, less quality and choice nonsense??! LOL… yeah, I thought so. But feel free to elaborate on the “worse than any of the competitors” part. Oh… what? You can’t? Because you’re just a clueless blowhard troll?? Oh, okay. You’re excused then.

      • epicflyingcat - 9 years ago

        Calm down. I own an iPad Air 2 and MacBook Pro Retina. I love Apple products, but don’t just jump on them for the sake of it, there are often better alternatives out there and Apple fanboys just forget about that and don’t recognise when Apple makes a bad product like Apple Music or the Apple Watch.

  5. Danny Hairston - 9 years ago

    I have Apple Music, Tidal and Beats Music. As far as interface, curation and suggestion algorithm, I am more of a fan of Beats Music and I am assuming that Apple will be just as good as I use it more. However, I am also a believer that musicians should benefit from their creations and, according to reports I have read, Tidal pays out the most. So, unless AM closes that gap and pays comparable, I will probably stick with Tidal…despite the monthly fee.

    • Tidal might pay out the most (assuming you’re telling the truth – I’ll just take your word for now) but do you know who they pay out all of that money to? The record labels. In reality the artists will probably only see a small percentage of that money. The best way to support artists is to buy their merchandise and concert tickets etc. Artists make far more money off of merchandise and concert tickets than they do off of music sales.

  6. Jurgis ลœalna - 9 years ago

    There’s plenty of free music nowadays.

  7. I tried to use spotify, but I found it to be very confusing to use. After hearing about Apple Music, I was excited to sign up. Plus, having Apple Music is one less app on my phone as it’s already built in!

  8. george264 - 9 years ago

    I switched from Spotify but I fully plan on going back.

  9. dComments (@dComments) - 9 years ago

    I have an iPhone but I use Google Play because I like the web interface and the fact that I can play it on both iOS and Android. Plus, at 7.99 a month, it’s pretty good.

    • lin2logger - 9 years ago

      Wonderfully clueless argument, since Apple Music is coming to ALL platforms eventually. Maybe get informed FIRST?

  10. I switched from Spotify to Beats Music then from Beats Music to Tidal… Now I’m with Apple Music and got rid of Tidal. Lol.

  11. confluxnz - 9 years ago

    Streaming is ok if you don’t care too much about sound quality I guess. However, I never have and never will purchase any music from Apple, because they offer it at a below-par 256kbps. That’s simply not good enough when I can get 320kbps from the likes of Beatport for less than what Apple charges per song. If I do feel the need to stream a song before buying, I will just use YouTube.

    • You will never tell the difference between 320 MP3 and 256 AAC on your phone via headphones. I don’t care if you think you have a golden ear, it’s just not going to happen. I keep masters in FLAC, but I don’t listen to them, even on my big boy sound system.

      Apple Music is fine a a giant music database, but so far the “For You” is just miserable – don’t get me started on the playlists – random from my own collection is much better every time. Haven’t tried the radio except the intolerable Beats1 with Zane Lowe (I’d rather breath water). So while I hope they grab 100 Million plus customers, I won’t be one of them.

      • confluxnz - 9 years ago

        Who said anything about headphones or MP3s? I need high quality music to play on a massive rig in a club, not to go jogging with. As far as that is concerned, iTunes does not stack up.

        I guess I never really liked or used streaming services because I am old fashioned in that I like to pay the artist upfront for their music to use / store / play it when and how I like. As opposed to drip feeding them $0.0001 (or whatever the ridiculously low payout is) per play. Each to their own!

      • Music in a club is so far above reference levels that no one will be able to tell the difference between a 256Kbit AAC and FLAC either. And that’s supposing that anyone in the club cares – they don’t.

    • lincolnsills - 9 years ago

      MP3 is inferior to AAC, or what iTunes sells, not poking fun just informing you. There are countless articles about this subject if you are “truly” interested in the best audio quality.

      Spotify has a better curated “Moods” section of music IMO. I am an Apple zealot, but can’t find any reason to switch. Perhaps someone could elaborate on the benefits of Apple Music specifically.

      • RP - 9 years ago

        With ear buds, and jogging or on the subway or at the gym or whatever, there is no way anyone could tell the difference. Fact..

        Maybe in a quiet room with great speakers and a great system, sure. But on a phone?

        And if you are an audiophile you aren’t going to be streaming music for the audio quality.

      • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

        320kbps MP3 is about the same quality as 256kbps AAC. Now, if they had the same bit rate, then AAC is better, but they aren’t currently the same bit rate. Lossless, which is what Tidal is, is the better sound quality, but it’s only really a concern if you have a nice stereo/DAC/headphones in a quiet environment.

      • lincolnsills - 9 years ago

        I am simply saying that his thought about Apple’s music is bogus and based on an incorrect assumption… like a lot of people that dislike iOS and Max OS X.

        As for listening to high quality, I use Spotify on my Sonos and Monitor home theater speakers run by an Integra receiver. I am satisfied with their quality at 320kbps as I am with Apple’s 256kbps AAC. I do stream music, but I still want high quality audio. So this is a tie for me between Apple and Spotify.

        The mobile app experience is better on Spotify then Apple Music, I shocked to say. The multi-touch gestures are more intuitive achieving what I used to have to jailbreak to get Music to do.

        Music selection is what I want to know about in the Apple Music vs Spotify battle.

      • Thomas Massengale - 9 years ago

        They are both worse than CD Red Label 44.1k/16, and I want better than CD quality, not worse. Apple Music dropped a bomb with their continued only LowRes option. We don’t all only listen on ear pods through iOS devices.

      • Thomas’s brain has lied to him about his golden ear. Sorry Thomas, if you believe you can hear “better” than CD, you’ve been drinking too much snake oil.

    • standardpull - 9 years ago

      I have to agree.

      I know that not all of us are audiophiles, and certainly 90+% of produced recordings are so sloppy and poorly engineered that bit rate is all but irrelevant. But not all of us listen to that cheaply produced garbage.

      I find it very disappointing that we have to deal with limited bitrates. 256 or 320 bits just doesn’t capture the nuances of the music, and it all implies lossy compression. Listen to some well-engineered recordings and you will certainly hear the difference.

      But even the vast majority of today’s so-called “lossless” music is garbage.

      Most streamed music is a simple rip from a commercial CD, which has already suffered through sampling to be dumped unceremoniously onto a 120 mm disc. That’s right, to make an MP3 of Lossless audio file they don’t bother re-encode the output from the mix to make a digital lossless master. They don’t even bother to digitize SACDs. They just re-encode a craptastic already-digitized commercial CD, leading to substantial quality loss.

      256 or 320 bit? Who cares, they’re all crap.

      I’ll get vinyl when I can, or SACD, or in the worst case CD when nothing else is available. I won’t get anything crappier than that. My equipment, my listening studio, and my ears deserve no less.

    • lin2logger - 9 years ago

      LOL… yet another clueless, pretentious troll. One that clearly missed the memo on what the human ear can in fact distinguish between… but HE of course has SUPER POWERS!! :-))))))

      The constant “below-par 256kbps” blather NONSENSE is getting SO OLD… *sigh* I thought even trolls knew how to google… guess not. Too busy being all full of themselves whilst at the same time making a complete jackass of themselves on the net as well. Pathetic.

  12. AJ Al-Watban - 9 years ago

    there are not enough playlists in apple music, and in each playlist there are not sought songs, there are no top XX charts and i can’t access charts in other countries…. i like the app… i prefer spotify because of its playlists.

  13. rswilli2 - 9 years ago

    I’m going to cancel my subscription to Rdio when the Apple Music trial period is over for 2 reasons:

    1. By that time, it should be available for Android and my girlfriend can use my account
    2. Going through my Rdio collection, most of the albums I’d saved were ones that were in my iTunes collection, but didn’t want to load on my iPhone. Well, with my iTunes library now part of iCloud Music Library/Apple Music, it kinda renders my Rdio collection moot. I can just stick with Apple Music and listen to what I already own.

  14. enginefd - 9 years ago

    I am still paying for Spotify while I try out the three month free trial for Apple Music. Spotify has a slick and quick interface and I really enjoy the service. However, the only reason that I might switch to Apple Music is because of the Siri integration. It makes it so much easier for me to play music while I am driving without taking my eyes off of the road (That is when Siri is able to understand me). If Apple can get taste correct with music that I like, i’m probably going to go all in. Currently, I told Apple Music that I disliked Country Music by deleting the bubble when setting up the service. Unfortunately, a lot of the playlists and artists under the “For You” section are of country music artists. I really don’t understand it… I’m hopeful that they will fix it in the near future.

  15. friedmud1 - 9 years ago

    I’m keeping Spotify… no reason to even try Apple Music. Spotify is awesome… what more could I want?

  16. lkrupp215 - 9 years ago

    This โ€˜surveyโ€™ is meaningless and useless. Why? Because the respondents are nut jobs with axes to grind on both sides. The real survey will take place when actual subscription numbers are released. The techie wannabe crowd that inhabits sites like this one are not to be taken seriously and are certainly not representative of the average subscriber out there.

  17. uniszuurmond - 9 years ago

    I am not liking it. Recommendations are off, my favourite (purchased) music genres are not available, and it doesn’t feel “simple and easy”.

  18. I would use Apple Music if it weren’t so damn bug-ridden. Constant iCloud Music Library “outages” (after adding about 4-5 albums worth of music, iCloud Music Library refuses to do anything more for a good two hours), albums split into sub-albums, inability to keep purchased tunes inside Apple Music albums, and many other issues. It’s by far the worst experience I’ve had with any streaming service, and why I intend to stick with Spotify for the foreseeable future.

    I have no doubt that Beats 1 and curated playlists are a marvellous thing, but at the very heart of the service lays a bug-ridden, ill thought out, rushed shell. It reminds me of the whole Apple Maps fiasco all over again.

  19. proudinfidelusmc - 9 years ago

    I was using Pandora, now Apple Music exclusively. I don’t care for downloading music, so I will continue to use Apple Music but not the paying subscription. I’ll continue to use what used to be iTunes Radio, which will still be free.

  20. Ali Fatemi - 9 years ago

    When apple music started, apple promised that whatever music you can find in apple store, you can find in apple music for download but its not the case; looking for Keith Jarrett trio, there are lots of album in apple store for purchasing but many of them, mostly those released by ECM, are not available for apple music. about the interface, I’ve heard lots of cretics about it but I personally like apple music iTune design for Mac, it took me just an hour to find my way around it and get use to it but still have problem working the one on iphone, e.g. I can’t find a way to play my all music in shuffle mode in iOS but just I can shuffle one album and not my whole library, and second, its not totally offline available even when you make them available offline and download them all, since in many cases when iphone is in airport mode, it does not initiate to play my music, it seems at lease for start, it needs to connect to internet to check something then start playing. the other problem, I cant’ tell it on iOS to make the whole album available offline but I have to choose this option song by song in iOS. Sound quality compare to Spotify, comparing twi in my professional, audiophile system, I find Spotify more pleasant to listen to but in my car or headphone on the go, they are almost the same, almost.

  21. Daniel Nogueira (@nrg78) - 9 years ago

    I feel it should’ve been tested more and more before getting out … They basically added streaming to the built in player ….. (Reminds me of IExplorer anti trust issue … )

    Details like the status bar (network wifi clock battery) being over the covers …. ?!? It should either be off, or the covers padded from the top ….

    Maybe, if someday there’s a way to import “Hearts” favs songs from Rdio to AM, maybe I’ll think about it…

    Although I love the remote control on Rdio, and I think AM is far away from doing it I think ….

  22. zero44zero - 9 years ago

    I’m still grandfathered at $8/month for Spotify premium. When that gets close to ending or Apple decided a to shorten the 90 day trial I finally start my Apple Music trial at that point. That should allow for many of the day to day gripes to be addressed. Also, a major pet peeve of current is the lack of Apple Pay intergration to pay for Apple services (iTunes, iCloud, etc). I’m also grandfathered on my accounts to not have attached credit cards. If I add one I’d like to use the security of Apple Pay versus having card data on file.

  23. BrianN (@BrJNi) - 9 years ago

    The player on apple music is pretty awful as it the ability to search. Soundcloud is a much better player and mobile user interface.

    The radio player lacks any in play track listing and also lacks the ability to see what shows have been played, so you can go back to them, who the current DJ is and any info on shows coming up that day. Also broadcasting globally means that you’re in danger of failing to connect with anyone in particular as your style has to be generic. For example in the UK I listen to xfm London and Manchester, you can have an affinity to the station as its reflective of the culture and scene of those cities.

    Connect requires artists to create content and then put it behind a paywall, ignoring the sometimes millions of fans they’ve collated on say FB & Twitter.

    There’s no social side to it so I can’t see what my friends are listening to.

    In the UK the price is circa 50% higher than the US price so $23 for a family plan. It simply isn’t worth it at the moment.

  24. Walter Tizzano - 9 years ago

    I’m using it, and it’s my first streaming service. When the trial ends I won’t pay for it: I find ridiculous that its price in UK is so much higher than anywhere else, and in general even 10$ (or โ‚ฌ) is already too much to pay to stream music, given that you can easily stream for free from Spotify or Youtube. Anything more expensive than 5ยฃ (8$) is way too much.

  25. Kevin Roa - 9 years ago

    When I found out Apple gives you Radio Disney versions of songs, I have no interest in that. SiriusXM & iTunes Match for me.

  26. Dan Stapley - 9 years ago

    Im keeping spotify because i can access my music at work via the spotify app or web player, and play if off my work computer. Where as, without adding my itunes and icloud account to my work computer, whch i dont really want to do. I cant access apple music

  27. Moisรฉs Pinto Muyal - 9 years ago

    By no means I am going to leave Spotify, though I don’t use it much. I am not interested in Apple’s Music business, If forced, I shall live Apple and return to HP/Microsoft for PC and Samsung/Android for Smartphones. Nobody is going to tell me what to use, not with my money. Or we deal my way, or I send it away! As simple as that.

  28. matthewr1990 - 9 years ago

    I haven’t bothered switching, Spotify is the benchmark for Streaming music in my view, I also have 3 years worth of Playlists that can’t be transferred to AM. I shan’t be switching any time soon. Plus I’m hearing the horror stories of how hard it is to do simple things in Apple music where as Spotify has perfected playlists/music search. The only thing that I want Spotify to have is Siri capability to change tracks. I can change them with my cars steering wheel when driving but whilst at work, headphones on, I can’t touch my phone to skip tracks that I’m just not feeling at that moment. (Dirty job working with tool steel).

    The be all and end all is that Spotify is perfect for my needs, already set up, has three years of history and costs the same. I’ll be staying with Spotify, they’ve been good to me. Plus they have AC/DC and I wouldn’t be the type of person to listen to Beats1

  29. after using apple music for weeks, i decided to drop it

    Apple should separate apple music and music app. i have ripped music in iTunes and sync with iPhone/ipad

    now when using apple music, i have to turn on iCloud music so i can save playlist and download music. the problem occurs when i turn on iCloud music on both iPhone and iPad

    in iPad, i see list of local music store in iPhone and in iPhone i see list of local music in iPad, these music can not play and have to be upload first from iTunes.

    even worse when iCloud music turn on iPhone and iPad. i can no longer wired sync with iTunes

    That is why i use other streaming service because they do not cause any trouble with my local stored music

  30. Like two months before Apple Music I started to experiment with Spotify. After one week of using it I found it boring. Playing same songs over and over. I didn’t like it at all. Apple Music is so much different in this. It has ‘For You’ tab that is updated several times per day just for me and it always shows me something new and in 95% of cases something I like. So, that’s my point of view.

  31. Moisรฉs Pinto Muyal - 9 years ago

    Some enterprises have found the way to MILK their customers.
    The risk of carrying repeatedly the “pitcher to the source” is that it can break.
    In the dictionary of some “gurus” there isn’t the word “prudence”.
    That’s a real fearlessness.

  32. fezvrasta - 9 years ago

    No way, I’ve an iMac and 2 MacBook Pro, but I have even an Android phone, so I can’t use Apple Music. Also, Play Music (the one I use) has a much better support for automatic playlists based on mood, what I like, radio similar to a specific song and so on.

  33. Just deleted the Spotify app on my iPhone. Apple Music is definitely my way ahead, but I am looking forward to the update. For example, I want to be able to jump from a list to an album or artist more easily than now.

  34. Thomas Massengale - 9 years ago

    I have a very large music collection, mostly at least 44.1khz lossless. Friends all told me I’d fall in love with streaming. I haven’t. And shame on Apple for putting forth such a lo-fi vision of the future. We need recordings that are better than CD Red Label, not worse! When Tim Cook parrots Jobs at events by saying, “At Apple, we love music”, I think he means that Steve Jobs loved music. Apple is turning out lo-fi junk when we now have the bandwidth and storage to go Hi-Res.

    And don’t get me started about Beats1. It’s just another crap radio station.

    • galley99 - 9 years ago

      I have more than 4,000 CDs. I use Rhapsody as an “extended preview” service. If I like something, I buy the CD.

  35. Glenn Fiorine - 9 years ago

    I moved from spotify to Apple music for one reason: control over explicit tunes. I enjoy playing playlists at both services, but when I’m at work, around my kids or at the pool, I hate it when a song comes on dropping F bombs. It can be downright embarrassing. I’ve used google music in the past because of this, but their iOS app has always been slow to load. If you look in the spotify forums you can see that an explicit toggle has been one of the most requested features for the past 3 years, however spotify has simply ignored it. Apple music provides an alternative for me

  36. Mark Diamond - 9 years ago

    Was this poll sponsored by Spotify ?

  37. I am more then likely leaving spotify for apple, I use sonos but I also use napster which I tend to use on sonos while barely use spotify so have no issue leaving that for Apple, but Apple still needs some improvements, they are still missing albums which I can find on other streaming sites, so they need to get those, I truly believe Apple is the company that will be able to convince the likes of The Beatles to join streaming as well

  38. Brooks Lockwood - 9 years ago

    I first started with Rdio. They have a phenominal design, and curation. However after with being a customer for years, I couldn’t handle their half baked HTML app any longer. So I did a trial with Beats. It was cool, discovered a lot of new music, and rediscoverd a lot of stuff I loved.

    Then I decided to go with the big dog: Spotify. Their app was native iOS an OSX. It was quick, but not super user friendly, too many opitons, and horrible discovery. I could instantly tell it was giong to take a lot of work to get where I was at with Rdio with Spotify.

    This was all in the past six months, and are fresh experiences. I love streming services. Video, music, tv, etc. It is clearly the future. So I was hoping that Apple would step up. I really belive they did. No, its not perfect, but it will get better and better.

    Having a company that designs the software and hardware will make a huge difference in the long run.

    The post Steve era at Apple is launch first, perfect later. This is just a truth and change in culture we are going to have to accept. Once we get Android, onboard Apple Music is going to dominate. They just needed to get something out the door. It will morph into something great, and become a music staple just as iTunes and the iTunes store has been over last 10+ years.

  39. Gregory Wright - 9 years ago

    I’ve been with Spotify for two years and I am very satisfied. Just as there are Apple Fanboys when it come to music I am a Spotify fanboy.

  40. borntofeel - 9 years ago

    My answer would be : I tried Spotify for years, then Rdio, Deezer, Beats and I now plan to use Apple Musix.

  41. Hugo Miguel - 9 years ago

    What is that speaker on the picture? pls someone answer

  42. Adrian Manea - 9 years ago

    I live in Romania, which is not “blessed” with any streaming service aside from some partnerships that Orange and Vodafone have with lesser-known services as Deezer and Zonga, respectively. Even so, Apple Music has definitely not convinced me, mainly because the “For You” suggestions are way off, as much as I try to show them what I like and overall, it’s really just not that impressive. And more important is the fact that since Deezer and Zonga have teamed up with telecom operators, subscribing to them *will not* count your cellular traffic. So one could listen indefinitely at 320kbps, download for offline use and have no data traffic counted. As less integrated in iOS and OS X + “non-Apple designed” they may be, they (Zonga, in my case) do and will have my money.

  43. DamoTheBrave - 9 years ago

    Have been a fan and a Spotify Premium member. Have cancelled my Spotify account to move to Apple Music (family plan). The integration into the OS is great and I’ll stay with it post trial. It definitely still needs some work though.

  44. J.latham - 9 years ago

    Used Beats Music for a couple of months but never really got very good results from the recommendations. Apple Music seems to be a little better but not by much. The biggest issue for people with streaming music services seems to boil down to one thing; past libraries. If you have a lot of playlists on another service other than Beats Music, Apple Music doesn’t seem to have a way to move them over. Honestly this may be Apple but could also be Spotify not wanting to give you an export option, not sure. On the flip side, I never used Beats Music because (as far as I could tell) there was no way to import my 14,000 track library from iTunes. With my library baked in from the get go, I’ve been more inclined to use the new service. If there is an option to transfer playlists from Spotify without anything needed on the Sporify side, you can bet Apple is already working on something to do that. Most likely with the Android ship date.

  45. Makeli Scholer - 9 years ago

    Switching from Spotify. I will say one thing Spotify seems to do a little better is their music seems to start playing about 3 seconds sooner than when playing through Apple Music. The sound quality/bit rate with Apple Music is noticeably better which I do appreciate a ton. I think I just need to get used to not having songs play right away. #firstworldproblems

  46. David Van Meter - 9 years ago

    I was using Pandora when I heard of Apple Music and was happy with apple music until I started noticing that i was missing music folders that were downloaded in my iphone but were no longer there. This is a big disappointment to me and needs to be fixed or i will sell my iphone and go back to the galaxy. Big Big disappointment that apple would charge what they are with all of the bugs that are in the streaming service.

  47. Tylor Sweeney - 9 years ago

    Easy. Came from Spotify and will be using Apple Music for the remainder of the 3-month period. Currently, I haven’t decided if I’m going to stay with Apple Music. It’s missing around 100 songs from my Spotify library, and the interface on PC and iPhone need just a little work compared with Spotify. However, Apple Music’s playlists are much better than those on Spotify and Beats 1 is great (although that’s free so doesn’t really count). I hope to have a better picture before the 3 month trial is over.

  48. Dean Wolstenholme - 9 years ago

    I signed up but have cancelled. Got fed up with compilation albums where half the tracks weren’t available. Shame really as this was my first streaming music subscription and I was looking forward to a better experience, especially with it been apple.

  49. macxpress - 9 years ago

    I find Apple music far too unintuitive. It see it as kinda complicated vs using Spotify which has more of an old iTunes interface which works really well. Apple Music has all of these sections, tabs, etc which I think can be confusing to the end user.

    I’m also having issues where music I added to a playlist doesn’t sync down to my phone. The playlist is there I created, but nothing is in the playlist. I realize this is kind of a beta trial thing, but for me it just doesn’t do it over Spotify right now.

    • macxpress - 9 years ago

      I must also say the quality of the music itself is better on Spotify Premium. And yes, I notice a difference.

      • Andrew Messenger - 9 years ago

        No you don’t. But I’m glad you feel special :-)

      • macxpress - 9 years ago

        Yes, I do…

      • Andrew Messenger - 9 years ago

        even in a controlled setting with extremely high quality equipment you would often need to strain to hear even the slightest bit of difference. if audio quality means enough to you for you to have that type of equipment perhaps you should look into vinyl, lossless streaming from Tidal or other sources, or any number of high-quality digital sources like high-resolution audio or even — gasp — actual CDs.

    • Gio (@giovaniulisses) - 9 years ago

      Maybe your explicit content is blocked and explicit song don’t show on the iphone. happening to my all the time. i turn restriction off and it comes back on sometimes. don’t know why.

  50. ricalonso - 9 years ago

    I tried Apple Music for 3 days. I did so because I would be able to add subscribed songs to my iTunes playlists. But that completely messes up all of my song ratings and comments in iTunes. Cloud services are supposed to maintain a file’s integrity. Apple Music Cloud did the opposite with my iTunes library file.

  51. Will (@CaffeinatedNoms) - 9 years ago

    I’m letting the trial run out. I can see how some people would enjoy the Apple Music, but they don’t have enough of the artists I enjoy for it to me worth using the service, plus upgrading to a higher data plan on my iPhone simply for music that I could easily purchase and store on the device simply doesn’t strike me as good economics.

  52. boovish - 9 years ago

    Streaming music is just a waste. I can’t stand half the songs it plays, and the ones I do like, I already own

  53. Terrence Newton - 9 years ago

    I switched from Spotify because Apple Music finally lets me combine subscription music with my purchased iTunes tracks and my own ripped music. Sure, spotify has features that Apple Music doesn’t have, like public playlists and collaborative playlists.. but I never used those.

  54. dipaguco - 9 years ago

    Functionality aside, this a branding hot mess. Cook and the marketing team is too obsessed with attaching Apple to every product now to realize how unintuitive this is. iTUNES sells movies, TV etc? Tunes? This should have always stuck to music and integrated a video store into the Videos app. Then on PC/Mac iTUNES is also a device manager – make it a separate app. You know what would be a great name for a simple music store/streaming service that has years of brand recognition? ITUNES. Rant over.

  55. Buzzy T Jordan - 9 years ago

    I love Apple Music. A lot of people that are using it is saying that its complicated but its easy to use. I love to make the playlist and I wouldn’t need use anything else. You folks don’t no what you’re missing.

  56. I switched from Spotify just for two reasons: audio quality e better radio/foryou suggestions.

  57. Matt McLaren - 9 years ago

    They need to work out a few things technically and make playlists easier. But overall i love it, the siri integration is second to none! :)

  58. Gio (@giovaniulisses) - 9 years ago

    Switched from spotify and loving it. only Bug happening to me its that Explicit Lyrics block option keeps activating by itself. when i notice some songs are gone from a playlist i know that i have to go on iphone settings again and turn off restriction on explicit content. don’t know why this is happening

  59. Sim (@SimRiccio) - 9 years ago

    3 month trial. I won’t pay for it until they make their 24/48 library available to all subscribers and include a firmware update to play 24-bit audio files.

  60. aaronazevedo - 9 years ago

    We joined the free version of iTunes. And have no intention of switching until apple supports sonos an will allow spotify playlists to be imported. As shareholders of apple, we expect much more. Poor performance

  61. I really want to like Apple Music but it just doesn’t seem ready yet. By this I mean the app is buggy and crashes a lot, there’s no way to share playlists or search for playlists. There’s no api which severely limits the service compared to Spotify (https://developer.spotify.com) and iTunes is completely broken even after their recent update. I could go on but why bother?

    However what I do like about Apple Music is the ‘For You’ tab and Beats 1. If they get their act together I think Apple Music will be able to convince me to move away from Spotify they just need an api to enable the migration of playlists from other services to fix their broken apps as well as adding some additional features / functionality.

  62. mlunalover (@mlunalover) - 9 years ago

    I will stick with Rdio.

  63. dda26f7e - 9 years ago

    I use a combination of Spotify and Youtube as a preview before buying albums, or at least more than the one track on the radio. Other than that, I have no use for streaming services normally. Everything is purchased from Amazon, downloaded into iTunes on my Mac and uploaded to Google Play Music, so I have access to everything in lots of places in-case one service shuts down.

  64. cezarb (@cezarb) - 9 years ago

    I’ll stick to Spotify, better interface, easier to use, much better suggestions…and this comes from a heavily invested Apple user (laptop, iphone, tablets, etc).

  65. Jirka Stejskal - 9 years ago

    I’m using it, but not decided to make it past 3 month trial. I listen mainly in car and I just recently experienced my FUP limit (3 GB) blonde away by Apple music. Interesting is, my music collection player in the car was only couple of tenths of MB. Looks like Music just re-downloaded all my already purchased music one again, using GSM. I\f this is not fixed by September, I won’t go for service.

  66. xiingli - 9 years ago

    I tried using it for the first time seriously last night. It’s music suggestion is awful, and clunky UI doesn’t make it intuitive to get the hang of using it. I’m going to keep trying it because I assume I’m missing something but right now I’m thoroughly unimpressed.

    Also, the update to iTunes is buggy as hell.

  67. Tomek O. - 9 years ago

    Missing option in the poll: I have stopped using Apple Music after nearly one month, and forever.

    This is buggy and hard to use for all. Don’t belive that only 1รท2% users have problems with new Music app and iTunes 12+.

    It seems that in the next year my eco-system will not be 100% apple-only, and in about next 2 years it will be apple-free (0%).

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com