Apple Music makes its debut in a few short hours/minutes/seconds and if you want to spend that time reading about what early reviewers thought (after migrating your playlists), we’ve got a list of Apple’s selected journalists who’ve played with the app and listened to the music with a few choice words:
Re/Code’s Dean of Apple reviews Walt Mossberg said he would pay for the service but found the UI overly complicated for Apple…
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.
Ed Baig from USA Today has a take on the Taylor Swift controversy and a nice video walkthrough.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPH7GFgAdeE]
As anyone following music knows by now, the pop superstar recently took on Apple via Twitter over a royalty payments issue surrounding the company’s nascent music service, which is available to the public Tuesday. Apple swiftly surrendered.
“I’m a big part of that and Tim (Cook) is a big part of that and we did it together,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, told me in an interview. “For us this was a really simple call. We did something we thought was compensating them, artists didn’t feel that way, and we could address it. Why wait? Luckily I work at a company where Tim and myself could make it happen very quickly.”
Beats co-founder and Apple executive Jimmy Iovine adds, “I had floor seats for this one. It was extraordinary what Eddy and Tim Cook did. We got up in the morning and I talked to Eddy. How these guys move in a company of this size, and to understand the nuance of what is going on with an artist and an industry, to get that, was nothing short of mind-blowing to me.”
Christina Warren has the Mashable POV:
Much of the Apple Music experience really is Beats Music. And this is a good thing. I always thought Beats had the best discovery mechanism of the streaming services. With live radio, human curated playlists and access to your iTunes purchase history, I’m really liking Apple Music.
Will it replace Spotify for diehard subscribers? That’s a more complicated question — and one I plan to address in Mashable‘s full review.
For now, however, the For Me section alone has made me excited about music for the first time in a long time. And that’s a good thing.
Brenna Ehrlich from MTV had 11 reactions:
The first thing you’re asked to do when booting up Apple Music is pick your favorite genres — courtesy of some pink floating bubbles. You can tap once if you “Like” a genre — twice if you LOVE a genre.
This took me quite a while, as I can find reasons to like pretty much anything (I mean, I like reggae-inspired older-school punk, but not so much REGGAE — and I could take or leave modern reggae-inspired tunes).
I settled on LOVING indie, oldies, classic rock, rock, pop, alternative (because, you know, guitars) — which took me to the NEXT stage, where I was asked to then pick artists in those genres. I was “hmmm”ing all over the place at this point and — when the app suggested the Monkees — feeling super reminiscent for my youth and my childhood crush on Micky Dolenz. I also picked some artists like FKA twigs and Tame Impala, a.k.a. bands you have probably heard of.
Along with an Interview with Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine, Jim Dalrymple put in his $0.02:
I’m damned impressed. Apple Music is 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.
While other streaming services didn’t worry much about Apple in the past, Apple Music will get their attention. In fact, it’s going to grab everyone’s attention.
Rolling Stone not only had an exclusive with Trent Reznor, it has a Apple Music review from Kory Grow:
The Verdict: With its vast selection of music and smartly curated playlists and radio, Apple Music is robust enough to compete with, and possibly supplant, Spotify and Pandora as the go-to service for music fans. At the same time, users will need to play around with it a bit and dig to move past some of the less immediately intuitive facets (i.e., just how deep the “New” tab goes) for it to hook them.
The app’s sure thing will most likely be its Beats 1 radio with its unique input from artists. But Apple will need to work the most on “Connect,” which ought to premiere some exclusive content from big artists early.
Ultimately, Apple Music offers well-designed interpretations of the best of its competitors, availability on millions of people’s phones and premium features that will be offered at the same price as its competitors. The service makes for a welcome addition to the streaming-music landscape.
Clayton Morris of Fox News points to Apple Music’s Siri integration, something that differentiates the service from the legacy Beats Music, as a strong point of the service:
[tweet https://twitter.com/claytonmorris/status/615889892615290880 align=’center’]
As additional reviews are surely on the way, refresh for more.
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few short minuets thought wasn’t out till 08:00am confused
He is probably in Australia … They are in the future over there. /s
A few minutes? The iOS Update isn’t out for more than another 2 hours.
Why are you wearing headphones?
When will it show up on iOS 9 beta 2?!
It will be iOS 9 beta 3
We currently have a Sporify Family plan but we’ll try Apple Music because it’s free for 3 months. Don’t know what we’ll do after the 3 months.
You will cancel your Sporify account and you will give your money to Apple Music.
Not so sure… Apple music seems clunky and confusing and why can’t I go from a downloaded song to more from that artist?
Why is Ed Baig wearing headphones?
Will the iTunes Store app and Music app become one app?
Nope. There is still a separate iTunes Store app and Music App.
The floating bubbles concept from Beats was awful with Beats. It was very limited and pigeonholed my tastes when I was with Beats, not happy that carried over.
This is just an initial “getting to know you” part of it. I’ve been using beats for months and after liking songs and artists, whenever I boot up beats it always suggests playlists and albums that are EXACTLY what I’m in to. It’s crazy. Give it time and make sure you like and dislike things.
But yes, I agree. When I first booted up Beats and since I grew up in Nashville I liked Country, which I like but only a little bit, and ALL it was suggesting for a while was like Blake Shelton and all these modern country pop stars, over time it started suggesting better stuff, Dolly, Cash, Bill Monroe.
Please stop pretending you’re giving some unbiased opinion. Literally everything you post on this site is whiny, anti-Apple bullshit.
Seriously, who even does that? Are you so sad and pathetic that you have to fill time in your day by going to a fan site and spreading your impotent rage over a company you don’t like? Ridiculous.
I’d say I felt sorry for how sad your life must be, but I’d be lying.
I probably own more Apple products than you but think what you want. I have a brain and see where things need to be improved you are a sheep and just accept whatever is given.
Further, the poor people who couldnt afford Beats now enjoying FREE Apple Music are chiming in that the bubbles suck…..guess they are all Apple haters too….but you’d know better
I’m listening to Beats 1 as I’m typing this. I’m on iOS 9 beta 2. All of the other gernes/stations still don’t work – just Beats 1.
It’s ambient music though, so might just be a placeholder/filler before they actually go live(?)
I have to laugh at some of the headlines I’m seeing saying “The reviews are in and Apple Music is a winner”. First of all there aren’t any actual reviews yet just more like first looks. Someone spending a day (or less) with the service and not even getting to test out Beats 1 can’t be called a review.
Not really reviews are they.
What if one is a classical/opera/jazz fan? Are we SOL?
Kurt, I think you’ll be extremely happy as a classical / jazz fan… I certainly am. I haven’t been this excited about music in 20 years.
It’s another streaming music service. Old news, really.
That’s what I say when a new movie comes out. “Just another moving picture show. They’re all exactly alike, and none of them are worth noting or discussing.”
Give me a break.
This is a bogus article…
“we’ve got a list of Apple’s selected journalists who’ve played with the app and listened to the music with a few choice words:”
Not very subjective now is it…lolol
How does it sound, though? I would hope that since labels are required to submit 48/24 masters, they’ll make 48/24 available on the new update software and Mastered for iTunes songs ACTUALLY available in that quality sans the mega-compression.
Sim … I’m an apple lossless snob. I would say it sounds good. I would guess 256 kbps AAC (=320 kbps mp3’s).
Independent of Apple Music, the Yosemite upgrade and iOS updates came down flawlessly for me. Fast and easy. I hope most people have the same experience because it speaks to Apple’s continued push to make their cloud services more robust and stable. Go Apple.
It’s not all that addictive or engaging, rather disappointing really.
http://www.alternapop.com/2015/06/30/apple-music-this-is-the-savior/
repeat, repeat!
Ok I must be missing something with Apple music the one guy mentions liking/disliking songs….. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell it not to play certain songs and can’t ….. So far it’s the only thing I’d add is a way to rate the songs because just because I like an artist doesn’t mean I like all the songs they sing or just because I like say rap doesn’t mean I like every rap song ….