Many have praised Apple Music’s launch this week, although the focus has largely been on the free component of the service, a 24/7 streaming radio station called Beats 1. But how are users reacting to the rest of the Apple Music service? It received a lot of positive reviews in the media, but users have noticed some user experience issues and technical hiccups with Apple Music that might keep them from making a switch from the competition when the service’s free three month trial is up. Since the issues aren’t getting a lot of attention from the main stream media, I wanted to share everything we hate about Apple Music so far and what Apple needs to fix before converting potential switchers:
Playlists & User Experience
One example that readers have pointed out is the user experience for some features versus the competition. One example is playlist creation. If a user wants to listen to an entire discography of an artist, for instance, Apple Music makes things a little more complicated than necessary. Compare the process on Apple Music with Spotify, as pointed out by @YeslekGreb and several readers:
Where Spotify requires just four taps to start listening to a discography from a particular artist, the same process on Apple Music requires over 14 steps with additional steps required for each album in the discography.
Our own Jeremy Horwitz detailed some of the other user experience frustrations users are running into, including a whole lot of confusion regarding how the service is laid out and presented to new users at the launch of the new Music app. A lot of users are confused about how the Beats 1 radio station and other radio features relate to the main Apple Music streaming service. Here’s a sample of the confusion courtesy of reader email:
Could you guys do an article explaining the difference between Apple Music, Apple Radio and Beats 1.
I have been following the stories up to now and still not sure if Apple Radio is free. It has a 01 on the display that I am playing through iTunes, but thought that Beats 1 was the pay service. Or am I listening to Beats 1 that apple is offing for free. I never signed up for a 3 month free trial of Beats 1.
Ben’s launch day review noticed a lot of the same user experience issues:
The user interface in both apps is, I would say, a little clunky… Offering me albums I already own is silly, and Intro To artists I already own is absolutely crazy… I have to confess, I’m disappointed. From my brief trial of Beats, I’d been expecting great things of Apple Music – and so far it hasn’t delivered.
These are just a few examples of how Apple’s interface and user experience isn’t as smooth as many hoped. Curation and content aside, the UI is a mess.
Content & DRM
Content is another complaint users are vocal about. Prince is one example of an artist whose discography is available on other streaming services like Tidal and Google’s streaming service, but not on Apple Music. Other high-profile musicians like The Beatles and The Black Keys are holdouts on most streaming services, but their music remains available to buy digitally through iTunes and elsewhere, proof that Apple hasn’t worked out deals with all artists despite the addition of Taylor Swift being touted as a big win for the service.
Others aren’t too happy about how Apple is handling DRM for its iCloud Music Library feature, Apple’s service for uploading and storing music in the cloud, forcing them to keep backups of original files or be forced into an Apple Music subscription for listening offline.
A related frustration comes from Apple’s decision to remove Home Sharing support for music with the iOS 8.4 update that introduced Apple Music. The feature previously allowed users to access their iTunes library on their home network from any of their iOS devices for both video and audio content. While Apple hasn’t said why exactly it’s removed the feature, we can only imagine it’s likely due to licensing agreements necessary for the new streaming service or to possibly encourage signups of the $14.99/month Apple Music family plan that allows access from up to 6 devices.
Features
Another complaint we’re hearing a lot from users is lack of a built-in lyrics feature, something Spotify and other services already offer.
Spotify’s built-in lyrics/karaoke feature
Another popular Spotify feature that users have noticed lacking from Apple Music is collaborative playlists. The feature allows multiple users to both add tracks and share a playlist, adding a community/social feel to the service that Apple doesn’t offer an equivalent for. In addition, Spotify and other competitive services offer the ability to see what friends are playing while Apple is avoiding a Ping-like experience and not supporting this. Instead, you get what Beats 1 host Zane Lowe and friends are playing, 24/7.
And if you’re a Sonos user, you’ll have to wait a bit before Apple Music is supported on your connected speaker setup. It’s reportedly coming sometime later this year, although Beats Music was already supported.
These might not seem like must haves for all users, but for those that rely on them heavily on Spotify and other services, they could be the reason users hold off on making the switch to Apple Music.
Technical hiccups
Other users have run into some technical issues with the service, experiencing playlists that include multiples of songs or issues with some songs not appearing in playlists after being added. Other technical hurdles included many users experiencing an error message warning that “iCloud Music Library can’t be enabled,” meaning users wouldn’t be able to sync content across devices. Some users that managed to get iCloud Music Library enabled complained of missing or deleted music when finishing the process of merging their library to the new service.
While the Beats 1 24/7 streaming radio station received the most attention on launch day, it also wasn’t without technical problems including brief outages for most users. Hopefully that’s not a sign of things to come. If Apple Music outages are on par with iCloud services, for instance, it won’t do much to inspire confidence for those considering switching from competitive services.
While some of these initial problems with the service will more than likely be fixed with many of them likely amounting to launch week growing pains, others are user experience decisions or missing content that could sway users to opt for a competitive service.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
I miss crossfading. No party nights with Apple Music. Give us endless music!
It’s possible on OS X – not on iOS though.
Oh I forgot to mention – this only works when playing music that you have saved to ‘my music’. Which is a bit weird.
Beat matching is better than crossfading. On OS X, get an iTunes plug-in called AccuBeatMix. It scans your library, adds BPM to every song’s metadata, and then magically beat matches every time to change to a different song or even when you skip to a different part of a playing track. (Only catch is that it only works with locally stored tracks, not with anything streamed from the cloud.)
It is so annoying that Apple has never added this feature to their platform, while third party apps have offered it for many years.
I take my music seriously… I use iPhone 6 and Sure SE846 earphones so I’ll appreciate excellent sound from a streaming service. I’ve been using Spotify premium and Deezer premium + for the past year. Spotify is the best is user experience and Features but Deezer is the best in sound quality and library (have the largest catalogue). Also experienced Tiadal for 30 days, but didn’t like it at all. Apple music sound quality needs improvement! The best by far in sound quality is Deezer. I’m sure there Elite subscription will sound even better (now only available for Sonos). I’m not comparing technical details, but the listening experience of the same songs on three of them. Apple also not offering full detailed equalizer (Deezer and Spotify have it built in). I do hope for a better sound quality on apple music in the future. Moving my playlists took hours of manual work mostly. I hope that apple will allow to save online playlists in folders and to have something like Spotify connect to remote and roam (continue listening) between devices… conclusions: I want to see in apple music – Spotify’s user interface, iTunes full catalogue (only part of it available on apple music) and Deezer’s Elite sound quality.
I’m finding the whole thing confusing. Beats 1, iTunes Radio, Apple Music … what exactly is the difference? The interface is fragmented and confusing. I’ve tried playing around with it for the past few days, but, just get frustrated and end up going back to playing the music I already own and the playlists I’ve manually created.
The worse part is the Connect section. Looks like a rehash of the failed Ping service, and is just as awful and confusing as Ping was.
Overall, not very impressed with this launch from Apple.
It’s pretty easy
Beats1 is a radio station. Click play, listen to the radio. Like listening to radio in your car. Different DJ’s play different types of music and they have interviews with both indie and famous musicians.
iTunes Radio is free radio that you can listen to for free. If you pay for iTunes Match, the radio stations have no ads. Don’t pay for iTunes Match, then the radio stations have ads. The radio stations don’t have DJ’s and they are simply based on genre.
Apple Music is on demand streaming of just about any song from iTunes you want to listen to 24/7, 365 days a year. Apple Music lets you curate your own music and playlists without having to buy all the music yourself. You become the DJ. You choose what you want to listen to, in what order you want it, and when you want it. Beats1 and iTunes Radio CANNOT do that.
I mean that is a lot of typing but it’s pretty simple to understand.
what happens with ads and iTunes radio/radio/whatever it’s now called once match is discontinued? will there be a separate/additional monthly fee in addition to the $10/month for apple music to listen ad free?
it had originally sounded like match would continue to exist independently of apple music and that it was ‘related but different’ i think is the quote i saw – but now my iTunes account says my match will be discontinued at the end of my 3 month free trial of apple music as it is no longer necessary.
@Alex H. Well summarized.
While I don’t discount other people’s perceptions of what constitutes as a “problem” here or in their lives in general, this whole “it’s so confusing” argument is getting old. WTF, people! Just try a little harder and use your brains, you lazy motherfuckers.
Now on to MY problems:
– Why is going form a playing track to the album that track belongs to such a multi-click chore. There should be a button that says “Go to Album”.
– Why does an artist pop-up in the “For You” section when I specifically obliterated this particular artist in the “Keep Holding to Remove … 2 … 1 … Gone” process. I don’t want to see, hear or even think about this artist anywhere. Also, there should be an option to permanently obliterate a track from ever appearing anywhere in my vicinity.
– When streaming through my car audio, why does the exact same track sound twice as good on Spotify than it does on Apple Music? (Yes, exactly twice as good – I did the math, heh). And I’m not just talking about a loudness war here. Both EQs are off and Spotify streaming quality is on “Extreme” while Apple Music is … who knows, aka “bit rate depends on whether you are on WiFi or cellular”. The sound from Spotify is fuller, richer, broader, deeper and louder. I’d say the difference is akin to HD Radio and AM Radio. Note that I don’t notice this difference when I’m at home on my own network: the difference in sound is nearly imperceptible (in fact, Apple Music may have the edge). I need to do more testing here before I come to a conclusion as spotty signal/coverage on my AT&T network may have dropped me from LTE to 4G/other. If I confirm this to be an issue, then this is a deal-breaker for me. Network technical limitations aside, I alone must have the ability to determine how I burn through my (unlimited) data usage. If the same song on the same network at the same time sounds twice as good on Spotify, then that indicates something other than a network technical limitation. Seriously, Apple – you have got to fix this. Give me the option, or it’s a deal-breaker. End of story.
iTunes Radio is just Radio now and Beats1 is a Radio station. It’s the only live station. Apple Music is the streaming service.
I don’t understand the inability to stream Beats 1 to an Airplay-connected device through iTunes on Mac. Also, I would love love love to be able to export my Spotify playlists to iTunes, but can’t. Maybe another reader has a solution.
Easy solution: Hold down the “ALT” key on your keyboard while clicking on the Volume icon in the Menu bar on the Mac desktop to choose an Airplay device to stream Beats1 radio to.
Obviously this solution is for when you are listening to Beats1 Radio through iTunes on the desktop.
Alex, you’re right on click option on the Mac alt on windows on the volume, but if I want to broadcast beats1 throughout the house from my Mac in the studio no can do.
You can use any of the two sites to export you’re playlists:
Beats Importer: http://beatsimporter.com/
Exportify: https://rawgit.com/watsonbox/exportify/master/exportify.html
Thanks for sharing these Spotify export methods. The rawgit link works kinda works on my iPhone but I’m not sure how and where to export lists after they are founds. So I figured I would open the rawgit link on my Mac in safari but I get nothing but the Exportify logo and header. Please let me know to get this to work.
Export, great. Then what? iTunes doesn’t let you IMPORT.
I migrated most of my Spotify and RDIO playlists to Beats (just in time with a free trial) and those migrated seamlessly into Apple Music. BeatsImporter.com and soundiiz.com were very useful for this. But Beats isn’t allowing new accounts, and one your start your Apple Music account, you can no longer migrate from Beats — so that particular window is now closed.
Hopefully Apple or a 3rd party gives us a way to import Spotify and RDIO playlists soon.
I’m seeing my Spotify playlist ready for export on soundiiz.com, but how do I get it to the Beats Music app so I can get it into Apple music? When I select on the arrow box to export, a pop-up box tells me to select destination platform but I do not see Beats Music as an option or a method to export a iTunes playlist file.
There is an Airplay icon next to the volume slider in the iTunes window. From there, you can choose to stream to any number of Airplay connected devices, and the slider(s) will control the volume.
Yepper,, It gives you AirPlay functionality for for everything else, you just can’t stream beats1 to multiple devices at the same time.
My thought is, as soon you log into iTunes no matter if you have a subscription or not. It should automatically change the top bar to Apple Music (if you do have one), because why do you want to search the store when you can listen to it for free anyway? I don’t wanna buy something.
So basically change iTunes Store to Apple Music (if you have an active subscription) and under search let the tab change to iTunes Store, if you actually wanna buy a song thats not listed for free to listen under Apple Music.
But not the other way around.
I love it. This is what I expected – to be able to browse the iTunes Store and add as much to my library as I wanted.
But you can’t do that, right?
Right – this is the problem – if I want to find a ton of stuff under one category in the store, I basically need either another computer, or one iOS device and my computer – one to search the store, and one to search apple music for the same thing then add it all – I did this yesterday with the comedy section (Apple Music is missing this genre ENTIRELY…) and had one computer searching the store’s “New” section of that genre, and another device typing the albums into Apple Music to add in. Otherwise, it would be an enormous amount of steps and going back and forth. This is the big bug with AM for me so far. Otherwise, I like it.
Every time I try to save a song or an album to ‘My Music’, it just does not save.
Kind of frustrating.
same here!
That’s because it’s not supposed to be saved. The songs are there, yes, and you can transfer albums to your “personal library”, but if you try to extract the files from iTunes and save them off of Apple’s sight, they stop working
Hi. I just signed up here to, maybe, help you out here. I experienced the same issue, not saving what I added to “My Music” until i noticed, that my device is set up to show “offline songs on the device” only. If you add something to your “My Music” make sure that it shows everyhing on your device. On- and Offline music.
To disable “offline-music” only, just tap on on the red drop down menu (e.g. Artist, Album, etc.) and tick off the last option there.
I hope this helps you.
Thanks! This resolved my issue of not being able to see all songs that I saved to My Music. Now if only all of my songs that I save from Apple Music would appear under this tab. (Some of them appear after I save them but lately many of them do not.)
I haven’t signed up for the 3 month trial, but the My Music section is already a huge disappointment for me. Essentially the entire music app on iOS 8.3 and before has been completely reduced and condensed to one single “My Music” icon in iOS 8.4. I prefer viewing my songs, artists, and albums separately and have no use for Connect (which thankfully can be disabled), Radio (I have plenty of apps for radio), and that permanent Playlists icon (I don’t make any playlists!!).
It’s like they completely forgot that not everyone wants to stream and use Apple Music. Some of us are just fine with purchasing content from iTunes, but clearly our music experience takes 2nd to those using Apple music.
you can continue purchasing music or just use iTunes Match without using the new Apple music and the Beats 1 radio. Playlist creation and management have always been entirely up to each user. I usually don’t make playlists either but I love the new playlist in the “for you” section, gives me a chance hear new stuff and also dive into artist I’m already familiar with. So far I’m finding Beats1 to be very clever and refreshing. Everything the Dj plays is not for me but I have to say, I do hear some new and different songs, I’ve even added a few here and there to my library.
If you go to My Music and go to the very top of the app, you’ll see Artists in red. Click on that and you can select from songs, artists, albums and so on.
Yeah I get what both you guys are saying, but it would be nice for non-Apple Music users to have their albums and artists in their convenient original locations instead of forcing all users to have Connect and Playlists as shortcuts. It’s annoying always having to navigate to the top of the page and dealing with expandable menus just to get an album/artist view. Why not let the user choose which shortcuts are most important for them (like we were able to do pre-8.4)? Or why not let us side-swipe to switch between songs/artists/albums?
I had this issue, too. In the Settings app, go to Music. Make sure “iCloud Music Library” is switched on. Even if it’s currently on, switch it off, then on again. Give it a shot.
Some users say this screwed up their libraries. Mine doesn’t seem to have been harmed at all.
I’m shocked no one is making a big deal that Apple forces you to download/install iTunes to listen to Apple Music. There’s no web player as found with Spotify, Pandora and Beats Music. Downloading/installing iTunes is a bit of a stretch at the workplace.
It’s not a big deal because iTunes has never offered a web player.
You can drop the hyperbole. To listen to any of these services on anything other than a PC you have to download an App, so what the hell is the difference if you download iTunes? Every Mac comes with iTunes, and anyone with a PC has used or is using iTunes anyway.
BTW, Spotify requires you to install Flash to run on your browser. Ummm, NO THANKS. Unless you missed it, flash is 20 year old technology that can allow any hacker to have a field day on your computer. Again,NO THANKS.
STILL PROBLEMS IN MANY COUNTRIES :P https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204956
The list of what you have to do to shuffle an entire artist’s discography is nowhere near as hard as you’re describing.
1) Pick “My Music” (only if you’re not already there.)
2) Click magnifying glass.
3) Type name of artist
4) Click three dots next to name of artist
5) Click play next.
Boom. Every song by that artist is shuffled and queued to play immediately after the current song is finished playing. Could not be easier. You describe building a playlist with Apple Music, but then for spotify you describe not building a playlist, but just doing a search and play all for an artist which you can also totally do just as easily with Apple Music.
Wtf?
I did that….there is no “play” button to click only….start station, share artist. Neither of which play every song. I think in your example you already have the artists songs in your library.
And if that doesn’t work, just start playing one album and add the other albums to “Up Next”. The list they had was definitely stupid.
Going to My Music means you have previously added it to your library. What you describe is a workaround, not a shuffle functionality. Shuffle means exactly that, a Shuffle button, and there’s not, at least that you have a playlist that you previously created based on music you have previously added to your music
1) Go to My Music
2) Select Playlist
3) Search Michael Jackson
4) Select (…) to the right, and choose ‘Start Station’.
No 14 step process necessary…
Ummm. that creates a radio station based on the artist when I do it…..not songs by the artist but a mix of similar.
You can always use siri! =)
I like to work with the playlist. You can just select all displayed song and add them to your playlist. You can download playlist for offline listening. What i find confusing is how everything is name differently on each device( ipad/iphone/mac) sometimes it offers me do not play this song any more, play this song less, i dont like this song. I am also missing one click “add to my plist”
On my mac i can not generate radio stations anymore. It just bugs and does not create a new station( works fine on my ipad)
That artist playlist example is damning for Apple….Apple will catch up eventually though. Their problem is Music.app is not distributed through the App Store so fixes come SLOWLY with full iOS updates. Spotify can pump out fixes at will through the App Store.
I think the article was pretty disingenuous by finding the most complex method and conveying it as the only way. I always see so much disdain for Siri, but in this case she provides a fantastic workaround. “Hey Siri shuffle all songs by [artist].”
Hey Siri works, but not everyone likes using Siri, and it often came back playing weird soundtracks to movies if it didnt understand me correctly and I would have to try again during my weekend testing. Siri is far from perfect solution. This was dubbed as a Spotify killer by the cool-aid drinkers on here and Siri or no Siri its nothing but another streaming service that changes nothing.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, from a technological standpoint, from an IP standpoint, the Beats acquisition was like flushing 3 Billion down the toilet. They had nothing worth anything. Not even a few million.
So the only value left is brand and talent (not engineering talent), for which 3 Billion still seems a a couple of billion and change too much.
Google paid between 15 and 35 million for Songza on the other hand, and whether or not Google does anything with it, that’s the kind of money Apple should have invested, and that’s the precise company they should have acquired for the technical/IP bits. That would have left a lot to spend on buying mouth pieces like Dre.
I agree with this. What does Dre and Iovine bring to the table? Obviously they couldn’t get all of the artists to include their tracks. Apple could have saved the $3 Bil, built it themselves and would have been even better!!!!
You know it is interesting to think how Apple would have looked today if Jobs had lived? I know a pointless discussion but you see the new products like the watch and now this? They tried to get me to buy it and I will not buy something dependent on something else. Give me GPS and Wifi then I would have splurged!!! I am not saying they are flops. But they are not simple user interface Apple products we have grown to love. I think the condition of Siri alone would have caused Jobs to fire the whole company!!!!
Google has already integrated Songza into its music streaming service with its free customised radio stations that play music depending on the time of day, pretty sweet.
Hard to believe they ignored your advice prior to all of this.
Guys! To play an artist shuffled just tap on their photo in the albums view. A little play/pause icon will show up. It takes ONE tap!!!
Artist view, I meant. But it works everywhere too.
Albums view is for artist work already saved to your library. Not for searching an entire catalog by them.
Two taps.
Not on a Mac.
Needs manual audio quality control much like Spotify, also needs a separate app on OS X, iTunes is shocking.
Also, whats the deal with the “breakup songs” playlists For You sections keeps recommending. The provided screen shot has indie breakup songs at the top….Apple is sending me Country breakup songs at the top….which “human” curating these lists is heart broken today?
Michael Jackson’s latest album from 2014 is not on the service. Also, mortal man from Kendrick Lamar’s recent album is not available.
And that would be an example of when you have to buy the music instead of streaming it because Apple doesn’t have the right to stream their ENTIRE iTunes catalogue as part of the Apple Music service.
Did I miss the part about killing your phone’s battery???
i’m having issues with space on my 6+ now and the majority of space taken up is audio (25+ gb). and now i can’t figure out how to manage the ‘physical’ media on my particular device even though everything is now based in the cloud and can be streamed. Anybody have an idea on how to remove loaded music to alleviate space in the now cloud based system?
There is a horrible bug that destroys our iTunes libraries. Especially ones that have had iTunes Match enabled at some point. Here are a couple threads:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7104505?start=15&tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7104745?start=0&tstart=0
I’ve found Apple Music to work well after I created a brand new iTunes library and started merging everything over. However, the interface in iTunes is very inconsistent and the interface on iOS is too complicated. It’d be pretty easy to simplify everything. Fingers crossed for a good future update to fix it all.
Apple should’ve waited till the fall to release this with iOS 9. I genuinely thought this was going to be big competition to Spotify because it’s made by Apple and you can assume (most of the time) all their products and services will work really well. Boy was I wrong. I keep trying to go back to it, but it’s just so bad, Apple has really messed up here.
Maybe they are releasing in “beta” form and will clean it up later in the year? All I can think of as this is not a finished product..Not surpassing Spotify like this..
My only gripe is the “Playlists & User Experience” section. I couldn’t agree more. Simplification has to be a top priority. This is something that needs to be resolved ASAP. No need to wait.
I’m trying really hard to like Apple Music, but it’s not been easy…
First it messed up my existent library completely, had to spend a lot of time to make it look ok again, although there’s still repeated albums and things like that.
Then I’m finding it so hard to find playlist that I really like, just as I use to find on spotify. Not sure why, but everything seems very hidden. Also the already made playlist are all so small.. only few musics on it. Earlier today I was adding a bunch of music to a playlist to then find out that none of the songs were added there. So frustrating.
I really wish I could just select a collection like the the top songs chart and make it a playlist that would be always updated with new songs, like spotify does.
I also wish the “For you” section would give me more accurate suggestions with playlists more based in genres and moods like “Evening Chill” or things like that instead of collections with songs from the same artist. Until now I couldn’t find anything I would put to listen in sequence there. It even suggested me Country music when I never selected county on the setup.
And overall I wish the user interface was more like the itunes store.. less confusing.
I really hope they change somethings during the free trial, to convince me to stay on it after.
Ask Siri to play all of Michael Jackson’s songs shuffled. Done. No playlist or UI necessary.
Or avoid the filler and ask Siri to shuffle Michael Jackson’s best music. Spotify can’t do that. Gotta love integration.
yup. There needs to be a way to quickly pull up a list of your favorite Artists and your favorite Genres. I think most people wanting to listen to music have an idea of Who or What Type of music they want to hear at that moment. Way too much typing to search each and everytime
As someone who likes to just listen to playlists I have made apple music is just fine. I prefer to discover musicians either through chance or from the charts and then listen to the rest of their album and like it.
Beats one doesn’t entice me much as generally I won’t like the music as I varies so much. I like to just listen to music I know and like on shuffle and I have curated playlists that range from genres to everything in one.
The ‘for you’ doesn’t really interest as when I listen I don’t want to be bombarded with a bunch of artists. It means you have to listen carefully to decide if you like it. Music should just blend into the background of what your doing that you don’t need to think about.
The UI is too clunky and can’t help but feel that this was pushed out before iOS 9 so they can update it with a bunch of features, this is basically the beta session.
1) It’s annoying not being able to just shuffle my whole collection or a single artist. Instead you need to make a whole playlist or just listen to the one album.
2) Also it’s a pain to not be able to just add a whole artist to a playlist. Instead you need to add it album by album, and if the artist has a bunch of singles out it can get tedious going to each album just for one song.
3) It is also annoying to not add tracks to multiple playlists. If your doing this for each album or song it gets annoying adding the same thing to 2 or more playlists.
4) one small thing I miss over spottily is having 2 devices paired. I was useful to have one device plugged into speakers (yes I still have wired ones) and one device able to play and pause while moving round the house.
Overall the one thing that needs to change is the layout, but that is subjective so I feel that Apple needs to let us customise the the screens. If we don’t like suggested artists and want playlists let us state we want playlists at the top of the ‘for you’ and move artists the bottom. At the moment it’s a jungle of a playlist, few artist, playlist, bunch of albums and it continues. If I want to find albums let me state I want them at the top, not some grid that is constantly changing.
I feel that iOS 9 will bring a bunch of much needed features, and simplify many of the options.
I believe that is exactly what they did. Note the “free 90 day trial period”. I still think they will get it right but this is a beta version without the tag “Beta”!
All good points. For the first one, however, if you’re on an iOS device, you can just ask Siri to shuffle all of your music.
Very nice to see that you guys know the difference beteween UX and interaction design. 👍
I was listening to a couple of new radio station from my MPB with headphones and two times after a song and before the ad, there was a LOUD cracking noise that almost blew my headphones out of my ears. I was not listening to loud music and it was close to hurt my ears.
I am using the latest iTunes and all other system updates installed. This has never happened before! Major issue and deal breaker for me!
Sad how they completely handicapped the Radio feature from what it used to be. Can’t delete a station. Can’t see a history of songs played. Can’t see which songs you liked or disliked. Can’t fine tune stations anymore either. And worst of all 80% of the screen in iOS is dominated by Beats1 and for those that don’t listen to Beats1 you are now stuck with having to scroll just to get to three of your stations only to have to click on another button to see all your custom stations. Frankly speaking this makes zero sense and is just a terrible redesign. On one plus note the automated song selection is much better.
I have read lots of comments online and here and I have the same feelings as other do that overall the service and applications need some work. Mainly it is around the music apps and the confusing structure they have built. Before Apple Music I was using Beats. While it was limited in some areas as an app, it was easy to use and graphically you could quickly figure out what to do. The Music app is kind of a mess.
This app feels like it was designed by engineers and not users. It feels like it hits all the items the app needs to do in a list of menus and buttons that are various shapes and symbols. Case in point: Listen to a song on Beats 1, think “I would like to see this album and add it to my collection since I subscribe to Apple Music”. Not possible without going through lots of steps.
My personal take is why would Apple ever ask me to buy something from iTunes if I sign up for Apple Music? The service should know that. It should take me to iTunes and change everything to “Get”. Now if an artist is not part of the service then I can “Buy”, but everything else should just be “Get”.
I agree that this right now feels like a BETA service for 3 months. But even if it is not Apple needs to stop letting engineers design the music app. For a company that “Loves Music” they seem to have a screwy way of letting users get to and enjoy the music.
Agree that if I’m a subscriber it should simply say “get” in the iTunes Store. Don’t show me options to buy.
I want playlists to be easier. Spotify you could either drag songs to playlists or right click and add. It shouldn’t be easier to add a song to a playlist on iPhone vs desktop. Also share playlists? Is that even a thing? Like at least let me send them but really there should be profiles and public playlists. Nothing beats going to see a movie and then finding a playlist someone has already made that has all the songs from the movie.
I added a song into a playlist and iTunes decided I must want another 65,000 copies of the same song.
iCloud Music Library mixed up a lot of my album art. Mismatched album art and song names means the 3rd track off Taylor Swifts 1989 is ‘Come Together’. Her voice sounds weird.
Sad to say it, but this is the first Apple product that I yelled at. I haven’t done that since I used a PC.
My top 3: no Sonos support, no alert when adding a duplicate song to a playlist, and no collaborative playlists.
Yup. This is pretty accurate.
Here’s the list of what I would want.
1. iTunes able to handle FLAC and DSD files.
2. Automatically switch Audio MIDI setup depending on the file and DAC we are using, it automatically changes the settings so we are listening to the songs properly since some of us do use higher quality DACs that can decode 24 bit files as well as DSD.
3. Mono switch easily accessible. Yeah, there are old mono recordings that simply sound better in mono. Old Beatles songs or anything that was done originally in mono does typically sound better when played in mono mode.
4. Using Isotope SRC.
5. Streaming available in Lossless, some of us use nice stereo equipment/headphones and we can hear a difference between Lossy and Lossless. I don’t mind paying a little more for it, but at least offer it.
6. MQA is a new compression algorithm and it sounds VERY promising. I would at least be looking into it for the future.
7. All I care about in terms of the catalog is just have all of the albums and songs available from legitimate recording artists and be able to create my own library and intermingle with my own library and for me to be able to distinguish what is being streamed and what’s coming from my storage of songs.
8. Radio is OK, I guess, but I think just clicking on an artist of my choosing and they have other music that’s similar and ability to give a thumbs up or down just like they already have it set up.
9. Maybe crossfeed software for those that use headphones and maybe have the ability to set EQ’s for a wide range of headphones. Some of the 3rd party apps will allow the user to use a variety of EQ’s that are headphone brand/model specific.
10. Being able to pick tracks and do ABX blind fold listening.
Couple of things:
1. Cannot create a Station of a SIngle artist to stream OR download for offline. In Slacker I can do that.
2. When you pick a song from Apple Music and want to add it to a NEW playlist, there is not a “+New” option. You have to first create the playlist and then add the song. In Slacker, when you want to put a song in a Playlist that does not exist, there is an option at the Top of the list to “Add New Playlist”.
3. When I pick a Genre Station, I cannot create a Download version of that Genre Station for offline listening. In Slacker, it creates a download of of that Station Playlist for offline.
4. In Apple Music, there is no designation of which playlists are available offline. You have to select “only show offline”, which when you do that, you do not see what you are missing.
There is one UX problem that is unforgivable and that’s not being able to go from the song you are listening to, to the artist’s page or album page. Selecting what would be an obvious hyperlink: “artist name” or “album name” when playing a song turns into a star-rating display. Oh, and I’ve disabled Apple Music Connect for good (via settings -> restrictions). Beats 1 is a stroke of genius. Been listening to it constantly and have found a number of great tracks to listen to.
I have noticed something and it verified as an issue by a family member; namely, that Shuffling doesn’t eliminate a song once played; each song in a playlist is eligible to come up again even if it has already been played during the current play session.
I was such a pretentious d-bag who told everyone how great Apple Music was going to be, and how Spotify would be crushed. The second I loaded it up for the first time, I had the “I’ve made a huge mistake” moment. I love Apple obsessively but this is indefensible.
You being a pretentious d-bag didn’t begin or will it end with Apple Music. Don’t feel bad, you will have many more opportunities to exalted yourself. I see them all over the internet everyday. Cheers to that.
On another note: why does everything have to be a killer? iPhone killer, netflix killer, meerkat killer, Lyft killer, smh. There room for everyone, one thing is not going suit everyone needs. The best thing about Apple Music at the moment is that it fill the needs of many, so users can continue to use it the way they have user previously to Match or to Beats1 or the can move entirely to the future and jump into all steaming with Apple Music & iCloud.
On another other note: I for one is finding Apple music to be 95% percent there minus some UI options overload, I feel good the artist I love are getting paid, I’m excited about the prospects of Beats1 and hope they have lots of rotating guest DJs, so I can hear new and different music, so far so good on that. I love that it’s mostly clean versions of songs even though it’s internet radio shows. I might continue to use Spotify in conjunction with Apple music.
This made me puke. Been a Mac user since 1988. So much of the success of Apple the last decade has been because it has become like a bully the same way Mac Addicts used to deride Microsoft. Now Apple acts the same way. I hated iOS 7 and 8 and all the iTunes updates since 7. I even hate the new Photos app. A lot of this stuff they keep tweaking and changing when they don’t have to. Adding streaming music without the option to not have it embedded frustrates users. Just like you cannot delete apps embedded in the OS, like all the started Mac or iOS apps that come with the system. So many don’t like the Mail app and it sits there useless, or the Maps app and so many others… Now I will have to do the same with the Music app. Faithful and loyal since 1988 to the Brand, but this drives me nuts.
Wow. Doesn’t sound like your problems are with Apple at all. You seem to believe YOU are owned preferential treatment!
You do know you didn’t have to update any of your systems since 1988 or that you can switch. I heard the windows phone have a great NEW UI and android is way ahead of Apple in user costuming their devices.
Or maybe you can give things an honest try before complaining like a baby who taste a new food for the first time and rejects it because it’s a baby :)
Apple has become notorious with updating the OS and iOS, with both features people don’t want, and removing features that people actually loved to use. Just look at the other comments, on this post, and you will see how many are comparing what other similar services offer, and want Apple to incorporate. Apple moves at its own speed, when it meets their need. Look at the Maps app and the disaster that was. I know a lot of Apple fans will say that Apple needed to create their own app. That is a philosophical stand and approach. Google maps was the better app and still is. But pride, arrogance and attitude and greed get in the way of large corporations making good appropriate and responsible decisions. Look at the people who got fired after the Maps fiasco, and also the switch in the appearance of the OS and its interface and icons. People were fired or kept as consultants so no one could poach their minds and plunder ideas and concepts.
I am not and never been a fan of change for sake of change. I have a philosophical difference of opinion when it comes to the iOS and OS. I am not a fan of all the iOS features and I like my Mac to look and feel and act like a Mac, and that includes the OS and apps.
It is nice to see Apple slow down the rush for new features on the Mac OS. Just make it all work better and get rid of the bugs.
As far as new things like the Apple Music Service, I would just like them to include a feature in the software that allows the user to disconnect it or disable it all together. It would make it that much better for those who have no interest in the streaming service.
Am I complaining? Yes, you could say that. I have an opinion like everyone else, and there are things I love about Apple and its products, gadgets and approach to technology, but I haven’t swallowed the Kool-Aid either.
So like you, I have an opinion. That is what it is. When I don’t like something it is what it is, and contrary to opinions, you don’t have to try something first to find out if you like it or not.
I don’t like the streaming music service, because of the concept tied to iTunes while practical for some, is just another add on I would prefer to be able to disable/disconnect from. I also don’t like the added cost for the service, but hey, we all know Apple is in this for the money. So I don’t begrudge them wanting to make money. I just refuse to buy in, and please forgive the pun.
Even with iCloud, as much as Apple wanted to be part of that whole computing in the cloud, there are other companies that do it much better and for a better cost. All I have tried to say is that Apple is into so much and wants to dominate it all, that this kind of vision and corporate attitude really can turn people off, even the very loyal users of their products.
Like most average buyers and users, I choose what I want for particular reasons. All I was saying is as a long time user, I really don’t like seeing Apple acting and behaving like Microsoft 2.0.
I know that in the end we all will make our respective choices for the reasons that only we know and understand.
Thanks.
Sam
You rant on with absolutely no understanding of the things you’re talking about. Do you know why Apple had to create their own maps app? Google were withholding features they already had for android, like turn by turn navigation and they wanted to charge Apple more for their API connections as well (each google maps connection from an iPhone cost Apple a fee), so Apple had little choice, google were holding them over a barrel. It certainly was NOT a philosophical choice, so get your facts right before making a fool of yourself. The Maps app problems were short lived and now it is a superior app in many instances and getting better.
You clearly haven’t used android where fragmentation pretty much forces a user to buy a new phone to keep up with updates and connected cloud services, where the iPhone iOS still runs on the 4s. Thats a 4 year old device. You won’t find any 4 year old android device running the current OS.
You can’t delete bloatware from an android or windows device either, so whats your point?
You didn’t hear the howls from all those windows users when MS dropped W8? It was a disaster. MS try to leap ahead every 3-4 years without thinking about how massive change alienates its users. Too much change between OS’s creates a divide within your user groups.
Apple on the other hand have made incremental changes between OS’s, gradually educating users to the direction it intends to go. Its a far better approach to updating any software.
iPhoto had become an outdated bloated dog and was becoming harder and harder to use with every update. Photos is a great replacement application and it works flawlessly on older devices. I love the new Photos app. Its that simple.
May I suggest if you don’t like it then you’re in the very small minority, and it may be a good idea to try another platform to educate yourself on what you’re talking about. Try windows, try linux, then come back and tell us how you feel. Until then your comments are nothing more than a whinge from someone without understanding of any of the facts. So instead of being a whiny bitch about it, just leave and go elsewhere if you feel your needs are not being met. Your presence in the Apple world will not be missed.
And I’ve been an Apple user since the first Macintosh back in 1984, and I’m more than happy. This is just my opinion, with the facts thrown in for your ignorant benefit.
i’m pissed at how slow the playlist creation procss is, or that i can’t import playlists from spotify, and worse that anything i make on one device can take hours to reflect the same changes on another device! IF AT ALL! also some long playlists automatically delete their own content!
For me it is the resolution thats a deal breaker, its only 256, and that is simply not enough, they should at least have made it 384 like Spotify
Spotify is 320kbps not 384. Do you know the difference in quality between 320kbps MP3 audio, and 256kbps AAC Lossless audio? May I suggest you find out before commenting. You’ve just embarrassed yourself.
@Andrew John
AAC is not lossless. It is lossy, though better than MP3 and more practical than lossless formats. Sounds like you need to learn a few things yourself before you start berating others.
It wasn’t long ago that all you could do was walk into a record store and look at the charts or everything in alphabetical order. Apple music is not complicated. We have all become lazy and expect Apple to solve all our problems for us. I’m happy with the slight element to of complexity as it is forcing me to explore more.
LOL! You people don’t even realize how pathetic you sound, do you? Wow!
It’s just a bit of chit chat, kid. Don’t panic!
If it sounds anything like you, then yes. Very pathetic.
Other things worth noting:
1) The share links rarely work
2) (iTunes) Some artists profiles are unable to load all the albums available
3) (iTunes) Often tells you it has added an album to My Music, but does not add it
4) (iTunes) Randomly decides to grey out songs and make them unplayable
5) the contextual menus have so many options that it looks absolutely ridiculous
6) even funnier, when you post the three dots for contextual menu and there’s only one thing in it
7) album lists are just a mess with normal versions, reassured versions, remastered version, deluxe versions and special edition versions. An artist with for actual albums can fill a whole screen.
8) when it works, its slower than a 1993 website
9) (iOS) its ugly — how decided red words on a white background was a good idea?
10) Play/pause is so small and so close to the “For You” Heart that when I try to navigate to this section, I often pause my song 3 or 4 times. (lazy UI)
Couple other bugs I discovered. Mark a playlist to be available offline. All songs in that playlist will download. Any additional songs added to that playlist will not download. You must click remove downloads and choose the make available offline again.
Other bug is that if you make a playlist or album or artist available offline, the subsequent songs that are downloaded don’t have the synced to device icon displayed. The only way a song will show the synced to device icon is if you click on the song itself to make available offline.
Buggy app
Missing Pod casts of the radio shows………
There still there in iTunes. They haven’t moved from the previous version.
WHya re you waiting before trying to recruit converts? That proves that you a-h’es are tru;y automatons who do Cook’s bidding. Uh, fanbois, I believ they call ’em. heh. Losers.
Where do we find how much this service costs after the FREE 3 month period is over? Why would anyone pay for this when SPOTIFY if FREE? and loads better – not mention the other 1000’s of FREE internet radio stations – IMHO I can live without it.
One thing you mentioned is just not True. If you want to listen to Michael Jackson, just hold your homebutton ans Tell Siri. Its one step really.
I’ve started using the service properly today and it’s good but could be better. I’m also a Google Music subscriber (which is more mature).
Google Music works on all devices or via a web browser which is better. It also has much better suggestions of what to listen to.
I’ll continue to use both services until my Apple Music trial runs out and then decide on which service I’ll be keeping.
Awesome, another service. While this will never happen, these prolific corporations need to take a step back. I am all for technology, but it’s gotten to the point where nothing is special anymore– and nothing works correctly either.
First, sign up for Apple music, waste time learning the system, importing music, playlists, setting up your profile, and in a week, Amazon will up the ante, and we all must circle back and start over.
Secondly, these companies are so fierce with their roll out tactics to stay competitive, especially with Apple, I am so sick an tired that every time I look at my phone something has updated, new firmware, new app updates, new patches, and more often I can count something that worked just great is broken by “enhancements” the upgrade provided.
I honestly wouldn’t mind just using a product or service I buy and enjoy it, for say; more than a month, before I am prompted with a message “A New Version is Available”, along with “Please Read and Accept this 200 Page TOS”, and have to install, wait, and then suddenly, buttons are missing, or the GUI is different, or something that worked great now has a bug.
Am I the only one who doesnt feel tortured in a way by these companies that we pour money into?
I’m in my 30s; and I think back to my parents generation (they had me late). They had a mortgage, a car bill, perhaps 1 or 2 credit cards, a phone bill, and in the 80s, a cable bill.
Now; we have mortgages, new offers to refinance every other day, an auto bill, a satellite radio bill for the car, a keyless entry via cellphone for lock out bill, 15 credit cards, all with different due dates, reward points we need to keep track of, a phone bill, and our phones? We dont use them to make calls, We have data bills for them, and we are daily; paying $0.99; $1.99; $4.99 for the next great app, a funnel of money, we have a cable bill, a high speed internet bill, a netflix bill, an amazon prime bill, a spotify bill, an apple music bill, dont forget to get a credit/identity fraud service, all these companies are always hacked and your info is stolen, another bill. This is a lot to keep track of. Perhaps I’ll need a piece of software to track everything. Not a purchase, a monthly fee for Evernote, $9.99. Just a few years ago I could buy a piece of software, and use it. Now it’s a monthly bill. Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Google, they are all going to DRM software. Even games, pay for the game and then of course you want the online multiplayer feature for $9.99 a month. Every time I turn on my PS4 it needs to either update the OS or the game needs an update or a patch.
What ever happened to buying a game, sticking the cartridge into your NES, and playing it with friends.
Not to say that technology isnt amazing, but as amazing as the technology is for the end user, it is even more amazing for the companies that develop and deploy.
This is just the beginning. This trend will only continue and grow.
And to top it off, if I went crazy; like actually CRAZY, and did something CRAZY and got arrested… I dont think I have a single phone number memorized for my 1 phone call. They are all in the cloud, which I pay $9.99 a month for, which just got hacked.
Sigh.
Apple Music explained with (simple) graphics – https://twitter.com/peroddmund/status/616908096980455424
One of my main concern is about “similar artists”.
I like to discover new artists through this feature that i used a lot on Spotify. Even if it’s also available on Apple Music, you can’t click directly on the artist to go on his page and follow for instance. But you have to go on the search section and write the name of the artist. Really need to fix it, since you can do it on ITunes.
I want to be able to make a playlist available to listen to offline without it adding every artist/song in that playlist to my Artist/Album section. Just keep those songs in the playlist. I don’t won’t hundreds of artists with one song in my artist section.
Also is it just me or is Siri not working with music at all. Every time I ask it to play a song/album, for example ”Siri play 1989 by Taylor Swift” it replies ”Playing 1989 by Taylor Swift” but it isn’t and it has an ”Open Music” button underneath even though music is definitely open, I’ve even tried when there is music playing.
Just tried this with music I knew wasn’t on my phone. I showed me what it showed you, a confirmation of what you asked and the Open Music button. It also started playing the music I asked for. I think it did this because my phone was locked. Siri can execute the command but it won’t give you access to the app until you enter your passcode or use TouchID. Siri even vocally says “You’ll need to unlock your phone first” when you click Open Music. Makes sense to me.
Siri requires one press to “play music by James Taylor.” Not just my library, but songs I don’t ‘own’ in my library. Sensationalism over a service that launched 4 days ago. The comments make the recipe complete. Folks wanting to control the entire UI..why is this song missing…why can’t apple use the format I used on Linux…etc. Silliness.
I don’t use Siri and likely never will in its current incarnation. Speaking to your phone? That’s backwards and too time consuming. Siri isn’t available on the Mac either, so what about all the similar UI issues via iTunes?
Sorry to say that Prince has taken away his music from all digital services except Tidal, so no Spotify as you say here. It’s true that there are some areas that must be improved, but this articule sounds as written by somebody who’s upset for other questions. Please, be more objetive.
So pissed off. Struggle to believe that wise people at Apple can release a music platform so plenty of holes, errors and confusion like this one. This is Apple! They’re supposed to know how to make software and music work together! As it is right know, Apple Music barely fits the needs of someone starting from scratch, and becomes a real nightmare for those coming from huge iTunes resident libraries under iTunes Match like me. From basic stuff like shuffling and creating playlists on the fly to the music catalog, at the moment Spotify is far more richer, accurate, simpler and intuitive than Apple Music. Lot’s of music in iTunes is directly missing in Apple Music. Disappointing debut for who is supposed to make things great and simpler
Not being able to create a new playlist from the add to playlist screen is just a bizarre oversight. God alone knows why that’s missing.
Not being able to control the app on one device from another device is a smaller problem, but one feature i miss from spotify. We play all our music from the iPad in the house, but its great to be able to select tunes or skip tracks from the phone in my pocket.
I love supporting apple with the apple music but the problem is my playlist got deleted, and as I am trying to rebuild it, the songs aren’t appearing in the playlist, even in offline mode. Is there a fix?
anybody having a buffering problem?
Everything I’m adding to my music is not appearing in My Music. It was working on launch but for some reason no longer. Is anyone else experiencing this or know a fix?
Trying to rebuild some playlist, search for an artist, founds it, click it and and got an error. Search another, the album shows 10 tunes but I can play only the first one. I’m getting completely sick of this!
I’m not real big on the layout of the app, but let’s be honest, “hey Siri play all Michael Jackson songs shuffled” works pretty easily and is less than “four taps.”
Yes, but is not that practical if you’re in the tube
Did you mention the mess with the album covers on the app? iTunes shows everything perfect, but the app shows a cover totally different from the original fine. It’ so frustrating because my library is so organized.
I was excited by Apple Music. I even ended my Spotify account to jump on board. So far:
— I will not enable the iCloud on my Mac’s iTunes. The stories about screwed up playlists (after I’ve spent weeks assembling a lossless collection from CDs) isn’t worth the risk until I’m assured the cloud won’t eat my songs/metadata. This may be a deal breaker for Apple Music, since I don’t dare import my playlists. Will give it the full three months before I return to Spotify, however.
— I tend to add one song at a time to a playlist. So the issues mentioned above about the 14 steps hasn’t affected me yet. HOWEVER, the fact that Apple, the queen of simplicity, is so far behind the curve per Spotify speaks volumes about Apple’s new management.
Overall, I don’t find the UI troubling. No, it’s not as beautifully simple as earlier Apple devices, but I wouldn’t call it a mess. Still, I expected more.
I’m also having the issue of songs playing out of order in albums and playlists. I’ve triple checked that I’ve not inadvertently checked “shuffle.” It’s off, but the songs still play as if shuffled.
I’m just happy we have a decent Pandora alternative here in the UK now; I really missed that when I came back from living in America. And Spotify is really not the same. If anything, the algorithms might be better on iTunes Radio on iOS.
The interface might be clunky on this first version, but I like the integration, and I think you’re missing the point that they’re bringing a lot more functionality to many countries that didn’t have it before. Maybe you Americans should complain a little less – Radio on iOS is free for you, the rest of us need a paid Apple Music subscription …
They need to step it up a couple of notches. For those that use Tidal, Amarra just announced Amarra for Tidal and it looks pretty kick ass. They have pre-made EQ for different brands/models of headphones as well as a really nice EQ. I just think Eddy Cue & the others are wasting so much time with curated music and not spending as much time on the technology to get better sound quality and a really nice interface. Oh well. I wish Apple bought Tidal instead of buying Beats. It would have saved them a lot more money.
Spotify is simply much, much, much, better – not even close. Sorry, Apple. On June 29th, was thinking of ditching Spotify, expecting Apple Music to be “the” experience. My iTunes Match is full of Latin music, I’ve been listening to Latin artists on Apple Music, and still waiting for Apple Music to suggest any Latin playlist or artist after 4 days of usage. Haven’t they had anyone check the Spotify UI before launch? Efficient – simple – complete. They will need more than a Radio Station to have me come back.
As far as I can tell, Apple Music will not make recommendations for non-English music – not in Canada at least.
Sorry, but Apple Music doesn’t cut it. For a company who prides itself on User Experience this is the worst experience. I had high expectations from Apple to make something better than what is currently available. iTunes is an unequivocal nightmare. Until they ditch iTunes, Apple has lost the music game. Apple has seemed to have lost some of their quality. Seems like it’s still not finished. Working with playlists is a joke. And for those of you thinking these are just a few bugs, look the whole UI again. The workflow and design makes this a nightmare. Perhaps it works perfectly if you search for Taylor Swift, but if you are music lover you would be looking for something very different. :-P
It’s a mess. You have to add content to My Music before you add it to a Playlist….if a single song on you playlist is not in My Music, you can’t access the Playlist on other devices. And it won’t add to a Playlist if you currently have that Playlist open….have to switch to a different one. Shuffle button doesn’t seem to work properly. The For You search function is limiting…..where are New Releases, or a search function by genre? And I’m terrified of switching on my home iTunes library to the cloud considering the horror stories I’m reading. I think it’s a hot mess.
Why activating iCloud music all my library got corrupted. I don’t think I’m the only one. Do you ever test your services before releasing them
Why when I re download the song that I burned from my personal cd I get DRM protected version
Do you mean that if I ever delete any of my songs and the download them and then cancel my membership I have to re urn my whole collection
Why can’t I automatically choose the part of my library that I want on my iPhone (like when I disable iCloud music) but I’m forced to manually download what I want. I know I can get all from cloud but I want to choose the music I want on my iPhone.
Why with ICloud music I have to download to iPhone all my songs at 256kbs even if on my computer I have only 128kbs versions and I can’t fit more then half of my songs on iPhone.
Why am I forced to see links to the services like connect that I have no interest in on the main toolbar. The toolbar that I can’t configure.
Why can’t I choose the bit rate for the music streaming? Maybe I have huge internet data plan and 256kbs is not enough. Or maybe I have very small package and I need as low as possible
Why can’t I download music for offline playing unless I use iCloud that I wouldn’t touch (see above)
Why can’t I add songs to my library from Apple music on iPhone unless I activate iCloud
If they want me to convert to their music, they need to make it easy to transfer my Spotify playlist into Apple Music. I have nearly 5k songs saved. There’s no way in hell I am searching and selecting each one of those.
I cannot add songs to playlists on my iPhone, but on the mac. They are not syncing neither. I switched the iCloud toggle on and off on both devices and also made all songs (cloud) available on my phone, bc I thought, that the songs in the PL were just not visible, but no luck so far. The devices don’t sync and playlists are useless. Fix this Apple!!!
Someone help me please I’m freaking out a little bit. Why do I have to save MY music for offline listening. It’s mine. It should be stored in my music library, and I want all of it available as it always has been. I can’t go through and save every single song individually! I have more than 1,000. Also where did all of my playlists go?? They’re just gone! Please am I missing something? My music is shper important to me and this update just screwed up everything.
It’s to bad because I actually like the basic Apple Music experience, but as soon as I turned it on –it immediately wiped out all my 5-star songs ratings. Then it would load empty playlists, change the artwork on my playlists, change the settings on smart playlists, etc. There is no method to the madness–so I just turned it off completely.
On a 4S, 1% battery depleted per minute – and that’s after turning off Location Services, otherwise it’s exhausted even quicker.
After update to iOS 8.4 it’s also possible for location services to be up at all times and consuming inordinate amounts of power, separate from Apple Music. Restarting the phone has no effect. Turning off Location Services puts an immediate stop to this excessive “phantom” power consumption.
** update to playing an artists discography on iOS:
1) tap the magnifying glass to search michael jackson
2) tap my music
3) tap the icon of the artist under the artist. the icon, not the title.
done.
Totally agree with some points.
The playing randomly songs about a single artist, theres a work around on iOS with Siri as you can tell her to “play random songs of Michael Jackson” and she will do it exactly what you’re requesting.
But in OS X its a different story and is in deed more steps in the process
I can see the confusion. I wasn’t following along closely, but I didn’t quite understand what Beats One was and how it related to Apple Music, and once I did it wasn’t clear that it was free. I’m still not completely sure how iTunes radio relates to Apple Music.
This article has so many banners and ads it made reading the well written and much needed content a total pain. loading the page made my iPad unresponsive and not scroll. I had to use the ‘reader’ function that strips all the ads to actuall read the article. I understand the need to monetise to support you business model. But I don’t understand how making your content a pain to read can benefit anyone? Might as well have a CAPTCHA to solve before you can read every paragraph. How fun would that be? I hope the ad blocking features in iOS 9 help bring things back to a happy medium between ads and content.
I’m not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but after activating iCloud Music Library it replaced some of my songs with a clean version. It’s really weird, because it does not state that it is a clean version, and it does it to every other song on an album. It’s pretty frustrating
Why can’t I just see all the artists available without using the stupid search tool? I shouldn’t have to look for artists that I like, and I should be able to pull up an entire list of all my artists that I actually listen to, not who’s hot. I like all kinds of music and want to be able to decide who or what kind of music I wanna hear at different times. Way to complicated yet very standardized setup for popular artists.
iTunes is becoming more of a disaster with every new release. Upon updating to the latest version I can no longer see a progress bar showing me how long it takes for app updates to download.
This isn’t just an Apple Music problem this is an ios problem.
This is also one of many reasons I still use Android over ios even though I am a Mac user 10+ years running.
Many of the things I do on my Nexus 6 takes 1-2 steps but on ios the same task takes 5-6 sometimes more steps. I have also noticed Apple sometimes does this with OSX specific apps such as keynote and others.
I don’t get everyone’s problems. I’ve been using the pay service for a week now. All the music I had saved on my mac is still right there, and also available via the cloud. I can also add songs I did not yet own instantly completing some of my libraries. I do agree with the auto playlists for artists I own being an issue, but most of the play lists are songs I don’t. I wish the playlists were not generic lists for the genres and artists I like but were custom for me but I don’t know a service that does that per user.
I hate the new itunes music! Most of my music is now gone or hidden on my iPad Air. I want my old itunes back. Fortunately it did not corrupt itunes on my iPhone or computer. I am now terrified to download any updates from apple. I am paying extra for 20 gigs of icloud storage for my music collection and this update has made access useless. I will obviously never pay for this streaming service in its current form. I wish I knew how to cancel this free trial early.
I have noticed lack of clarity and volume (or consistency in volume) on albums sent to “My Music” then played through my phone to the car through Blue Tooth. I have to crank the volume to even hear the faintest of music and then when it goes to the next song from music I own or have on CD the volume is deafeningly loud!!!
How to actually create a Michael Jackson “playlist” with Apple Music,
“Hey Siri, play songs by Michael Jackson”
done.
I hate the new service! I don’t want to sign up for the plan….I have no desire to stream the service on up to 6 devices although we have enough devices to do it! I want to be able to go and buy the songs I want like I used to be able to do!!!
Lol. You don’t have to use the new Appl music service. You CAN still buy tunes and use the service the way you want. Shoot. You don’t even have to use iTunes Match. News flash. You can still use iTunes like the day it originally brought into the worof 10 years against. Why are people complaining when they STILL have those options. I don’t get it. I’m loving the new music services, I shouldn’t get it because you want to use 10 years old functions. Yikes. lol.
What drives me crazy is how difficult it is to tell Apple what i like–and perhaps more importantly, what i HATE. It needn’t be so difficult.
Being continuously presented terrible music by this poorly informed application is so aggravating to me, I barely have words to express my feelings. Merely having to see tacky album covers on my screen is like fingernails on a chalkboard. I despise almost everything they show me. Yet apple will never know this because they provide no convenient way for me to let them know.
Why doesn’t Apple give us “like/dislike” buttons? Not just for SONGS, but for all sorts of categories: genres, albums, artists, etc. Everything should be rate-able. And you should be able to do it on the fly, not just when you are actually listening to a specific song. Imagine that you could simply click onto the upper left corner of any visible album icon–anywhere on your screen, not just the song you’re listening to–and then choose to like or dislike that song, album or artist.
The tedious “never play this song again” flag seems only to ban songs from specific stations, and never seems to figure out that Apple should stop trying to push an ARTIST on me, no matter how many of their songs i ban. This menu choice needs to be available outside of specific stations as well, so that i can globally ban a song or artist. There also needs to be more range of emotion expressible: apple should want to learn what i love, or passionately hate, not just what i “like”.
Finally, our likes and dislikes should be treated more like a database that users can browse and edit. We should be able to search through our musical preferences and if we realize upon review that we’ve changed our minds on something, revise it. I am just as interested in this data as Apple is!
My biggest complaint has to do with songs I add to a playlist vs songs I save to my library. On Spotify, Rdio, Google Play, Tidal, you name it, when you add a song to a playlist, that song is only added to the playlist and is NOT added to my library. With Apple Music / iTunes, whenever I add a song to a playlist, that song is also saved to my library. Vice-versa, if I delete a song from my library it also removes it from any playlists it was on. Bad form Apple. I don’t want to see Mylie Cyrus and her incomplete Bangerz or whatever album when I scroll through my library just because I added Wrecking Ball to my Housewarming Party playlist. Bad form. My iTunes library is a wreckage of incomplete albums from artists I could care less about just because I want to keep a song or two of theirs on a few playlists for when the mood fits. (Yes, there’s ways around this by hacking iTunes’ Album Artist, Sort Artist and Part of a Compilation meta-data, but they’re all hacks.) Apple needs to bite the bullet and completely re-architect and re-design iTunes, severing Playlists and Library like every other decent modern music service.
Im so frustrated with this whole subscription service stuff. For some reason I can’t even make half my songs available offline/play them. It just tells me that my “subscription is inactive” and that I can’t play my music. I bought the songs even before this whole subscription service came into play, and I’m definitely not paying for the subscription when I find it useless.
The issues are real, and have not been addressed by Apple. I read in many places patronizing “tutorials” written by people without enough experience with Apple Music. The reality is that if you own music prior to Apple Music, that music will be off limits in the future, unless you keep your Apple Music subscription, and, more ludicrously, unless you have made it available to “listen offline.”
Holy crap Apple Music is so terrible. It’s one big fat fail in every way possible. There is absolutely no support from Apple whatsoever at least not in the places I looked. It took me almost an hour to find out how to unsub from it; so greasy. There was nothing anywhere that mentioned Apple Music specifically in any settings or info pages. It’s buried, and that’s such crap.
As an artist, I set myself up to be able to add content via connect. It is not possible to add any content other than via my phone which is absolutely stupid. We get some rather fancy pics done by professional photographers from time to time. In order to share them in Apple Music I have to first send them to my phone, from my computer. Same with video. So terrible.
Also, personally, I have almost 2gigs of music in my library mostly of which is jazz from the 50’s and 60’s. My “genius” recommendations are the same big label garbage as I find everywhere and can’t get away from; the Beyonce’s, Pharrell’s et cetera. I was hoping it would recommend some hot new pianists from NY after looking at all the Monk albums I own, but nope, it’s recommendation was Beck. I dig his work don’t get me wrong, but wtf does that have to do with Thelonius Monk?
Furthermore, and this is just me being a bit petty, Beats 1 is terrible.
I don’t like that I can’t listen to any of my music when I don’t have service on my phone. I bought the music for a reason I want to be able to listen to it whenever I’d like!
It’s actually disturbing some songs keep loading and loading and loading and you can’t listen to it at the end and you huv to select another song. DUH.
To convert DRM-ed Apple Music files, I am using Noteburner iTunes DRM Audio Converter. http://www.noteburner.com/itunes-drm-audio-converter-for-windows.html
I can’t even begin to list all the little problems and inconsistencies and confusions and wormholes that this mingboggling service has. It would take hours!!! who are the people that designed it???? They are definitely not everyday users. Did they do NO user testing?
why do I still have the options to purchase songs when I pay for Apple Music? The music store needs to DISAPPEAR.
Why when I click on “New,” does the song I’m playing STOP?
Anyone else getting constant pausing, at random, of songs being played on Music? Happens with my iPhone which is the latest and has the latest iOs. Happens with Beats Bluetooth, Flip Bluetooth and also, just playing on my iPhone.