If you signed up for the Apple Music free three month trial at launch, it's nearly time to decide if you want to pay for the service or not. We've had a fair amount of internal discussion about the pros and cons of the service behind the scenes here at
MacNN, and we thought we'd share with you how we feel about the service, and why -- and if we're going to renew.
William Gallagher, Staff Writer
I'm listening to my own music collection in iTunes right now, rather than Apple Music -- but that's only because there's something up with my Internet connection today. I've been getting this a lot lately, and the thing it most noticeably affects is Apple Music. There is something phenomenally annoying about music juddering along for one second, followed by ten seconds of buffering silence. When this happens, and I go back to my collection, I wonder about whether Apple Music is worth it. Even when my connection then rights itself, I'm now deep into a playlist of my own, and forget to go back exploring Apple Music.
But then, it's the exploring that eventually draws me back. Yesterday I tried an album by Texas, a band I used to like a lot but haven't listened to in ages. The album is fairly new, and I'd been aware it was out, I just hadn't got around to thinking about it. Yet now
The Conversation is a favourite: I tried it out, and it's looped a fair few times around while I've been working, I have so instantly liked it. Similarly with She & Him: I love their
Volume 2, but wasn't so taken when I later tried
Volume 1 and their Christmas album, so it's only because of Apple Music that I tried
Volume 3. I'm not addicted, but I like it, and it's getting into my head.
Then, when writing a
MacNN piece about
long-term freelancing and how you adapt to different companies' rules about playing radios, I had a stabbing memory of being given Mahler's 5th Symphony as a leaving present. I could, and I did, turn to Apple Music to find it -- and spent the rest of that day soaring.
I decided right there and then that I was sticking with Apple Music -- but I have hesitated since. So often now, I find I am using it to listen to music I already own. It's convenient to have it wherever I am, but I could just bung a lot of it onto my iPhone. Plus, I honestly do worry about all streaming music and what it means for artists. I can tell you that I'm listening to new music, but what I mean is music that is new to me. Like Bob Dylan. I worry about how genuinely new artists can survive to get to a point where streaming earns a living for them.
That makes me torn about it. Plus, there are days and days when my head seems to be full up, and I can't take in any more music. I sound as if I'm now going to say no -- and, dammit, I slipped back to Apple Music a moment ago and exactly as I typed the word "no," my stream froze -- but actually ... I am keeping it.
It's partly the acknowledgement that I am adoring quite a bit of music I didn't know before Apple Music. It's certainly a nod to the convenience of having all of this everywhere I go. I am right on the bubble, and I think that really what seals it is that if I just keep pondering, the deal will be done for me. If I had to positively go somewhere and elect to pay, rather than that being the default unless I opt out, I might, might, might not continue.
Except, no. Sorry to vacillate like this, but I just closed my eyes and imagined losing Apple Music. I imagined how empty my iTunes collection would seem, how wrong, how denied and impoverished it would seem. I'm sticking with Apple Music, and I'm sticking with the family plan in
the hopes that my wife Angela will get back into it too.
Charles Martin, MacNN Editor
I am most definitely keeping Apple Music, primarily for one reason alone: the "For You" recommendations. They are wide-ranging, touch on every corner of my taste (and occasionally, yes, miss the mark on that), human-curated (which has made a big difference), and are generally fantastic -- either albums and playlists I know I'll like, or offerings that I've been curious about, haven't heard in years, or feel it is time to revisit. Its selections and recommendations mostly range from "hmm, yes, that might be interesting" to "I was just thinking about this, how could you possibly ...".
It's often uncanny, and nearly always worth the time I spend in it, which is 90 percent of my time in Apple Music. I haven't greedily downloaded a lot of albums and songs for offline listening -- I'm too busy enjoying the "For You" section to venture far from it for a good portion of my waking day. My poor beloved Internet radio station choices, my previous workday "drug of choice," are suffering from my absence. My own music library runs a distant second, and generally only gets called upon when there's no Wi-Fi available. If I used cellular for Apple Music, I'd need to switch to an unlimited data plan.
Yes, I occasionally tune in to Beats 1 (more for the specialty shows than regular programming), and yes, I like having nearly any song I can think of accessible to me, and I even like and post on Connect from time to time, but make no mistake: I think "For You" is so good that
it alone is worth the $10 per month (of course I'm actually getting the $15 a month family plan for the two of us) all by itself. I get suggestions ranging from the Sex Pistols to Frank Sinatra. As I write this, I'm listening to "deep cuts from Harold Budd," and will queue up deep cuts from Saint Etienne after that. Heaven.
It's not quite the same as having some music
cognoscenti with outstanding taste in your social circle,
as I do, but "For You" is just about the next best thing -- and in my opinion the best part of Apple Music. If nothing else, I'm listening to music more or less all day again. Well done, Apple.
Mike Wuerthele, Managing Editor
Apple Music for me was ... okay, and not just because of the
technical issues associated with iTunes and Apple Music integration. Given my musical choices, its selections for me for discovery really weren't that good, and frankly, I'm comfortable with my listening choices. I'm satisfied with my personal iTunes library, which has been painstakingly ripped from our thousands-strong CD collection that my wife and I combined after our marriage in the 1990s, and those we have since purchased. Yeah, get off my lawn.
After an abortive low bitrate start, we're about 1,000 CDs in on the ripping effort, with about 3,000 more to go. Purchasing CDs for 30 years will give you a pretty big backlog. Life has gotten in the way, and the time to sit and rip has been limited for about the last decade. Earlier this year, we had another
major life event, that has grossly impacted our time.
We've been focused on recovery since then, and in and out of the hospital. There's no time for ripping anymore, its all been taken by doctors, care taking, and work. During recovery, my wife has rediscovered music as a source of solace, as well as a way to help rekindle damaged memories. This is the conundrum, though -- no time to rip.
We're keeping iTunes Match, as it remains a critical tool for dealing with sometimes-extended hospital stays. Coupled with this, its more time efficient right now for my wife to look for her music on Apple Music, rather than spend the time to rip the collection, dating mostly back to the 80s, with album covers adorned by musicians with big hair and leather.
The new iTunes has been very hard on music libraries. Between the inability to stream higher-bitrate music, as well as the initial wholesale corruption of libraries is problematic, and we're keeping an eye on it. I know that Apple is watching, and they know we are too.
So, for now, I have enough faith in our own library, as well as the Apple streaming, so we're keeping Apple Music, if for no other reason than my wife's comfort. Should the time ever present itself, I'll rip the remaining CDs. When done, I'll try to stick with iTunes Match (if its still available as a discrete service) and axe Apple Music.
Bradley McBurney, Staff Writer
Will I continue to use Apple Music after the three month trial ends? This is a question I have internally debated since Apple first announced their new streaming music service back in June. I am a long-time streaming service subscriber, having first gotten into the streaming world with Slacker Radio just over five years ago, and have high demands for my provider. In these five years, I have tried every streaming service to make its way up into Canada, with Rdio succeeding Slacker, followed by a small stint with Spotify before returning back to Rdio.
As these different services slowly made their way up into the Great White North, I began to realize that what I wanted out of a music service was much different than I initially thought. When I first subscribed, I already had a large personal music library, which led me towards using Slacker Radio almost exclusively as a music discovery device.
Eventually, I learned that streaming service could be so much more, thanks to the inclusion of offline downloads. At this point I completely wiped my iPhone's music library clean and moved to Rdio, which offered a better interface for storing a collection. Aside from a one month trial with Spotify, this would become the setup I would maintain over the course of the next three years.
Then Apple announced Apple Music, a new service offering some of my favorite features from both Slacker Radio and Rdio. The service combined radio shows, curated by real humans, with the ability to create a personal audio library for anytime offline listening. This seemed like the perfect offering for me, however there was one small drawback.
Over the years, many of my friends have also moved onto Rdio, which made sharing music so simple. Without having to make any real effort, I could see exactly what my friends had been listening to, as well as make recommendations directly within the app. While Apple Music has some similar features, it didn't really compare to what I was already comfortable using.
So began my trial with Apple Music, already convinced I would just move back to Rdio once the trial was over. A two-app solution seemed perfectly viable; I could continue to listen to Apple's Beat One radio station at no cost, while continuing to manage a library in Rdio. After a few weeks of use however, my mindset started to shift. I began building new music library in iTunes via Apple Music, and found myself enjoying the setup. Apple's iTunes has long had a history of being a poor choice for creating a clean, organized library, but here I was, perfectly content with the way my new collection was taking form.
Over the last three months, I have also found a few oddities with Apple Music that drive me crazy, yet coming to the end of the trial I have decided to keep on with the service, at least for now. Apple seems pretty committed to this new offering, so I am convinced they will iron out the bugs in a timely fashion, however, if they do not I will not hesitate to return to my trusted Rdio setup.
Sanjiv Sathiah, contributor
I am not going to continue with my Apple Music subscription. In fact, even though we are still in the free trial phase, I had already stopped using the Music app on my iPhone a few weeks ago -- it used to be my most used app. I am really disappointed by the approach that Apple has taken with Apple Music on iOS, especially as I have been waiting for years for Apple to bring market this very type of service.
As we have previously outlined, there are
a lot of issues with the Music UI brought about by the decision to stuff the Apple Music service into it. The Music app used to work just fine as it was -- Apple deliberately broke what was a perfectly fine UI to push users into trying it, while also expecting that users would simply get used to the changes. I reject that approach completely.
The final straw for me was learning that Apple has overreached in so far as to convert my ALAC files (where unmatched by 256kpbs AAC files already in the iCloud Music Library) into 256kbps files as soon as I activated the service. I only found this out after contacting Apple and being pointed to some fine print. With Apple Music activated on your iPhone, you have no way of keeping your ALAC files, and playing them through the native Music app.
This is a shame of course, as there is a lot to like about the actual Apple Music service itself. The music curation teams that Apple have assembled have been doing a great job of creating interesting playlists, while the music discovery features are also great. Even though Connect was off to a slow start, it looks as though there is a lot more going in that space now, which should be great for music fans.
These are real selling points for the Apple Music service, and it would have been so much better if Apple had launched it as a standalone app. This would have preserved the Music app interface, while also preserving our ability to transfer ALAC files to our iPhones. These changes would have made a separate Apple Music app one of the most immersive and complete music experiences out there.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having Apple Music files living alongside with my regular library, but Apple's implementation has left a lot to be desired. Apple is aware of these complaints, so we can only wait and hope for a better outcome. Apple prides itself on its user experience, and from a software perspective, stability and UI have traditionally been hallmarks of that experience. If Apple can get on top of these issues, I will have no qualms about re-subscribing to Apple Music.
Malcolm Owen, Staff Writer
I might as well say this up front: I'm not in a position to declare whether or not Apple Music is a service worth paying for. While my colleagues may have spent the last few months using the three-month trial, I haven't, and it's simply an issue relating to my family's device ecosystem.
As some may be aware, I only came back into Mac ownership this year after a long hiatus, and it is currently the only Apple device I have access to in the house (an iPad purchase is planned for the not-too-distant future). The rest of the devices in this house are made up of Windows notebooks, Android smartphones and tablets, game consoles, and a Chromecast.
Its these mobile devices that are the most important for music in this household. Sure, iTunes in Windows does give me the opportunity to listen to the streaming service, but Apple also said an Android app was on the way this fall, and we're still waiting. Our current musical needs are supported by a combination of Google Play Music All Access for myself, and Spotify for the family. They both work on the majority of items we own, and will likely remain the incumbents for some time until a cheaper and better service comes along.
When Apple brings out the Android app, I will certainly try it out and compare against Google's own musical offering, but it needs to pull something special out of the bag if I am to change where I pay my monthly music subscription.
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