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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Editorial: Pardon? You don't like Apple Music?

Editorial: Pardon? You don't like Apple Music?
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Jul 1, 2015, 06:05 PM
 
It's not compulsory to like anything, and the world would be a dull place if everybody thought the same way. Plus, there are criticisms you can make of Apple Music's launch, its various limitations, and how iTunes 12 is still complex, some of which we delved into earlier today. Only Apple Music is getting a bad press primarily for being good, and for doing what you'd expect a streaming music service to do. It has honestly been criticized for being fun. Damn those Apple people, how dare they make something fun? Don't they know music is serious?

We'd say that Gizmodo encapsulates all of this in one go, except we're so agog at it that we might quote other bits too. Still, here's the key part from the start of an article by Mario Aguilar about the "crushing disappointment" of Apple Music. "Apple Music does everything it's supposed to: It plays music on demand for $10 per month. The app is fun to use, as Gizmodo's Kelsey pointed out yesterday. You're never at a loss for some inviting tile to push on. Tap, sound. It even does some things very well!"

If you're waiting for us to reveal what exactly is the "crushing disappointment" in Apple Music, hang on a tic -- but in the meantime we'll just tell you this fellow has had a pretty cushy life if this amounts to a "crushing disappointment."

Wired has more of a point, we can just about say, as its Marcus Wohlsen was a Beats subscriber and can't find all the music he used to listen to. Well, he can, he can find it just fine, it's still there -- but it's not in the playlists he'd created. This is a "broken promise" and -- this isn't entirely clear -- he's not "the kind of empowered consumer who's ready to storm off to Spotify in a huff."

We can't join the dots there between "unempowered" and sticking with Apple Music, but just before we can point to what you're thinking now, Wohlsen admits it too: "I'd have to rebuild my library on Spotify from scratch anyway."

He does then also admit that Apple says these "recommendations and music library move to Apple Music in the background" and that it can take 24 hours. We stand ready. In point of fact, Apple is preparing a transition app that will make the move from Beats smoother -- and in fact the Beats Music app continues to work for now, so we're really a bit confused by his complaint. We're kind of impressed that it took Apple Music less than a full day to get Wohlsen and Aguilar to question their existing relationships.

Wohlsen's point is somehow that Apple Music's business of finding music you like by tracking what you say you enjoy and what you've bought in the past fails completely, because he hasn't bought any music in years (nice of him to own up to stealing from the artists he claims to like). We might also be embarrassed at our music choices of the past, we might well not enjoy Apple Music reminding us of our poor taste, so we can see that one. Except that when you sign up for Apple Music you get to say what you like. You get to say it broadly by genre, and then you get pressed to be specific about artists you like, love or hate.

No, we're still thinking about Gizmodo. Skipping over its criticism that Beats 1 is a hit -- actually, we'd say it's too early to call that one, even if we could agree that a hit is a bad thing -- there is this key point from Aguilar: "the product looks like something Apple felt like it had to make, as opposed to it wanted to make".

MacNN is a family show, right? Let's say this about Apple, then: heck yes, they made what they had to. At least, not in the sense Gizmodo means of -- no, sorry, again, slightly lost. Apple Music is what the firm had to make rather than what it wanted to, he says. Okay, holding that thought. Waiting for the next bit.

It's not coming. Apple wanted to make X but settled for Y because of, um, er, something. We of course are aware of Apple's long history of loathing anything to do with music, so we're sure they hated every second of building Apple Music. Of course.

Actually, there is a something. There is the live ammunition on a hotplate that is negotiating with music labels and rights holders. If that's what Gizmodo means, it's not blaming labels or anyone else but Apple. Apple "could have created something cool," and that's that. Shame on you Apple, you didn't even try. Or something. SoundCloud, incidentally, "was forced to rein in its ambitions to pursue real licensing deals for the content it was streaming" but that wasn't lovely SoundCloud's fault, it wasn't.

Business Insider might know more about rights, but it's gone for this: "Apple Music is for people who don't know what they want to listen to. It wants to be the cool guy at the party with the best playlist. Spotify, on the other hand, seems more catered towards people who already know what music they like."

We've truly not one single clue how you get to that conclusion but, okay, we're listening, tell us more. Do go on. Only, Business Insider's Alex Heath doesn't. Not on that topic. Instead, in a piece that is headlined "How to decide if switching from Spotify to Apple Music is the right choice," Heath says no. He's "genuinely impressed" with Beats 1, and "it only took me a few hours to discover about a dozen great tracks I'd never heard of before," but no, you shouldn't switch from Spotify. Except later he says "it's a tough choice," and finally, "my days [as] a Spotify subscriber might be numbered."

We suppose "How to become indecisive about switching from Spotify to Apple Music, they're both great you guys" wouldn't grab as many clicks.

Heath does actually make good points about iTunes, claiming that Spotify is much easier to use on the desktop. We do remember trying the Mac Spotify and in fact, oh look, it's still in our Applications folder -- but if it's easier than iTunes, it wasn't easy enough to keep us. We use it on iOS alone but, hey, if you like Spotify on the desktop, all power to you.

That's the thing, really. If you like Spotify, great. If you prefer it to Apple Music, fine. The problem is that complaining Apple Music isn't Spotify, and simultaneously that it's exactly the same as Spotify, is not fine. Frankly bitching that Apple Music is good is ... well, let's say that's fine while we call the nice men in the white coats.

-- William Gallagher (@WGallagher)
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Jul 2, 2015 at 06:37 AM. )
     
climacs
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Jul 1, 2015, 08:26 PM
 
doesn't matter how stupid or clueless it is, so long as one can put "Apple" in the headline in order to get clicks.
     
Sanjiv Sathiah
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Jul 2, 2015, 05:24 AM
 
Apple Music as a service is great. There are a wealth of features that are going to be a lot of fun exploring. However, I'm finding its UI on iOS somewhat disjointed and lacking the typical polish, ease of use and seamless integration that we have come to expect from Apple over the years.

For one, if you want to purchase a song or an album (not just stream it, or download for offline listening) you need to muck about in menus, before you are then unceremoniously dumped out of the Apple Music app and into the iTunes app. Here's hoping that Apple can find a better way of having iTunes and Apple Music live together much more harmoniously in the near future. After all, they tried to pack in a lot Apple Music - why stop at trying to integrate the iTunes store into the Apple Music experience.
( Last edited by Sanjiv Sathiah; Jul 2, 2015 at 06:45 PM. Reason: typo)
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aroxnicadi
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Jul 2, 2015, 08:12 AM
 
Waste of money and a waste of memory, yet again by Apple.
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Jul 2, 2015, 09:31 AM
 
Originally Posted by aroxnicadi View Post
Waste of money and a waste of memory, yet again by Apple.
I suspect for the vast majority of the user base, that this isn't the case. What is it about the service that bothers you?
     
revco
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Jul 2, 2015, 10:48 AM
 
Don't like the new Music player. It's better than the one it replaces but it makes a lot of assumptions that I don't agree with. For instance the "Recently Added" bar. What purpose does that serve? If I don't add music for a few months is it still going to show "Recently Added"? And the on-the-fly colour scheme it applies to albums. Would love to turn that off. Weird colour combos happening. And that little iPhone icon it adds to each track listing on the right of the screen. If I've not subscribed to the streaming service why do I need to know that all the music I'm listening to is stored on my iPhone. Visually there's way too much going on. It just looked cluttered and over done. I'll stick with Ecoute thanks.
     
mojkarma
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Jul 2, 2015, 03:16 PM
 
I can't say whether apple music is good or not because the service is not offered in my country which is a member of the european union. On the other side, the service is available in countries where practically a civil war is going on or where the software pirating rate is far above 90% or even where the annual bdp per capita is less than what apple asks for a one year membership.
     
Sanjiv Sathiah
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Jul 2, 2015, 06:49 PM
 
The biggest problem with the Apple Music iOS app is how much of the previous Music app functionality has been crammed into the single My Music tab. This makes what were once simple actions like track skipping overly complex as you now have to tap on a control shortcut at the bottom of the screen to access this. Other functions are now also buried in menus. It isn't anywhere near as intuitive as it once was.
( Last edited by Sanjiv Sathiah; Jul 2, 2015 at 07:04 PM. Reason: Corrected for factual accuracy.)
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