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)