Apple Music First Impressions: Convenient All-in-One Experience With Overwhelming Design

[OllyW]

It's on the apple music page. iTunes match is built into Apple Music.


How does Apple Music know what songs are in my personal library?

With an Apple Music membership, your entire library lives in iCloud. We compare every track in your collection to the Apple Music library to see if we have a copy. If we do, you can automatically listen to it straight from the cloud. If you have music that’s not in our catalog, we upload those songs from iTunes on your Mac or PC. It’s all in iCloud, so it won’t take up any space on your devices.

It doesn't say anything about being able to upgrade and save your non-iTunes sourced old mp3s to a higher quality iTunes copy. You might be able to stream or download a copy with DRM for offline listening but nothing has been said about upgrading which is one of the big features of iTunes Match.

 

[matrix07]

Where have you seen that?

at Keynote I believe.

 

[FSMBP]

As long as they don't get Siracusa to do one. You could stream the entire library in less time than it would take to read it

lol - On some products, I do appreciate his thoroughness however!

 

[HenryDJP]

My dumb question is about how it all works together. I don't understand the point of buying songs any longer. If I can listen to any song at any time and download it for offline listening (just in case) why do I need to buy songs? And once you start using Apple Music what is the point of all of your old purchased songs? I'm having a hard time understanding how it all comes together.

Those "downloaded" songs for offline play are not yours to keep and they do not truly download to your device. The way Spotify does it is you have to connect to the web at least once a month so Spotify can verify that your paid account is still active. If it's not those "downloaded" songs will be disabled. I'm sure Apple is doing it the same way.

 

[cmaier]

Their various Apple Music sites have a check mark for "save for offline listening" so I would assume so

I seem to recall that you can add to playlists, which then makes them available for offline listening. It was explained somewhere.

 

[Andrei90]

30 minutes more to go.

 

[blaichch]

The iTunes Terms & Conditions have changed:

 

[johngordon]

including the Beats 1 radio station (which will probably be way too mainstream for me, but let's wait and see)

If by that you just mean if its mostly chart / pop / teen type stuff, then based on years of listening to Zane Lowe in the UK, i'd bet my house it won't be. As I have said on other threads, he's the real deal, with an enormous enthusiasm for all kinds of music.

He would play stuff like the Foo Fighters, or even Coldplay on his show, but definitely not Taylor Swift, say. the likes of Florence + The Machine and Ben Howard would have been played on his, and other R1 shows, when they were just starting out.

Reading in interviews that Trent got the idea for Beats 1 from listening to Zane's show, and then Apple getting not just Zane, but a few other key producers from BBC Introducing is hugely encouraging, and makes me pretty confident this is going to be pretty great, and hopefully a lot better than a lot of you guys based in the US might be expecting.

On the UI side, I have been running a beta of iOS9 and the Music app looks a lot better than it did- the artist view has a lot of much better artwork now, and it isn't all white - kind of mimics iTunes now, with sampling colours from photos. But it works a lot better on the smaller screen than in a big iTunes window I think.

So on the hole looking forward to getting the update and hearing Zane again!

The only think that looks pretty bad still are the awful graphics they have for the genre based skippable radio stations - they are so bad, I'd be amazed if they are anything other than placeholders that will be gone after the update.

 

[hppy29]

There's still a benefit to using iTunes Match.. If you preferring owning your music & having Apple match your music. It's a cheaper alternative.

Yet, Apple Music provides the same service as iTunes Match.

iTunes match will copy and keep secure music that is not currently available in Apple Music Library, things like white labels and mixes that are not available in iTunes. Im not sure I would risk not having iTunes match for a few months...

 

[matrix07]

I'd hoped to be able to comment in the connect section but you can't? Bummer. Having said that I look forward to having access to everything in iTunes.

You'll be able to like contents though.

 

[rhett7660]

Count me in as one of those interested in this. Can't wait to try it out!

 

[GFR50]

Spotify and many other services that exist today won't exist in 2 years. I predict Apple to completely own and control the streaming market within 2 years. Amazon and Google will be able to compete and survive but that's it.

I think you're probably right.

Apple will take all the paying subscribers, and Google will take all the ad-supported "free" listeners, leaving not much room for anyone else.

Don't know much about Amazon - they are not very good compared to Apple/Google at being truly international (too many products released months after the U.S. release, or not available etc).

 

[Ludatyk]

Your tracks need to be on desktop to be safe. Then stop Match.

I've been using Match as a way to not have my music occupying disk space.

I have 13k tracks uploaded, I would have to download all those tracks if I want to be safe. But I plan on getting word from Apple on how users will be transitioning from Match to Apple Music.

 

[Wreckus]

The iTunes Terms & Conditions have changed:
View attachment 565117

Not Canada's, still 2014 from the last time they updated it...I'm thinking Canada got shafted...again.

Edit: Maybe not, i check the US terms & conditions and it has the same date on the bottom.

 

[BruiserB]

False. Apple Music will do that.

Are you sure? Can you show me where it says you can download and own an upgraded copy of your music? It does say you will be able to stream from Apple. But when you stop subscribing, will you have upgraded copies of your old music that you own? Please show me where it says that. Apple called iTunes Match a "complimentary" service to AppleMusic. They didn't in any way say AppleMusic replaces Match. I may be mistaken, but please show me that I am and don't just tell me I'm wrong.

 

[Andrei90]

If by that you just mean if its mostly chart / pop / teen type stuff, then based on years of listening to Zane Lowe in the UK, i'd bet my house it won't be. As I have said on other threads, he's the real deal, with an enormous enthusiasm for all kinds of music.

He would play stuff like the Foo Fighters, or even Coldplay on his show, but definitely not Taylor Swift, say. the likes of Florence + The Machine and Ben Howard would have been played on his, and other R1 shows, when they were just starting out.

Reading in interviews that Trent got the idea for Beats 1 from listening to Zane's show, and then Apple getting not just Zane, but a few other key producers from BBC Introducing is hugely encouraging, and makes me pretty confident this is going to be pretty great, and hopefully a lot better than a lot of you guys based in the US might be expecting.

On the UI side, I have been running a beta of iOS9 and the Music app looks a lot better than it did- the artist view has a lot of much better artwork now, and it isn't all white - kind of mimics iTunes now, with sampling colours from photos. But it works a lot better on the smaller screen than in a big iTunes window I think.

So on the hole looking forward to getting the update and hearing Zane again!

The only think that looks pretty bad still are the awful graphics they have for the genre based skippable radio stations - they are so bad, I'd be amazed if they are anything other than placeholders that will be gone after the update.

Then it's a good thing Zane is not the only DJ. I've been listening to his shows and his musical taste is awful to me, also, Beats1 is a worldwide radio station for millions of Apple Customers so he better go a little more mainstream.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I'll be curious to see what happens when Apple Music comes to Android and how Apple gets Google Play music users to switch.

I don't think Apple really expects to take much of the Android market away from Google, but by making an Android app it makes the service a lot more attractive for people who have iTunes or an iOS product and an Android phone.

I find iTunes integration to work well with Google Music. I don't use their streaming service, but I do have my iTunes library uploaded into Google Music so I always have it with me on my phone. I'm not sure if Apple Music will work like that on Android or only be for streaming. Does anyone know if the Android version will work just like iOS and match your iTunes library?

 

[Yumbo]

The only think that looks pretty bad still are the awful graphics they have for the genre based skippable radio stations - they are so bad, I'd be amazed if they are anything other than placeholders that will be gone after the update.

Still there.

 

[OllyW]

It doesn't make sense to me. Isn't iTunes match 25 per month? or


Aren't you able to download music from Apple Music for offline playing?

iTunes Match is $25 a year.

You can download music from Apple Music for offline playing but it has DRM and will stop working if you stop your subscription. With iTunes Match you can upgrade your old MP3 files with higher quality non-DRM iTunes tracks.

 

[hppy29]

Well I hope its better than the Brian Eno thats currently coming from B1.. lol

 

[JaySoul]

Your tunes library is yours. Take command of it! Stop lending it out like your lawnmower and not having it available when YOU need it. Geez.

OK.

To be fair, Google Music gives you 20,000 songs from your iTunes library in their cloud for free.

Actually I think it's 50,000 now.

It was working well but over the last few weeks, it's gone completely walkabout and over half of my entire iTunes library that I uploaded to Google Play Music has gone missing. It's stuff like that I won't miss.

By the time the 6s is released the Android app will be out. Or did you miss that part of the keynote?

Oh so my entire iTunes library will natively be on the Android app?

 

[HenryDJP]

I can see the android app only have 3 features: Your library, catalogue/store, & player.

I would have to respectfully disagree. While it's true that Apple would prefer people buy their devices, as long as they are making money ($9.99/month) I don't see any reason why the Android version wouldn't offer the same features as the iOS version. I can see where there might be tighter integration with other parts of iOS or Apple-created apps but for the rest it should be the same.

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

That doesn't make any sense. Does that mean Android users won't get a free trial since it's not coming to Android until this fall? No. It's 3 months from when you sign up. Here's the footnote from Apple's website: "Requires initial sign up. At the end of the trial period, the membership will automatically renew and payment method will be charged on a monthly basis until auto-renewal is turned off in account settings." This means your trial doesn't start until you sign up.

Trial starts on activation.

so, pretty much exactly what i just said then. not sure why you are disagreeing with me when i literally just said the same thing you are saying.

i said it's a 3-month trial membership (implying that it's from the date you sign up). apple uses that exact phrasing on their website. they don't say "free for the first 3 months."

i was replying to someone who said it was only free from july to september.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

One question I have is this. If one can stream any and all songs from the iTunes Store would it be likely that there would be a decrease in people buying and downloading songs either individually or by album as has been the case until now since the iTunes Store was launched? And if that is the case would Apple eventually faze out the ability to download tracks or album and simply have the streaming service only?

 

[Ferc Kast]

I like that the iPad Music app will be finally be optimized again for the first time since iOS 6. Listening to iTunes Radio on my Air 2 while I keep checking for iOS 8.4 on my iPhone 6.