Exactly! The Apple Music streaming service is basically the same as Spotify, minus the Facebook integration.
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Apple Music to Support Saving Playlists and Songs for Offline Listening
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Exactly! The Apple Music streaming service is basically the same as Spotify, minus the Facebook integration.
Only thing keeping me from switching from Spotify is the music quality. Their "extreme" is 320 kbits/s. Any confirmation on Apple's?
Bloomberg says that Apple is trying to make their whole iTunes Music Library available for Apple Music and that they actually do have Taylor Swift's music on Apple Music, but they don't have the Beatles.
The quote from Re/code says you can do exactly this.
Yes they can.
I think a killer feature that isn't fully understood is that this will work as the stock music apps does. So, all those apps that have music integration will not work with subscription music. Some apps have "Spotify" integration (like Pacemaker). A few have Pandora. None have Rdio, Slacker, Tidal, Rhapsody, etc. So, all those workout apps that let you play music from your iTunes library, will not also automatically have integration to Apple Music playlists. I've been a full subscriber to Spotify since it came Stateside. But the lack of integration is the major thing I didn't like about Spotify. This offers a path to switch completely over and get that feature as well. A similar example is the out-of-the-box Watch integration.
Apple was looking for other advantages: cheaper subscription, larger catalog, higher bitrate. those are all good. But this seamless integration will convert a ton of users.
Apple was looking for other advantages: cheaper subscription, larger catalog, higher bitrate. those are all good. But this seamless integration will convert a ton of users.
Interesting that they are using the term "member". Connotates a much more personal exclusivity to it than "subscriber".
Unless certain songs are blocked, when Eddy went to charts, Taylor was right there at the top. I noticed he didn't choose her song to play...
Apparently if you sell your song on iTunes, they have the right to play it. Just saw this posted on Twitter from the official App Store account: @appStore: Keep your purchased songs. Listen to our entire library on demand. All with @AppleMusic.
Even though the quoted bitrate is lower, iTunes 256kbs AAC sounds way better than Spotify. You'll often see Spotify users complaining they can't hear the difference between the normal quality and extreme qualify encodes.
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple Music is unlimited also, though the deeper iTunes catalog of music may also mean more restraints put on them by the labels. Ultimately if you care about offline playback then you should own the music and put it in your iTunes Match collection anyway so the limits don't bother me.
Apple today announced Apple Music, a new all-in-one app and service for discovering and listening to music. Apple Music includes a streaming music service that delivers on-demand music for $9.99 per month, much like Apple's existing Beats Music service.
Many users have wondered whether Apple Music will allow for song downloads for offline listening, and the answer to that question is yes. Apple did not give details on offline listening during its keynote event or press release, but according to an Apple representative that spoke to Re/code, content from Apple Music can be added to a playlist for offline listening.Offline listening is also listed as a feature available on Apple's new Apple Music page, which details what you get with an Apple Music membership. Apple Music subscribers will also get unlimited skips when listening to Apple Music radio stations, the ability to play and save Connect content, and the ability to add Apple Music content to one's music library.
Apple Music will launch to the public on June 30, as part of iOS 8.4. It is priced at $9.99 per month for individuals and $14.99 per month for a family of up to 6.
Article Link: Apple Music to Support Saving Playlists and Songs for Offline Listening
I'm impressed! I will definitely be trying this out! Glad they included such a large rollout too.
Apple today announced Apple Music, a new all-in-one app and service for discovering and listening to music. Apple Music includes a streaming music service that delivers on-demand music for $9.99 per month, much like Apple's existing Beats Music service.
Many users have wondered whether Apple Music will allow for song downloads for offline listening, and the answer to that question is yes. Apple did not give details on offline listening during its keynote event or press release, but according to an Apple representative that spoke to Re/code, content from Apple Music can be added to a playlist for offline listening.Offline listening is also listed as a feature available on Apple's new Apple Music page, which details what you get with an Apple Music membership. Apple Music subscribers will also get unlimited skips when listening to Apple Music radio stations, the ability to play and save Connect content, and the ability to add Apple Music content to one's music library.
Apple Music will launch to the public on June 30, as part of iOS 8.4. It is priced at $9.99 per month for individuals and $14.99 per month for a family of up to 6.
Article Link: Apple Music to Support Saving Playlists and Songs for Offline Listening
I totally agree! I have both, Spotify and iTunes Match. Even though I have access to all songs in Spotify that I once bought in iTunes, I switch to iTunes in the Cloud for the streaming because of the better sound quality. Spotify use 320 kbps Ogg Vorbis, which is good, but 256 AAC sounds way better. It has a wider soundstage and more oomp. You can definetly tell a difference when listening to Rock and House music.
For me, the sound quality is THE reason I will switch to Apple Music when 256 AAC is confirmed. I don't give a damn at the other features like Connect.
At 0:55 in the video for Apple Music, it says "stream from the millions of songs on iTunes, anytime and on-demand." To me this implies any song on iTunes, but I can understand why people would be skeptical of this. My thought is the reason it isn't launching until June 30 is because they're still finalizing deals with other artists/record labels. All Apple has to do is say if you don't let us include your music than go sell your music somewhere else. Correct me if I'm wrong but Spotify doesn't offer the ability to buy music directly, so where are they going to sell music if not in iTunes? Target? I would think every artist would want their music on iTunes. On a side note, I don't know why you think The Beatles and Taylor Swift wouldn't be included. During the keynote, you could at least clearly see Taylor's newest video, Bad Blood, featured in the music video section.
They just mentioned they could be used in parallel. But I assume you will be limited or blocked completely when uploading Apple Music files to your cloud storage.
If their "extreme" is 320kbps MP3 like most, then Spotify is lower quality than Apple's standard 256 AAC (MP4).
I don't agree. I own all my music. I currently use Google Play Music (it's free). Downloading my music for offline use is dead simple. However I still must manually manage my music by uploading to their cloud service.
A streaming service eliminates that step, plus you can pin what you want for offline use. It's one less step. The difference of course is that you must pay for this convenience.
I currently have 5.5k songs pinned on my iPhone. Roughly half my collection. Spotify has a 3,333 song limit for offline use, so that's a deal breaker personally. If I were to ever jump over to a streaming service, they would have to offer unlimited offline usage. Rdio currently offers this. Remains to be seen if Apple Music will. Regardless I don't think people who emphasize offline use should necessarily focus their effort on manually managing their music.
One thing I don't see being addressed: if this is replacing iTunes then how will we access all our movies, TV shows, etc from a Mac? Will they be making a separate Videos app like iOS? And what about when I connect an iOS device for content management? I still sync a lot of content to my devices manually (especially videos on my iPad) and this release raises a lot of questions about how tasks that previously relied on iTunes will be managed going forward.
Bloomberg and the Verge both reported that it's NOT the full iTunes catalog.
They do have Taylor Swift but not The Beatles. Probably missing some other artists as well. I wonder if users will have any way to find out specifically what is missing before signing up.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/8/8745963/the-beatles-apple-music
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...s-to-own-music-again-and-everyone-is-a-target
Considering that the first 90 days are free, people should have plenty of time to decide if the catalog is up to par before deciding to actually switch.
True although it would be nice to be able to find out specifics without having to sign up.
Why are news outlets reporting that apple music doesn't have a "free" tier like the other big names?
Says clear as day on the website that if you don't have a membership you can still listen to beats 1.
I suppose beats 1 will revolve around what billboard top 100-ish type genres but nevertheless, it's free.
Says clear as day on the website that if you don't have a membership you can still listen to beats 1.
I suppose beats 1 will revolve around what billboard top 100-ish type genres but nevertheless, it's free.
Apple does own the Beats music app, so not sure why features that exist on Beats comes as a surprise or raises confusion. Beats is already a pretty good music app and a solid Spotify alternative. Apple is having Beats subscribers migrate to the new service. They aren't going to make you migrate and then take away an important feature like offline listening.