Seeing all the horror stories interspersed with "everything works for me" made me wonder: how many people actually find AM a perfectly fine service, and how many aren't all that happy?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How would you judge your overall experience with Apple Music?
- Thread starter navaira
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm not happy but it is useable. On the phone it works reasonably well but the interface is now more cluttered and less intuitive.
On the desktop the problems are more serious - very slow to organise music (spinning beach balls when deleting tracks), playlist issues, ratings going missing and the usual iTunes Match related slowness.
The worst thing is the recommendations and apple music integration that feels it invades my space, my music collection that I want to organise. I feel like the suggestions are patronising if not wrong, and as I have wide tastes and an international music collection I get endless suggestions of music by predictable big names I just don't want.
I feel you should be able to choose whether you want this stuff or not, and have a customisable interface with all of this turned off (I know you can do this to some extent).
On the desktop the problems are more serious - very slow to organise music (spinning beach balls when deleting tracks), playlist issues, ratings going missing and the usual iTunes Match related slowness.
The worst thing is the recommendations and apple music integration that feels it invades my space, my music collection that I want to organise. I feel like the suggestions are patronising if not wrong, and as I have wide tastes and an international music collection I get endless suggestions of music by predictable big names I just don't want.
I feel you should be able to choose whether you want this stuff or not, and have a customisable interface with all of this turned off (I know you can do this to some extent).
Agreed. No matter how many times I have told AM that I don't like their suggestions, it gets worse. I am presented with even more of them. It's extremely aggravating having to scroll past all of those unwanted suggestions just to get to something that I would be interested in. For this reason alone, I don't think I will be paying for AM when my free trial runs out.
So far pretty happy. Listening to "The A List Alternative" now and like the mix, added a few songs to a new playlist "Apple" with no problem and they immediately appeared on my iPhone (listening through iTunes). Everything seems to be working as expected although there may be some things amiss that I haven't discovered. Overall, can't complain.
After some very major initial problems resulting in my basically having to re create my entire iTunes library, i'd actually say now I'm really happy with it and will definitely be keeping my subscription once the trial finishes. (Worth nothing, all said issues were actually to do with iCloud Photo Library on my Macbook and not actually to do with the Apple Music streaming service).
Let's just say I went back to Spotify... right away.
I'm meh. It seems to work fine, but I'm not a fan of the downloading for offline play. I have 6gb of data to share with the rest of my family, so I can't go using data willy nilly. I'm also still figuring out streaming music. I never used Spotify, so it's taking some getting used to. I'd gotten so used to syncing a few playlists and having a small selection of music on my phone and my full library on my Mac and iPod Classic.
The only problems I have with Apple Music is not having any of my hearts (from liking a song or playlist) carry over from iTunes to iOS. I also don't like how short most of the playlists are. I do not really have a big problem with how Apple Music was setup, as I am one of those people who can just pick something up and know how to use it within 5 minutes, so I could do with or without a revamped interface.
I absolutely plan to stick with Apple Music, after my free trial runs out as long as I do not run into any deal breakers that I have been hearing about all over the place. I am in love with how I can automatically add any song in Apple Music's library, into my own personal library as if it were purchased. The integration is key with Apple Music, and you can't really find it anywhere else. Yes, you can download Spotify but then you have to alternate between the Music app and Spotify just to listen to your purchased songs and your streamed songs. With Apple Music, you get it all in one package.
I absolutely plan to stick with Apple Music, after my free trial runs out as long as I do not run into any deal breakers that I have been hearing about all over the place. I am in love with how I can automatically add any song in Apple Music's library, into my own personal library as if it were purchased. The integration is key with Apple Music, and you can't really find it anywhere else. Yes, you can download Spotify but then you have to alternate between the Music app and Spotify just to listen to your purchased songs and your streamed songs. With Apple Music, you get it all in one package.
I've tried Spotify and Apple Music as I wanted to see which would be the best streaming service for me.
I've had (and still have issues with AM) but overall I am prepared to put up with these (for the time been) as I find Apple Music has more useful features etc than I find with Spotify.
An issue that I am currently having with Apple Music is Beats radio and ALL the other featured stations give the "UNABLE TO START" message when they are selected. I've had this issue for the last 3 days and also had the same issue at the time of Apple Music launching. Is anyone else having this issue in the UK?
I've had (and still have issues with AM) but overall I am prepared to put up with these (for the time been) as I find Apple Music has more useful features etc than I find with Spotify.
An issue that I am currently having with Apple Music is Beats radio and ALL the other featured stations give the "UNABLE TO START" message when they are selected. I've had this issue for the last 3 days and also had the same issue at the time of Apple Music launching. Is anyone else having this issue in the UK?
Since I couldn't enable iCloud, my biggest issues are:
* inaccurate For You recommendations
* broken search in My Music
* trying to start a station from My Music song/artist simply stops the music and does nothing else (I found out it works when I click an Apple Music song/artist)
* the ever-changing interface (see here)
* inability to download anything for offline listening
* no Android app (this might be a good thing)
My library is intact, although yesterday I discovered a playlist I made of my own music to burn it to CD has inexplicably turned into one random Texas song. But it's not a massive issue and I could theoretically have done it by myself.
* inaccurate For You recommendations
* broken search in My Music
* trying to start a station from My Music song/artist simply stops the music and does nothing else (I found out it works when I click an Apple Music song/artist)
* the ever-changing interface (see here)
* inability to download anything for offline listening
* no Android app (this might be a good thing)
My library is intact, although yesterday I discovered a playlist I made of my own music to burn it to CD has inexplicably turned into one random Texas song. But it's not a massive issue and I could theoretically have done it by myself.
The actual "Apple Music" part itself is great. I've had almost no issues with it. The huge problems arise when it comes to handling your library and the iCloud Music Library. THAT has been traumatic.
If the scores were converted to star system from 1-5, the average is 2.98 so far. And yes, I meant the whole experience of iTunes 12.2.1 with AM enabled and iCloud integration. Perhaps I should have rephrased the topic title.
I'd give it a 5/5. I was and still am an iTunes Match subscriber as well. On day one I updated my iPad and iPhone and uses Apple music only on those devices. No issues whatsoever and I love the service. A few days ago I updated iTunes on my PC (again with iTunes Match as well). No problems at all there either. The whole experience has been 100% flawless for me. I love the new music app and how things are arranged. The service itself is 2nd to none. And yes I use to use Spotify. I also think the new iTunes is really good as well. Much much faster and more responsive, and overall it has a more polished look in my opinion. So yea, overall I give the whole Apple Music experience a 5/5 no brainer.
If that was supposed to be a 1-5 star vote, then your questions don't read like that. I voted that there are some bugs, but nothing extremely serious but if I were pressed for a numerical score, I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5. Overall I like the service a lot. The recommendations work well for me, I love that I can integrate everything into my existing collection and no longer have to manage libraries through two services. The bugs I have run into are mostly to do with adding stuff to my library doesn't always sync across devices immediately, and then I've had it duplicate the same album once it does, not downloading an album when I tell it to, and some weird behavior when connected to my car's head unit. Otherwise, there are some poor UI implementations, but as I've learned my way around I'm getting pretty used to it. It's not like Spotify isn't without its own (numerous) UI quirks.
I've had a couple of minor issues but overall I'm very happy with AM and definitely prefer it to spotify, deezer, etc.
Sorry, but you fell pray to the classic pole fail. Your 'answers' are variations on YOUR subjective impressions of how it works. Just about everyone does that. However you should just offer 5 rankings (like Stars) and let each person give their own impression of what it is like.
It wasn't really meant to be a star rating, I just said that if it was, this would be the average. Should I delete that post?
Of course not. I was just pointing out that ''your" answers don't give an accurate or complete answer to each individual's experience. I voted "Some bugs..." which appears to be the 2ed worst experience (2). However in a 1-5 ratting I would give it a 4 (although it is really about a 3.5 to me).
So far I like it, there are enough positives to make me want to keep it around. Going with the family sharing package (will split the cost that way).
Right now my biggest issue is when I leave AM to play a podcast or a video and then go back to it. it does not just pick up where I left off.
Right now my biggest issue is when I leave AM to play a podcast or a video and then go back to it. it does not just pick up where I left off.
On that note, it sure would be nice if my various devices would pick up wherever I left off from the last device. ie. I listen from my computer at work, when my phone connects in the car, I'd like it to just continue playing from where I last left off. I guess at times that'd be annoying, but overall it seems like the kind of thing that should happen, at least optionally.
I'm with the other 46.9%.... it could be better. but so far, so good... a few albums/songs missing, but sine their not always on the iTunes Store anyway, i guess that kind of makes up for it. but ya, i would of wasted hundreds of $$$ if i had to actually buy these albums. 
,so Apple Music is really saving me money...
Of course I'd save even more if i never used it .... (that may come one day)
,so Apple Music is really saving me money...Of course I'd save even more if i never used it .... (that may come one day)
I'm actually digging it.
On a one to ten scale, I'd give it a solid eight.
It has me enjoying music more than before, a sure sign that it suits me fine!
On a one to ten scale, I'd give it a solid eight.
It has me enjoying music more than before, a sure sign that it suits me fine!
The music part is perfect. I ditched Spotify which is included in my cellphone plan. The interface lets me discover music and the playlists are finally usable. In Spotify I was constantly lost trying to find something I would like.
What I hate is the sync part. It first killed my iTunes library. After rebuilding it I had to manually upload the songs to the service. Now everything was perfect until I tried to listen to a few songs in an iPad (I only use iPods for that).
I have 76 Bon Jovi albums (don't ask) and most of them are live concerts. Turns out even if the lenght is way different it decided to match the songs with the normal regular song.When you select it it shows the extended time but as soon as it starts playing the time modififes itself and shows the lenght of the normal song... and plays the normal song...
What I hate is the sync part. It first killed my iTunes library. After rebuilding it I had to manually upload the songs to the service. Now everything was perfect until I tried to listen to a few songs in an iPad (I only use iPods for that).
I have 76 Bon Jovi albums (don't ask) and most of them are live concerts. Turns out even if the lenght is way different it decided to match the songs with the normal regular song.When you select it it shows the extended time but as soon as it starts playing the time modififes itself and shows the lenght of the normal song... and plays the normal song...
I'm enjoying it thus far, but it certainly could be better. The playlists that have been recommended to me are pretty much music that I have already purchased via iTunes. I have discovered a new band or two through Apple Music. However for the time being, Spotify will continue to get my $10/month. I'll probably reassess Apple Music in about a year or so.