Nearly Half of Apple Music Users in U.S. No Longer Using Free Trial

[Wreckus]

For 10 bucks, you get a radio station with DJ's, a ton of other radio stations that you can listen to and add that song to your library if you like it, and then you got all the music you want.

To me, I'll spend 10 bucks every month for this service. IMO listening to beats 1 and finding artists & songs that I would never of listened to at all is worth the price.

 

[Noble Actual]

Spotify sucks big time and I cannot wait for spotify to be hacked and put out of business.

I don't trust their CEO and don't trust my credit card with them. Besides, if it weren't for the ad infested free option, spotify wouldn't be in business.

I rather people use Google music or MS Groove than spotify.

Umm.....

 

[FactVsOpinion]

I think the % who have turned off auto renewal is enlightening.

They had to actively seek out how to do it, i.e. turn it off. If that many went out of their way to turn it off, they must have really been disheartened by the service apple was providing.

I would agree, although it's only a guess, that most people looking to turn it off auto-renew probably won't keep AM, but that certainly does not mean everybody who turned it off won't.

I think a significant number of people went straight from signing up to deactivating the auto-renew.

Remember, the moment you sign up it tells you that you have to go to subscriptions to deactivate auto-renew. Those like me went straight from that confirmation window to deactivate auto-renew before even trying the service out.

If you want the estimate of how many will keep AM then go straight to the question that addresses it directly: the one about how likely people are to keep it. 60-something% said vey likely. Done!

 

[winston1236]

They released it too soon. Apple should've put another 3 months of work into it before releasing it so that people's first impression of it was favorable rather than experiencing it as a bug filled beta that leaves a long term negative impression.

Exactly. Tim is lucky there was a loyal iPhone fanbase to keep profits steady because otherwise he would have been booted by now.

 

[newdeal]

what I wanted to do was select some artists and have it make a station that plays only those artists like I can with slacker radio (for free). Unfortunately if that is possible I couldn't figure it out, I tried that bubble system to select artists but it didn't suggest all the ones I wanted so I started selecting ones I didn't want in hopes it would then suggest the ones I did which didn't work out, my station sucked and I went back to the free slacker radio station I have had set up for years

 

[Rigby]

Didn't sign up for the trial and kind of glad I didn't based on these comments and stuff my friends have said. Google Play Music has been getting better and better though. Love that I can store something like 75,000 audio files now. And not just songs but podcasts and radio shows as well.

One thing I don't like about Google Play Music is that they convert AAC files to MP3 when uploading, which causes a quality loss (tandem loss).

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

Apple Music is a fantastic service for real music fans. Apple Music is designed around discovery, which may appear as clutter but once you dig into it, you will find music from artists you would never have heard about otherwise. Beats 1 is also fantastic. Apple acquired the perfect DJs for Apple Music. This is the first time in a long time that I have been impressed by a new Apple service.

Zane?! Is that you??

 

[Flow39]

I don't know why everyone is complaining about Apple Music. It really isn't that hard to use or navigate. It had been almost flawless in my experience using it. I definitely will be continuing my subscription. The fact that it integrates my previously purchased music with all of the music I've downloaded for offline listening. And it is available on all my devices through iCloud Music Library. That's really the killer feature of Apple Music IMO.

 

[kcirtap00]

Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer to buy my music.

 

[Wreckus]

Umm.....

Sorry, but I hate spotify. I used it and it never worked right for me, especially importing my own tunes. Also, I found it a paint of finding new music that I would liked.

 

[X--X]

Nobody likes Apple Music?

Maybe that's because it's THE WORST MUSIC UI any company has ever done in the history of the world.

I can't even enjoy the music I bought on my iPhone anymore, because the music app is sooo horrible to use. This is the new Apple I guess, what a shame.

 

[JackieInCo]

I stayed on 8.3 on all my devices to avoid this mess. iTunes Radio all the way.

 

[gramtrax]

Spotify does one thing and does it well. That used to be what Apple did too, before it turned into a "we can do everything" giganticorp.

 

[navaira]

This is what happens when you task a graphic designer to craft user interfaces instead of, I don't know, an actual human interface designer.

I worked as a graphic designer for 15 years and I assure you no graphic designer was allowed anywhere near Apple Music's interface. I'm pretty sure it was "designed" by programmers/engineers. An intern would have done a better job. I am speaking only about the looks, not about the user experience, here.

Also, according to the story: "48% said they are no longer using the service and 61% reported they have turned off the auto-renewal subscription option in iTunes. [...] 64% of current users said they were "extremely" or "very likely" to pay for an Apple Music subscription following the free trial period" I am supposing that's 64% out of 52% [who didn't stop using AM] otherwise we've got some really interesting percentages going on Which would mean 61% disabled the auto-renewal, approx. 33% are extremely/very likely to pay for AM, and 6% haven't decided yet.

 

[johngordon]

I wish I could switch back to the old music app. It's too clunky and I can't do what I used to love. Why is there no option in my music to shuffle all songs by artist. Instead I have to click an album and can shuffle that album after selecting the fist song. Sometimes I only buy song. I'm pretty disappointed.

There is:

My Music > Library > Sort by Artist > Tap on artist > Shuffle

 

[LordBeelzebub]

I'm torn between Apple Music and the Slacker Radio service I pay for. Sound quality is good on both, good selection of songs to play on demand, create playlists, no commercials, etc. but when it comes to regular radio stations Skacker Radio has Apple Music beat by a land slide. For instance, in the Rock category, Slacker has a station dedicated to every era, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, to today's music. Apple has just one "Rock" station. What if I only want to listen to classic 70's Rock on Apple's service? Not possible.

I'm sure Apple is licensed to stream more music than any other, most of what they have in their entire library, but the one negative is lack of radio station offerings. I hope they beef that up.

 

[noty]

I was a Spotify subscriber since they launched in the US, also tried Rdio and Beats Music. I really like Apple Music and canceled my Spotify subscription. Sure it's rough around the edges but hopefully they work that stuff out.

To get more specific about why I chose Apple Music over the others

• To me, the playlists on Apple Music are way better than the stuff on Spotify. I'm sure there's some random guy out there that makes really good playlists on Spotify but I never found him.
• Beats 1. Yeah I know it's free but being able to add the music to my library within the app (or just tell Siri) is great. I also listen to the show replays a lot.
• Easily integrate my own music with Apple Music. Sure this can be done with Spotify but it doesn't automatically sync across all of my devices.

Also, a tip for anyone wants to get more out of Connect . Follow the editors and curators. They often post great timely playlists there.

The thing I miss most from Spotify is the playback syncing. It's kind of ridiculous that Apple didn't launch with a similar feature.

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

Didn't sign up for the trial and kind of glad I didn't based on these comments and stuff my friends have said. Google Play Music has been getting better and better though. Love that I can store something like 75,000 audio files now. And not just songs but podcasts and radio shows as well.

For them to cull over and then offer you targeted ads...

 

[corky5678]

It's an amazingly good deal. I just ask Siri to play any song I can think of and it plays through my car stereo. Better than a private DJ. 60% of the people just need to get a job.

 

[Nebulance]

They need to fix all the broken crap that borks users libraries and mismatches music and artwork. It's pretty sad that 60% of the people who tried don't want to renew. I am in that camp, because AM trainwrecked my music files.

I can attest to similar issues; all my artwork is messed up, and a band I follow sent out an email newsletter with a download to some live songs; I wanted to add it to my phone, and couldn't -- it didn't upload to iCloud Music Library. I had to disable the library on iTunes and iPhone, then I could manually choose artists/albums/etc in the iPhone's Music Settings panel in iTunes. What a mess!

 

[xero9]

For 10 bucks, you get a radio station with DJ's, a ton of other radio stations that you can listen to and add that song to your library if you like it, and then you got all the music you want.

To me, I'll spend 10 bucks every month for this service. IMO listening to beats 1 and finding artists & songs that I would never of listened to at all is worth the price.

Just an FYI.. Beats 1 doesn't require a subscription.

 

[LizKat]

"That's the disadvantage of not being the first mover in a market where very good services currently exist."

This is the issue. Good services currently exist. AM doesn't bring anything new or compelling to the table. It's just a music service like all the rest.

Well I sure left the auto-renew on. I like using AM in iTunes with its tabbed interfaces to my stuff and the Store. Plus no third pary software to wonder about. It lets me play entire albums as "previews" to figure out --over as long as a time frame as it takes-- whether I want to buy something. It solves the problem of tiring of some pop buys even when I love them at first. This way I buy the ones I'm still listening to once in awhile after say five months, and ditch the downloaded "rented" ones.

As usual when I get to mention of turning on iCloud music library, I have to add here that I'm doing the trial on a separate laptop with a dedicated iPod touch associated to it, and starting from an empty iTunes library on that machine, adding in only a few albums of my own stuff. There's no way I want to involve all my personal collections, their metadata, their playlists. So this separate route works out best for me.

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

I'll also have to see how good Apple Music is for Android, and then I'll see if its worth considering, since I also have Android devices. That should also give Apple time to get their stuff together and improve Apple Music.

They're trying to position Apple Music as another reason to switch to Apple hardware. I don't see an Android option coming soon.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Still using it and paying for it I guess people want more Taylor Swift.

 

[Wreckus]

Just an FYI.. Beats 1 doesn't require a subscription.

Your right, I just checked.

Still will pay the 10 bucks though. Love the service.