Trent Reznor Shares his Thoughts on Apple Music: 'The Experience is What Matters'

[dragje]

Tried my hardest to give it a good try today. Didn't work. Lots of minor things here and there, the worst complaints being about the long load times for songs and the terrible statusbar color/blending.

I agree.... I give it the positive of the doubt still sinds I've got three months free period to try everything out.... So far my experiences:

+ the white / light look and feel is very nice, much better then Spotify
+ the possibility to add your own cover art to a playlist is awesome
+ lot's of songs and albums but.... see also the "-"
+ suggestions based on your taste are pretty amazing, better then Spotify

- There is much to say about the user interface, which of many points things are not that positive. It takes a while to get used on how everything works and that's a bad thing since Apple "used" to simplify thing rather then to complicate things.
- not al albums or songs are there, even worse, some of the albums I used to listen to frequently are simply not there while on Spotify they are.... that's a huge minus
- Lack of radio stations, based on my taste I only got 1 electronic station listed, I rely on other platforms when dealing with radiostations which have much more to offer then Apple
- search on my device or within Apple Music Library is illustrated with two red looking bars, it's a minor thing but with all that empty space below it looks to me that this specific design element has been created in a rush...

I'm just playing with it for two days now so it's to early to give a final judgement, but it's clear that there are enough points for Apple to deal with.

 

[ds2000]

Yeah, I'm sure you know better than the greatest single figure in the last 20 years of American industrial rock.

Get that busch league nonsense out of here.

Edit: Seriously, do you even listen to music?

I'm glad you said it! While mainstream is pretty pants there are some incredible artists out there you just have to dig a little bit

 

[MH01]

Love that everyone is complaining about a $10 a month subscription service they are getting for free. By the time any of us pay a dime, the system should be a lot more stable.

That's okay, you are apologising for the implementation before any of us pay a dime nice work!

 

[kirky29]

Way too many annoyances for me, mainly with iTunes on the Mac. Syncing seems to be a mess, playlists seem to be difficult to manage and for the first time ever I've felt confused at an Apple product/service. Love hearts everywhere, add to library, add to playlist, no right clicking, slow loading, can't skip halfway through the song until its fully buffered...

I want to like it and ditch Spotify, I really do.

 

[MH01]

I'm glad you said it! While mainstream is pretty pants there are some incredible artists out there you just have to dig a little bit

Think about it, back in the days when mainstream was not pants? There were no incredible artists? Id argue and say there were many more. There is no way the music quality bar has not fallen a long way!

 

[aberrero]

One of the many, many, annoying things about this is that when you "heart" a song on BeatsRadio, it hearts Beats Radio, not the song that is currently playing.

And Soundcheck, instead of reducing the volume on compressed songs, compresses well-mastered songs to sound like crap.

It is so sad that we don't have a music player that can match what Foobar2000 could do, because the entire industry just spent the past decade trying to get DRM working properly instead of on improving sound quality.

 

[Liquidmuse3]

Simplest complaint ever (especially for an "on the go" experience)---when I click a tile, the damn thing should play, period. Right now, that's not the case, and that is an abomination. Plus, that little strip of "now playing" that blends in with the rest if the UI, awful. And for a design-obsessed company, why is half the "playing now" screen "banal frost", and not album art?

 

[Liquidmuse3]

One of the many, many, annoying things about this is that when you "heart" a song on BeatsRadio, it hearts Beats Radio, not the song that is currently playing.

And Soundcheck, instead of reducing the volume on compressed songs, compresses well-mastered songs to sound like crap.

It is so sad that we don't have a music player that can match what Foobar2000 could do, because the entire industry just spent the past decade trying to get DRM working properly instead of on improving sound quality.

My favourite thing about Beats Radio is the logo has a "play" insignia, but if you intuitively hit it, the damn thing doesn't play. WTH.

 

[ninethirty]

"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I didn't say poor I said convoluted -- the twisted winding maze meaning.

Reznor expressed a desire to not have software that "delivered assests". There is a way to display and share the music with just sterile efficient lists to deliver assests which I think he is against. I think they opted for an interface that feels dense, full of artist updates, album art, drop downs, tons of options for sharing / discovery and the live radio station for a shared cultural experience which isn't so common these days within asynchronous content on demand. There is purposeful intent to increase cognitive load and make it seem jam packed with twists and turns. That feels exciting like a show with 5 story arcs interweaving. That caters to the two friends in study hall sharing a left and right earbud queuing up what's next after what's next. It does all this while preserving the dead simple option for the guy driving who just wants to focus on the road holds down the button for Siri and asks for a song.

 

[filmantopia]

Yeah, I'm sure you know better than the greatest single figure in the last 20 years of American industrial rock.

Get that busch league nonsense out of here.

Edit: Seriously, do you even listen to music?

I don't think I would be able to respond to Benjaman Frost's comment without it getting removed by moderators.

 

[elvislives]

MEMO TO MR. REZNOR:

There is almost no music of quality that has been produced in the last twenty years. Therefore, people are content to stream it for free rather than pay for it.

.

HAHA your a funny guy!

 

[jotwee]

The UI is horrible. Definitely prefer spotify right now. But, I've got 3 months to get used to it and give a real try. Some songs on the "Hot Tracks" won't even play without three clicks. Horrible.

i don't understand all the complaining and whining. I really love the UI/UX of the new Music app. This is exactly what I wanted, and what I need

 

[dumastudetto]

Apple has definitely nailed it. Yes there are some bugs and annoyances, yesterday my iTunes sync broke completely (fixed now), and I've had some hitches streaming Beats 1, but overall I find the Apple Music experience exhilarating and captivating. It's the place to be if you love music.

 

[darkknight14]

The UI is horrible. Definitely prefer spotify right now. But, I've got 3 months to get used to it and give a real try. Some songs on the "Hot Tracks" won't even play without three clicks. Horrible.

I thought this was just me and my WIFI / 4G connection, it's certainly not as fluent as Spotify (but I know this will be fixed in time).

 

[darkknight14]

iTunes Connect is so pointless for the people that matter 'users' - It's a boring and uninspiring attempt that just tastes like Ping.

That being my only negative of the service, I am really enjoying the mixture of my personal library and streaming. Well done to Apple and the team on no launch day blunders

 

[a-bob]

Sorry Trent, you lost me at "tentpoles". Typical corporate-speak. That world is the downward spiral I thought you were writing about...now you're part of it.

 

[iConnected]

I totally loved suggestions for my favorites View attachment 565718

I would assume that the process is designed to help establish what you do and don't like.

They can't do that as quickly or effectively if they only ever suggest closely similar artists.

 

[D-Dave]

Maybe I am completely alone on this one...but I realy do not care the least bit about a "social network component", following artists by default (don't even care to find out what this is about), a clusterfu... of an interface and much more which, in an ideal world, should just be the easiest and most efficient way to play my music...
This whole deal feels a lot like the Microsoft media player...which I always replaced with something slim like the early versions of winamp...great, apple is starting to be more microsoftish then Microsoft is these days...

 

[DakotaGuy]

I swear "curation" and all forms of it is one of the most overused words in the past few years. I wonder how long Apple will be curating their obsession with curation?

 

[navaira]

My experience has been crap.

To begin with, because I live in the Netherlands, the bubbles offered me a bazillion of Dutch artists I have no interest in. (And Taylor Swift. I think EVERYBODY got Taylor Swift, even if they picked Metal and Classical as the only genres.) After 10 minutes of clicking away Dutch artists and waiting for some of my actual favourites I gave up and went further.

Then I discovered that "Genius results cannot be updated right now". My Genius is switched off. Googling made me find out this actually means my library is over 25k items. (It is.) It means I can't download anything for offline use.

Then I discovered Janet Jackson's Control was recorded in 1913, and on Mike Oldfield's Two Sides half of the tracks are unplayable (greyed out). Titles are teeny-tiny and surrounded by loads of white space. Because why make them legible.

And then I clicked For You and I was recommended this:

"Mani-Pedi Party: A girls night in deserves an epic playlist, and this girl-power collection gets it right."

I am a big bearded bloke.

If the experience is what matters, then perhaps a graphic designer should look at the UI, someone should fix the error messages, albums should be possible to play as a whole and offline listening should work with libraries over 25k songs. That would give me a much better experience. (I'm willing to overlook "Mani-Pedi Party", but it would be nice if I could click "show me less of that".) As of now, my experience is that Spotify is way better. Although of course I will miss out on an exclusive Pharrell single, oh dear.

 

[johngordon]

There is almost no music of quality that has been produced in the last twenty years. Therefore, people are content to stream it for free rather than pay for it.

This is simply untrue.

Its the sort of thing someone a bit older might say if they made the mistake of thinking that chart based pop music was all music.

Fact is, there's still a ton of good music out there.

Obviously good music is better than bad music, however you want to subjectively define those terms. What Trent is clearly saying is that all the services essentially have the same catalogue of music, but what can differentiate the those services is the experience of how they are consumed.

His analogy of going into a store with everything in boxes you could look through, rather than going into a store where you might find a human who might share your tastes and so can better point you in the direction of music unbeknown to you that you might also like is a good one.

It has been interesting reading some articles about Apple Music, where the writer has basically been baffled by Beats 1 as not being something they would look for in a streaming service. But that seems to completely miss the point - Apple Music is not a streaming service, its a music service, and as such Beats 1 is a hugely important part of that IMO.

A good example was when Ebro played the Kanye / Jay-Z track with the Otis Reading sample, and then played the original Otis track - something that would never happen with a computer created playlist as they'd be categorised in different genres.

Plus the whole thing about the radio being a collective, shared experience - a lot of people might not care, but I think enough will still buy into that as a worthwhile aspect of Apple music. As someone who has listened to Zane in the UK for years, what I have heard from Beats 1 so far it is everything I hoped it would be, and can see myself listening to it a lot.

 

[Dougie83]

Apple can keep their music. There are lots of places for free, legal music without using iTunes. I like my Mac and iPhone but not Apple as a company with its unethical business practices building their business success on the backs of cheap foreign labour and i definitely do not like Tim Cook.

 

[xlost6]

Apple can keep their music. There are lots of places for free, legal music without using iTunes. I like my Mac and iPhone but not Apple as a company with its unethical business practices building their business success on the backs of cheap foreign labour and i definitely do not like Tim Cook.

What?

But yet your still using the products that these "cheap foreign labour" workers work on.

You are still contributing to this factor.

 

[navaira]

I don't think Apple Music of all things has been built on cheap foreign labour (perhaps the interface has been outsourced...)

 

[Creibold]

Trent, it appears the user experience you believe this app to have is directly proportional to the money Apple paid you to say it.