On June 30th, Apple launched Apple Music in the very crowded music streaming space currently dominated by two big names: Spotify and Pandora. Per its usual M.O., Apple joined an established space with intent to dominate. From their beachhead, Apple’s employed the full frontal assault of an unprecedented 3-month free trial for all iTunes / iOS users (switching to $9.99 per month afterwards).

I have raved about Spotify’s Premium service (also $9.99 / month) in the past. Like many other Spotify subscribers, I represent the most entrenched bastion to oppose the Apple takeover, since we’re the one who’ve actually made a choice to pay for a music service for years. On the other hand, newbies to streaming music services will likely be unable to resist the Apple machine.

Since D-Day has arrived, these are my first impressions of the mobile and desktop versions of Apple Music.

Setup

For the first several hours after launch, I—and many other users—were unable to upgrade iTunes to version 12.2 to make use of the new Apple Music additions. While waiting for that, I downloaded iOS 8.4 and the new, colorful Apple Music appeared on my iPhone.

I clicked on Apple Music and got the splash page. But nothing happened. Oops. Seemed like just everybody in the world was pretty much trying to access Apple Music!

(l.) Beats Music vs. (r.) Apple Music

After closing out and reopening the app, Apple Music started with a personalization screen for the “For You” section (i.e. customized playlists). It’s very reminiscent of (i.e. exactly the same as) the former Beats Music service (reviewed last year) that was bought out by Apple.

During this brief setup, you select your favorite styles of music and artists on floating red circles so that Apple will know exactly what horrible music you listen to. You are then matched up with some human-curated playlists and music selections that are arranged in a similar manner to the old Beats service.

UI (Mobile)

If you’ve used the iOS Music app anytime before, then using Apple Music is easy. Apple Music has been elegantly integrated into the Music app. It’s mostly intuitive although occasionally cluttered or overwhelming. (But face it, Spotify users, so is Spotify—it comes with the territory.)

The ever-updating and responsive “For You” section reminds me of Google Music’s playlists based on mood and time of day. If you’re not sure what to play, it’s a good place to start.

Under search, you can find music videos from artists, which is a nice feature that Google Music also employs via YouTube.

The three dots in the bottom right corner of a now playing screen or next to a song in a playlist are your friend. Clicking the three dots makes it easy to create a station from a song, to share a song via text, Facebook or Twitter, to make a song available online or to add a song to a custom playlist.

iTunes Radio is still around, but it’s now pushed below Beats 1, the live radio station that’s the centerpiece of the whole enterprise and showcases Apple’s endless bags of money. You can look up the schedule to see future celebrity DJs (Dr. Dre! Elton John!) and regular DJ hours, as well as other special programming.

Connect—the section where artists can connect with fans via Twitter-like updates—is clearly in its infancy at this point. Out of 60+ artists that I’m following, I saw three on the Connect page. It’s too early to tell if Connect will meet the same fate as the infamous Ping, but don’t hold your breath.

The features that streaming music users want are all here, but there’s nothing, well, groundbreaking here.

Gimme Siri!

But don’t forget Siri. Yes, Siri integration IS cool, and it’s enough of a differentiator versus Spotify that will give Apple Music an edge.

In case you forgot, hold down the Home button for a second to call up Siri. Tell Siri to “Play [Insert Artist Who Doesn’t Embarrass You]” and, after a few seconds, Siri will dutifully respond with a random song from that artist. Siri can do other playback duties and searches with solid results, like if you want to “Play Darth Vader’s theme” on demand or “Play Dance Music” when you’re ready to get down. There’s great potential with Siri in the future.

Oh, There’s a Desktop Version, Too

Although it arrived about 7 hours after I expected to use it, I was able to upgrade to iTunes 12.2 on launch day and discovered that iTunes still looked like… iTunes.

iTunes is the one thing about Apple that people love to hate, and it’s the sort of app that tries to please all people and ends up pleasing no one.

In keeping with that theme, Apple chose to make the Apple Music experience a straightforward port onto iTunes. There’s nothing about the desktop version that makes it specially distinct from the mobile version. Even the “Connect” desktop section looks like it’s optimized for mobile.

The good thing about the desktop version is you can have your entire library with you. (But seriously you already had that before with iTunes… smiley-face emoji.)

Thoughts for Now

It’s free for three months, folks. It won’t hurt to try it. Will people continue to pay for Spotify or other services while testing Apple Music? Apple is betting many won’t.

If the monthly fee were cheaper than Spotify or Google Music—and Apple tried to do that but were stopped by the music industry—then you might expect a huge exodus from competitors, because I think Apple Music is on par with the best-in-class Spotify.

But we all get used to a certain thing and get—let’s face it—a little lazy, so people are less likely to change services when the price is the same.

Also, most services pretty much have all the same songs, so until you get the Balkanization that you see with original programming on video streaming services, that’s not going to be a big deal maker or breaker for people.

Having your music library integrated with Apple Music is nice, but only if you have a lot of obscure material that’s not found on music services. If you’ve been using iTunes Match (your music library in the cloud), that’s sort of redundant at this point.

My sense is Apple has gotten the timing right just as there’s a groundswell movement toward streaming music. I think Apple Music has leapfrogged current contenders like Pandora, Rdio, Amazon Prime Music, Google Music, Slacker Radio and everyone else… except Spotify. That’s where the real battle will take place.

Apple Music: One Service to Rule Them All?

The on-demand streaming music space, which I last visited last fall for my Slacker Radio review, has gotten as crowded as a Bonnaroo mosh pit.

Beats Music, part of the popular Beats brand recently acquired by Apple for a cool $3 billion, launched earlier this year and has already amassed over 20 million tracks. With backing from Apple and industry connections via founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, Beats Music is well-positioned to challenge streaming stalwarts such as Spotify and Pandora.

Beats Music (l.), meet iTunes (r.)

But it will be an uphill battle—right now the pay-only Beats Music service has less than 300,000 subscribers. Spotify? 10 million paying subscribers and counting. Nonetheless, Beats Music should eventually be able to leverage Apple’s user base, and then it will be a totally different ball game.

With that in mind, newbie Prime Music is ahead of the curve. Released just last week, Amazon’s on-demand, ad-free music service has a huge user base—Amazon is believed to have about 20 million Prime subscribers.

Prime Music currently has just one million tracks, which seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the 20 million-plus song catalogs of Spotify, Rdio and Beats Music. But for $99 a year, Amazon Prime members get free two-day shipping, streaming movies and TV shows and free ebooks in addition to the streaming music. It’s a compelling value proposition, and as we’ve seen in the past, it works.

I’m one of those millions of paying Spotify subscribers, and I’ve been pretty satisfied with the service from the start (see my review). While it may difficult to pry current subscribers away from their respective music services, I believe it’s still early in the game and the landscape could change.

I’ve had some time to play around with Beats Music and Prime Music. Let’s see if they’re worth all the hype.

Beats Music

It may now be owned by Apple, but let’s get one thing out of the way: Beats Music is definitely not iTunes Radio. Aside from the on-demand music (a big plus), Beats has a different aesthetic than Apple and iTunes, which is probably why the acquisition came as a surprise to so many.

Beats Music, like the popular Beats headphones, is all bold colors (red and black) and big buttons and text. iTunes still reflects the understated and streamlined Jony Ive look.

Although it’s a pay-only service, Beats Music offers a 14-day free trial and a sweet 3-month free trial for AT&T Wireless subscribers. Like Spotify Premium, a monthly subscription costs 10 bucks. The day after Apple bought Beats, the yearly rate dropped from $120 to $100. Spotify currently doesn’t offer a discounted yearly rate.

New Beats Music users must first start their account on the mobile app. Because the emphasis is on human-curated music, you select three favorite music genres and three favorite artists. Based on your initial choices, you’ll be presented with some playlists that have been put together by the Beats Music editorial staff, some of whom you may recognize from music publications like Pitchfork. You can also continue to like or dislike songs which will sharpen the music personalization.

Once you’ve gotten your account started on the mobile app, you can use the web player on your PC browser. I liked the design of the web player a bit more; you can tell a lot of thought went into how it works and looks.

The web player and mobile app had some mildly frustrating UI differences. For now, you can only create playlists and access your song library on the mobile app, although that access is “coming soon” for the web player.

Still, adding individual tracks, playlists or albums to your library and making them available offline on the mobile app were fairly easy. You simply press the big “+” button to find those options. The only limit to your offline storage is the amount of storage left on your mobile device. Well, technically, there’s a 15,000-track limit for your library, but you’re gonna run out of storage first. (Under settings, you can check how much room you have and how much you’ve downloaded.)

The full player screen features an oversized circular red ribbon known as “The Scrubber.” I didn’t like how it obscured the cover art, but it’s easy to fast forward or rewind by dragging your finger clockwise or counter-clockwise on it.

Overall, I think Beats Music is a compelling service that rivals Spotify and Rdio not only in catalog size but in the total music listening experience. They have gotten many little details right, from the carefully selected playlists to an intuitive UI. For new users not currently subscribing to any service, Beats Music is definitely worth checking out.

For Spotify users, in particular, there may not be enough overall difference to switch services, unless you take into consideration the lower annual rate and the promise of more Beats Music-exclusive tracks like the recently released Jay-Z remix of “Jungle.”

Prime Music

As I mentioned earlier, Prime Music has one million tracks, mostly from the Warner and Sony Music catalogs, in addition to independents. One very big label (read: the biggest) not currently represented is Universal Music Group, which means you’re missing out on Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, U2 and, yes, Elvis among many others. But, hey, you get Pink and One Direction!

In all likelihood, you’ll probably see Universal on Prime Music at some point. Just not now. There’s also this little six-month delay on new releases, but then let’s look at the bigger picture. As part of the $99 Amazon Prime membership, Prime Music is clearly not the main attraction, but it could be one day. (Case in point: Amazon Instant Video has grown by leaps and bounds and now features exclusive content licensing agreements like the recently added HBO shows.)

Prime Music represents, in some ways, an evolution of the Amazon MP3 store and Cloud Player. All three are now under the new Amazon Music umbrella. In addition to the one million tracks of on-demand music, you also have all your Amazon MP3 music purchases and automated digital rips of CDs you purchased from Amazon since 1998—that can be haunting—in your music library. You can also import music from your PC library with a separate app download.

The web player is integrated into the Amazon store, so while the design may not be as slick as Beats Music, Amazon scores points for familiarity. Searching for tracks is very easy, plus you also get playlists from real people a la Beats Music. However, you have to add a track or album to your library first before you can listen to it, which is kind of annoying. At least you can play music right away on the mobile app.

I thought the Amazon Music mobile app was generally well thought out save for one frustrating aspect: the very circuitous process to download individual tracks for offline listening. In fact, after I downloaded a single album track once, I was not able to repeat the feat for other individual tracks. Downloading full albums or playlists was easy to do, so this issue just seems to be a bug or oversight that will be corrected hopefully sooner than later.

Also, there was no system in place to like/dislike songs similar to Beats Music, although Amazon has shown in the past that they’re quite adept at user personalization.

Prime Music won’t be your go-to music streaming service, but it’s a good start. Plus, for non-Prime members, there’s a generous 30-day free trial.

Beats Music: 8/10

Amazon Prime Music: 6/10

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