Apple Music is Finally Here
Is it ready for primetime?
Pretty much everyone I know was updating to iOS 8.4 this morning — and it wasn’t because they were psyched about iBooks improvements. Apple Music is finally alive and ready for use — but is it ready for primetime? And should Spotify, Pandora and Tidal be worried?
After choosing a plan and accepting the terms and conditions, you wind up on a screen with many bouncing pink bubbles, just like the old Beats app. It’s an odd choice, given that younger listeners seem to be trending away from thinking about music in genre categories, and the UX is also clunky — you’re asked to interact with both genres you like and dislike. It also drives home what a walled garden Apple Music is — rather than asking to connect to your socials and seeing what you like, you have to make the effort to pick genres. Music fans like me are fine with this, but I can see this being frustrating for a casual listener.
Once you’re finished with the bubbles, you’re asked to pick three artists based on bubble choices. I was familiar with all the artists I picked, but I can definitely see cases where people would be frustrated if they didn’t know some of the artists in the bubbles they were presented.
Mercifully, you’re done with the bubbles after this, and get a selection of playlists “For You.” I got a Japanese Fringe Rock playlist that I was pretty excited about, a Radiohead B-sides playlist that seems interesting, and a Flaming Lips playlist, as well as a bunch of album recommendations (Sonic Youth, Pixies, Liars). None of the albums were new, and a few were really old, making me think they’re going to serve up musical comfort food rather than discovery in this section.
Click over to “New” and you’ll see Taylor Swift’s 1989 front and center; it’s not technically a new record but it’s a sweet middle finger to Spotify. The new music album selection doesn’t seem curated at all and is just a bunch of new releases; scroll down even more to find “hot tracks” — why they qualify as hot is unclear. Then you get “recent releases” where I guess stuff that came out last week goes. Then “top songs” — unclear as to why these are “top” and not “hot.”
Also, this is a lot of scrolling.
Then there’s “Connect Video,” which features video of a few artists talking to the camera, and “Connect Audio” which features some tracks, for some reason. Then playlists. Then music videos. Then hot albums, one of which is from last year and one of which is a best-of. Then more playlists. Then “new artists.”
This is busy. It’s overwhelming and just too many choices. When you click on the playlists, you can choose genres of activities, and then playlists within those genres and activities. All are credited to “Apple Music [genre]” which seems impersonal and robotic — I’d much rather know Susan, who is an expert in a certain type of music and also loves biking, is putting together my playlists. You can scroll through playlists forever and just keep getting more options. The curator section offers media outlet playlists, some of which make sense (Rolling Stone, Pitchfork) and some less so (Vogue, Wired).
Despite announcing that Beats1 would launch an hour after the app went live, I was able to listen to it as soon as I downloaded Apple Music — and was treated to an hour of ambient Brian Eno tracks with a snippet of Zane Lowe testing his mic. Those of us in the know figured this out pretty quickly and even had a few Twitter giggles — but think of the average listener. If I’m Joe-on-the-street who thinks Beats1 sounds neat and I get drone and mic checks out of the gate, it’s not a great look. Given Apple’s perfectionism, it also seems weird and sloppy that they didn’t just launch everything at the same time or just toss up a decent playlist while we waited for Zane.
The one thing I noticed about the radio function, which has the potential to be killer, is that you can stream a few non-music channels as well. Right now I’m just seeing ESPN and WNYC, but I’d love more options, as well as the ability to listen to podcasts in the app.
If Apple can make this the app where I go to listen to everything,
that would be fantastic.
Finally, we get to Connect, which is a social network of sorts. I was served content from two of the artists I selected in the bubble game and got a live version of a Sonic Youth track and a video of FKA Twigs doing some choreography… OK. I tried to add other artists but wound up with an infinite loading circle. The lame Sonic Youth offering points to a larger problem — what to do with bands who aren’t together anymore and can’t produce viral content, or simply don’t want to. And how to offer content that is compelling and not available anywhere else, without going in the direction of exclusive tracks or video that’ll just wind up on YouTube five minutes later. Maybe an AmEx presale model for concert tickets in the app is an answer? Maybe the ability to chat with artists?
If you’ve been paying a shred of attention, you know that Apple Music was built by people who love music. Dr Dre, Jimmy Iovine, Trent Reznor, Ian Rogers, Dave Allen… all these guys have devoted their lives to making and promoting music. And that’s awesome. And it’s also Apple Music’s biggest flaw.
This is an app for crate diggers. It’s an app for people who want to scroll, dig deep, and put in some legwork. Personally, I really like it and can see myself using it — but I’m not sure about the silent majority. Apple has brought many things to the masses — it remains to be seen if streaming music is the next one.
What do you think about Apple Music? Please log in and respond below.
Follow Cortney Harding on Twitter @CortneyHarding
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