What is Apple Music?

Apple Music launched in 2015. The Apple Music service not only lets you stream any track from the iTunes catalog on demand. It also gives you access to all your music in one place on all your devices. Whether it’s purchased from iTunes, ripped from CD, or downloaded from Apple Music. the web.

The streaming service also offers recommendations tailored to your interests, Internet radio (in the form of the Apple Music 1 (formerly Beats 1) radio station, among others). The ability to save music to your device to watch, listen to without connection, expertly curated playlists.

Mac and PC users will also need to update to the latest version of iTunes, which you can do from this Apple support page. Meanwhile, Android users can go to this support page to learn more about how to get Apple Music working on their phones.

The Basics

Like Spotify, Apple Music offers millions of songs streaming on demand. At the moment, Apple offers a three-month free trial. After the trial period, the service will cost you $10 per month for the individual plan or $15 per month for a family plan for up to six members. Students will pay $5 per month. While a new $5 “Voice” plan has just been announced. Supposedly designed to optimize the features of the Siri voice assistant.

Available in late October. It lacks premium features like spatial audio, lossless audio, lyrics and music videos, but the Voice plan may prove to be a desirable level for savvy subscribers. Finally, Apple also offers a lesser-known $99 annual plan, which will save you $21 a year, and if you’re looking for a new Apple device, like the new AirPods 3, you can get six months of Apple Music for free.

The Music

compressed file type that has significant technical advantages over the similar but older MP3. Although these AAC files are of good quality for most people, they are not considered high resolution, nor “lossless”, meaning that, in theory, they will not sound as good as CD quality. To better compete with lossless music providers (described below), in June of this year. Apple launched Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio at no additional cost to subscribers.

Apple’s entire library of more than 90 million songs has been remastered. Hence the Atmos experience. It’s available in Apple’s lossless format. Which the company says is a playback that preserves the quality of the original recording. Keep in mind, however, that lossless streaming will require much more data and hard drive space during download. There are a few things you should know to maximize your listening experience.

They tout the sonic advantages of their lossless, hi-res FLAC files (available at their more expensive optional subscription levels). Which they claim are an improvement over all lossy formats, including AAC, regardless of how these AAC files were created. All that, and Apple Music offers curated playlists, 24/7 live radio stations, and even a tailored version of iTunes Match, which lets you store up to 100,000 songs in the cloud.

Five ways to play

The original Apple Music format was a bit confusing for some users. Moreover some of the features available at launch. (like Connect, a place where artists can share directly with fans) have since been removed. The result is a much cleaner and easier to navigate user interface.

The Music app has five individual sections: Library, Listen Now, Browse, Radio, and Search. At the bottom of the app. The Now Playing window is always visible, so you’re never more than a click away from skipping tracks or sharing a song. Each section allows you to access your music and music from the Apple Music service in a different way. This is how they work:

Library

The important thing to remember is that if you subscribe to Apple Music, you don’t need to pay for iTunes Match as well; actually, it’s included in Apple Music. As with services like Spotify, once you’ve added a track or album to your library from Apple Music, you’ll see a cloud plus a down arrow icon that will allow you to download it for offline listening (as long as you keep your Apple Music account up to date). AppleMusic). subscription).

Listen Now

Formerly known as “For You” before the iOS 14 update. Listen Now is more or less the same idea: offering music suggestions based on your tastes and listening habits. When you first log in, you’ll be presented with a series of questions and selections. To help you identify your musical tastes, starting with genres like rock, classic rock, jazz, and hip-hop. Nothing you do here is permanent; you can change it at any time.

The result is a series of personalized suggestions that aim to display music from Apple’s collection that you might like. These suggestions range from albums in the genres you’ve shown an interest in to themed playlists based on the time of day. We hit the Listen Now tab around 3:30 p.m.

Browse

Unlike the traditional navigation sections in streaming music apps, which focus exclusively on being able to explore content through categories such as artist or genre. , Apple Music navigation is more reminiscent of the company’s App Store home page: handpicked suggestions that help you discover something new from that massive 50-million-track music vault.

What stands out will depend in part on your listening habits and tastes, but like the Listen Now section, it also has a time component.

Radio

Your Apple Music subscription includes access to Apple Music 1, the company’s live radio station staffed by music-savvy DJs. Like Live TV, Apple Music 1 programming is a 24/7 collection of shows that you can listen to live or on-demand after they air. The Music app’s Radio section is where you can find this live and on-demand Apple Music 1 content, but it’s also home to Apple Music’s selection of genre-based radio stations, like Pop Workout, which we mentioned earlier. These genre radio stations are much like terrestrial radio in that the music keeps playing as long as you keep listening to it, but of course there are no commercials or live DJs.

class="wp-block-heading">Search

This one is simple: just type whatever you want into the search field, whether it’s a song, an artist, an album, the name of a radio station, or even a few lines of lyrics you heard when you were out with friends. If there is a match in your collection or Apple Music Vault (including radio content), it will appear here. If you’re curious about what other Apple Music users are searching for, this tab will display a trending list similar to Twitter, but without the hashtags.

But for a truly rewarding search experience, try using Siri. You can request a variety of things related to Apple Music, such as “Play Niki Minaj” or just “play something lively”, and the Music app will diligently respond with personalized playlists based on your request.

Now Playing

The Now Playing window allows you to control the playback of the current track. It’s more than just play/pause and skip forward and backward. Showing the full-screen version of the window shows the track’s album cover. But the real magic is in the three-dot popup menu below the volume slider. Tapping on these three dots gives you a host of additional options.

Play on the Web

In September 2019, Apple released its web interface for those who want to play without their phone or those who can’t access a PC with Apple Music or iTunes installed.

Play music on your Apple Watch

Whether you’re running, working out, or traveling, Apple Watch is a convenient way to play and control Apple Music from your wrist. You can use Apple Music in several ways through the Watch: you can listen to music stored on your Watch, controlling it with the Digital Crown; you can use the watch to control music stored on your iPhone, and if you subscribe to Apple Music, you can stream music to the watch.

Follow your friends

Those who have offered to allow someone to follow them will show up first, and you can tap the follow button next to each of them, but you’ll also see your Apple Music friends who didn’t offer an open follow option. It’s not a very personal message, just Music URL, so you’ll have to make it an actual invite or you’ll probably be ignored.

Once everything is set up, you can choose to be notified when your friends follow you, or when there are artist events or live shows that Apple Music thinks you might be interested in.

Apple One bundle

Apple’s suite of services for Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and Fitness+ launched in October 2020 and is called Apple One. It allows you to subscribe to Apple Music through one of three different Apple plan tiers. One: Individual, Family and Premier. Apple One individual and family plans are available in more than 100 countries and regions, including the US and UK. The Premier plan has also launched, but only in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.

More ways to listen

Music works on more than iPhones. In fact, it works on all Apple devices, including iPad, Mac, I Watch (including LTE models), Apple TV, HomePod, HomePod mini, and CarPlay.

On non-Apple devices, you also have several options, in case you’re not a fan of Apple’s Walled Garden. PC users will be able to access it with the iTunes for PC app, and your Apple Music subscription will also work through Sonos and Amazon’s Echo family of smart speakers. There’s also an Android version, which now lets you stream Apple Music to any Chromecast device on your network.

So there you have it, Apple Music in a nutshell. It’s similar to services like Spotify and Pandora, but with lots of unique features that help it stand out from the streaming crowd. It’s good for you ? There’s only one way to find out, so take advantage of the three-month free trial while you can.

Do you need a subscription?

Though you don’t have a paid subscription. It still allows you to listen to music you’ve purchased, ripped, or downloaded to your device, but you won’t have access to all the features Music offers, such as offline. listening.

For those who have iTunes Match, they will be able to use Apple Music to listen to any music they have downloaded from iCloud without an Apple Music subscription. You will also be able to listen to Apple Music 1 and listen to ad-supported Apple stations.

An subscription gives you all the benefits of iTunes Match, plus access to the entire Apple Music catalog. You’ll get unlimited skips to radio stations, unlimited listening to the entire Apple Music catalog, and access to your purchased and ripped library. You can stream songs downloaded from iCloud, receive curated recommendations, and you can save songs to your library for offline listening.

What is Music TV?

It’s a music video channel. It is accessed from the Browse section of the Music app or the Apple TV app. This is different from Music 1 (previously called Beats 1). This TV is a free 24/7 live stream of popular music videos, while Apple Music 1 is a 24/7 music radio station owned by Apple. Both are accessible through It’s app.

It’s Video Channel features new videos at noon ET every Friday. It hosts original Music content, from concerts to interviews. For example, Bruce Springsteen was one of the first to appear on Apple Music TV to promote his upcoming album. Letter to You, through music videos, a live stream, and an interview with Zane Lowe.

Are there any alternatives?

Spotify, You Tube can be considered as alternatives for this. Each of these services not only lets you stream music, but also continue listening offline, though you’ll need a paid subscription to access offline listening as well as other premium features. . You can learn more about all of these services by checking out the following summaries from Pocket-lint: