Surpised at how unusable the site is. The background video, parallax/scrolljacking, and dancing iPhones are really making my laptop choke.
It also seems like they're relying on the fact that people already know what the service does, as the copy isn't terribly informative either (at least at first glance). I hope the end product is worth it though.
It's working nicely on my iPhone 5 (which I keep around for testing) and my desktop Mac Pro (2012). Also tried it on an older MBP15" (2010) and it's fine in both Chrome and Safari (but I'd give the edge in smoothness to Chrome). Obviously there are less studly Macs out there.
Yeah, I'm not even going to try reading that. Screenshot for the curious: http://imgur.com/4CBfKLZ
EDIT: That was in IE10, so not fair. Here's the screenshot in FF37: http://i.imgur.com/564O1ck.png It's still hard to read, though better than the first.
Odd, your text is going outside the bounds of the piano. In Safari, the text goes right up to the edges of the piano and doesn't go outside. This is true even if I shrink my browser.
Not only that, but it starts playing a video that ends up in a mostly-black static background, and I can't even manage to get a screenshot fast enough that shows it with the piano background.
On OS X, clicking the "Start listening now >" link opens up iTunes and you get a dialog saying that iTunes 12.2 is required for Apple Music. Clicking the "Upgrade" button brings you to Apple's download iTunes web page which only has 12.1.X available.
Guess 12.2 will come out later today. Updating to OS X 10.10.4 did not come with it.
so Q: do you guys/gals think this is intentional? Or did Apple encounter a last minute hiccup with iTunes 12.2? Could be that they intentionally want to load up on iOS subscribers first... who knows why (maybe network bandwidth is more predictable than on desktop?). Guesses?
I've had this problem for years, and I think it's because I often switch my apple account between countries. The update notifications and the updates themselves come through on two different channels, which are usually out of sync.
1. One app will think my account is "in" the U.S., sends me to the App Store for an update.
2. App Store checks and sees that, oh, nope, this is a German account, but maybe try back in few days.
They encountered a problem, or the teams doing the updates are out of sync. Or they're scrambling to get it out due to some caching problem. Who knows really any number of things could be going wrong.
It's a music streaming service that integrates downloaded songs into my iTunes library. That's all I needed to move away from Spotify. It'll be very difficult for Spotify to compete.
I've heard this refrain a lot, and honestly, I don't understand it.
Spotify is the incumbent. They built an awesome product before on-demand music streaming was widely available. It will be very difficult for Spotify to compete? Spotify/Google Play/Rhapsody have a multi-year advantage in user acquisition and product development. Apple may be Apple, but if their biggest differentiator is that downloaded songs integrate into my iTunes library, that's not enough for me to switch over.
I'm on Google Play and have no plans to leave. Not because I love the service, but because my music is already there and I don't see anything about this service that's new or different enough to pull me away.
Apple's biggest advantage isn't that Apple is "Apple"; their biggest advantage is that if you own an Apple device, you already have Apple Music. You can't uninstall it or run away from it.
Using every other service requires downloading that service's app and while that isn't a huge barrier for those of us in tech, that is a HUGE barrier for everybody else. Plus think about all the grandparents, soccer moms, and teenage girls that use iPhones and don't really consider any other phone. Those people probably aren't the people that are using Google Play or Spotify, but now they have Apple Music on their phone and ready to go. With all the attention Apple Music has been getting from that whole Taylor Swift Fiasco, there's no doubt that almost everyone has heard of it already and eagerly awaiting its arrival.
If you're a techie and you own an Apple device, then why partition your music selection with Spotify? Apple Music has almost every song Spotify does plus Apple has a better relationship with the record companies, so you know you're money isn't going to a company that's under some serious pressure to change their business model. Plus Apple Music has music videos and a social component for artists to reach out to their fans - which is kinda slick in my opinion. If none of that moves you then okay, try it for free for 3 months. Three months!! No matter what you think about Apple Music's competitors, why not stop paying them for a month and try out Apple Music? I'd wager many people aren't going to move after that.
Apple Music's future success won't depend on the service it's self, but on fitting into Apple's ecosystem and Apple's ability to reach the general public in ways that other streaming services can't. Plus, iPhones are the best selling phones in the United States so a lot of people will have this service already. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the week, more people have Apple Music on their phones than Spotify.
Spotify is in serious trouble. That's BEFORE we start discussing how record labels want Spotify to kill its free tier and how many users will flee the service when that happens.
Well, it helps that Apple maps is in many ways a better experience than using Google maps. And I don't just mean the OS-level integration (e.g. showing directions on the lock screen). I mean the Google maps aesthetic is very inconsistent with the platform conventions (even more-so since they went all heavy on material design). It just feels annoying to use, which is why I don't bother with it anymore. Especially since Apple maps seems to have caught up on the quality (at least here in the bay area).
Here in some parts of Canada, unfortunately, Google Maps app is still superior in finding locations. Also there's a nice feature where if you have a Google Calendar event coming up with the location specified, when you do a search, it will try to match with that first, which was a nice surprise for me.
Apple Maps actually does that too. If you have an upcoming event with a location in your iOS calendar, when you tap the search field in Maps, it suggests the location of the upcoming event right at the top of the list, before you've even typed anything.
I'm not sure the exact rules it uses for this. An event of mine at 2pm tomorrow wasn't sufficient to show it, but I added a test event in 1.5 hours and it showed that one. It might be the same criteria that Notification Center uses to determine when to show an upcoming event.
I don't know if it prioritizes explicit searches in any way, but automatically suggesting my upcoming event's location without having to type anything at all is pretty good.
(Note: I tested this on the iOS 9 beta, but I know I've seen this behavior in iOS 8.3 in the past)
But, the thing is, they're not. Apple is the one fighting the uphill battle in streaming music. Yesterday they had no subscribers. Today they have nobody paying them for the service. They are playing catch-up.
My grandmother may have an iPhone and may be forced into having Apple Music on her phone. Her computer-literate grandson might even show her how to use it. But it's a very large bridge to cross to go from pushing software to somebody's phone to getting them to pull out their credit card and subscribe to a service.
And by the way, the comparison to Maps made below holds no water. Maps is free, interchangeable with Google Maps, has zero switching costs, and is often opened by mistake because it is, after all, designed to replicate Google Maps.
I agree with the Parent - Spotify is screwed. I've only had 30 minutes with the Apple Music app, and it's awesome. I mean, it's not just an acceptable substitute (which Apple Maps for anyone who took a bus wasn't for 2+ years), it's a serious competitor - that's included on every iPhone by default
I'm willing to wager by end of year, Apple Music will be used 2x more than Spotify on iPhones. That is, I'm guessing by end of year Spotify will have stalled at around 25 million paying subscribers, and Apple will have around 50 million+. And the curve for Spotify will be flat, or descending, while Apple will still be arcing up.
Even if the growth curve for Spotify flattens for iPhone users in the U.S., you still have the entire Android market, and let's not forget that Spotify has an international customer base. To say that they are screwed is an awfully bold assertion.
Apple surely has a lot going for it, but let's not forget that Spotify has a partnership with Uber and is a very innovative company in it's own right. Apple Music just launched. Spotify has been around for 4+ years. Late to market entrants don't have a great track record of user acquisition.
But, the thing is, they are. I'm a long-time Spotify fanboy and cancelled my subscription after 30 minutes of playing with Apple Music. Have you spent time with Apple Music? I'm not really sure what Spotify could even do to make me return?
It makes sense to those of us who are using iTunes (especially iTunes Match). There are many of us. There are also many people who aren't using iTunes and they probably will stick with whatever is working for them now.
Yes... because everyone uses the terrible piece of software that is iTunes. Even me as an iPhone user, I won't be switching anytime soon- Spotify has a sense of community and music discovery.
As someone who hate(d/s) iTunes, The new Apple Music app is pretty sweet. Though I'm still trying to figure out what the difference is between "New" and "For You."
Yup - I eventually figured it out. Mostly because I really enjoyed almost everything in "For You", and it seemed oddly aligned with the musicians I was following, and was a small set, whereas "New" is a vast collection of tracks/playlists/music. New is really poorly named - 99% of the stuff there isn't new at all - some of it from the 70s/80s. I don't know what better name could have been used that wouldn't have been confused with the selection curated specifically for me.
Overall - loving Apple Music, I'm 90% likely to subscribe for $120/year, coming from someone who spends about $20-$30 a year on a few select tracks and the rare album.
Sorry for the late reply, but as far as I can figure "New" isn't about the tracks' newness, it's about you looking for "New" music to assign to "My Music".
"My Music" is for things you own or already access.
"For you" is for new things Apple thinks you might like based on your preferences.
"New" is for completely new things to add to your collection.
Unfortunately Spotify seems to be downplaying the social discovery aspect in recent builds in favor of experiments like time-based playlists and video.
> It's a music streaming service that integrates downloaded songs into my iTunes library. That's all I needed to move away from Spotify.
Google Play Music also lets you incorporate your own local files into your song library, as well as making them them available on all of your other devices.
It's pretty sad that they took Beats, which ran in the browser, and have somehow turned it into yet another piece of functionality bloating up the nearly intolerable iTunes. Well done Apple, well done!
I haven't had a chance to try this out yet (because iTunes 12.2 isn't available yet), but honestly, I would never even dream of using a service that required me to keep a browser tab open. Meanwhile, iTunes is open 24x7 on my computer, and is playing music for a good chunk of that time.
That is a fair point and a valid opinion. I don't mind using the browser for streaming music, especially when it's being chosen for me and my interaction is minimal (i.e. Pandora, plug.dj, etc.) I was particularly interested in Apple's radio offerings and am cranky that I'd need iTunes for that, which I really dislike.
OTOH, they are going to provide an Android app in the fall. Maybe they'll provide something web-based as well.
Fair point. I think Apple believes, probably with good justification, that there aren't enough consumers on Linux to be worth maintaining a version of iTunes for it.
And FWIW, a quick DDG search shows that people use WINE to run iTunes on Linux (though these results are several years old). So if you really want to try out Apple Music, it seems you can do so. But I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to go to that effort.
As a heavy Siri user in and out of the car I'm very impressed with the success rate of asking Siri to play x artist and song and her doing so 90 percent of the time.
I was a Spotify user, but the ability to bring up an artist and or any song via my voice makes for safer driving and I think it's pretty cool!
I'm confused what the difference is between "For You" and "New" - are they both just customized channels for me? Why are there two? I wonder if everyone gets the same "New" - I clicked on a ton of Pop Songs, Artists - and under New Music, one of the first recommendations was the explicit version of "Dreams Worth more than Money".
But - overall, the App's pretty fantastic. Every Song I've looked for by every artist is there. Great Integration with my (extensive) iTunes library. And Free for three months. I'm going to cost Apple a fortune (Well, $0.002 * a heckuva lot of plays) over the next three months.
But I'm still confused as to why there is a "New" and a "For You" tab.
[Edit - Seriously, everything seems to be here. All of Taylor's stuff of course, but AC/DC, you name it. I'm guessing there is very little that Spotify has that Apple Music doesn't. ]
[Edit 2 - Holy Crap offlining is easy. You just "Add to my Music, Make Offline - boom. Downloaded onto your iPhone. I've just dumped a bunch of live albums. I wonder what the limit is...]
I think that for the most part Apple has the same streaming contracts as Spotify/Rdio/Pandora/etc.
There are still a number of albums/songs/artists missing that simply aren't available anywhere (Tool and The Great Gatsby soundtrack are two I always check).
But it seems that I should be able to mix tracks I own with streamed tracks, which is going to be the killer feature for me personally.
Having used Rdio for many years now, and Zune Pass previously, comparing apples-to-apples (no pun intended) with will be interesting.
As an aside, you note AC/DC, which had been missing on Spotify and other music services. However, AC/DC was actually added to Spotify today. I'm just glad I can add them to my cheesy 80's rock playlists now :)
Interestingly the "Try Now" opens iTunes which in turn asks you to upgrade iTunes which in turn leads you to a site asking you to download the old 12.1 - Bit of a hick-up there.
Well, contrary to the other comments in this thread. So far I've been enjoying it for about the hour I've had it on my phone. I enjoy the UI more than Spotify/Rdio (Although I only used Rdio for about a week.) It has artist I enjoy from Pharrell and Eminem to DJ Okawari and Major Lazer (although I guess they aren't as obscure anymore.) So far listening to Zane Lowe on their Radio channel has been entertaining. Do I think I'll leave my playlist from Spotify to come to Apple Music? Possibly, I have 3 months to figure that out, and currently I can't say I'm disappointed in the service?
Although I will say I'm hoping apple does more with the whole Music Connect and actually following artist that Spotify and other services currently don't, I'm going to hear about the new album regardless of whether or not I follow them on your service, update me with interviews they do, or if a concert is in my area, rather than just updating me whenever their album eventually hits your servers.
Surprisingly good start for Beats One, although the NYC host is a bit too saccharine for my tastes.
The question becomes can they maintain the quality? They definitely need to hire add more diverse DJs and expand the number of countries they broadcast from if they want to be the radio station of the world.
First thoughts are that I like the music presented to me post-launch. Will see over time how that holds up, but so far so good.
On-boarding was typically Apple. No frills, minimal signup screen. This is followed by the Beats-style bubble genre/artists selector. That screen was fun, but I was a little confused by the search icon in the nav-bar, which I thought would allow me to add bubbles, but seemed to just span out into something else entirely. I backed-out of it and just continued with the few bubbles I had selected.
Like I said, music quality and selection seems solid so far. The app feels rather big -- this may prove to be a plus or a minus, but at the moment leads me to want to explore it a bit, which is seems like a plus for a content app.
There are some new UI patterns I haven't seen in an Apple app before, particularly the minimize icon when you're in the song player -- which is a modal rather than push on the navigation controller.
The first time I saw that pattern was in Youtube where you could drag down the video to the corner and it would transition dow.
I am just guessing that they're using a custom transition on a modal presentation and using UIPercentDrivenInteractiveTransition to let you drag it up or down.
I find it rather peculiar that they highlighted iPod when there hasn't been any kind of update to any of the iPods in over three years and no substantial update in more than that.
It does sound like it, especially after the announcement that was just made, the guy was aware he's online for the whole time. That, or he's really good at impro, either way, nice feeling to have a man behind these playlists.
Sure, I'll abandon Spotify and all my created playlists, saved artists, favorited tracks and albums and all the playlists people have shared with me there from the past four years to try an almost exact similar service from you Apple. Not. The only thing they might remotely have going that's interesting is Beats Radio but you don't need a sub for that anyway...
An interesting part is the sharing links at the bottom. I get that music is super social, I've just never seen Apple show other companies on their site. FB, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat. Not surprisingly...no Goog.
It's funny because usually the title gets changed from informative to generic (like product name), but here instead of "Apple - Music" it becomes almost an ad copy.
The thread title normally changes to reflect the title of the article.
In this case, the window title of the page is "Apple - Music", but the page headline, which can reasonably be considered the title of this "article", is "Free, three-month trial of Apple Music now available."
So it seems to me that this change is perfectly in line with HN's normal policies.
The number of iOS users is very high, and the adoption rate for the latest iOS version is very high (yes, it's available, I just updated). That will be very many people quite soon.
I know the upgrade rate on iOS is quite high, and I'm sure driving updates is part of the reason they required it, but within one hour? You'd have to be pretty on-the-ball to be ready to listen when the broadcast first started.
And I can't be the only one who is wary of running an OS update first thing in the morning on workday. Granted, Apple have been very good about their updates, I haven't had one screw up yet, but the last thing I want to worry about is possibly having a dead phone all day.
The update took 7 minutes, including the double reboot. But, I agree, kinda weird to expect that many people to have upgraded their Operating System by the time the Radio Starts Broadcasting.
Regardless - First Bug. I'm getting an "Unknown Error (403) " when trying to listen to the radio.
Presumably "403" is HTTP forbidden error. And, perhaps because I'm playing from Singapore? Kind of funny that all of the music, downloads, streaming everything appears to work fine from Singapore, but the Radio doesn't.
[Edit - Yup. Adding a VPN (VyprVPN) and connecting through Australia resolved the 403 issue. I'm good to go, Radio One works fine now]
[Edit 2 Just in time to hear the first replay of Pharrell's "Freedom". Yay - I'm chair dancing. ]
There have been a number of places letting people know to update iOS at 8AM PST for the 9AM launch of BeatsOne. Zane realizes that he's broadcasting exclusively to early adopters right now. As he said, "you've got to start sometime."
Has anyone enabled "iCloud Music Library"? I'm curious to try it, because it's required in order to save Apple Music songs for offline listening, but I'm hesitant because there seems to be insufficient description of the options to "merge" or "replace" the songs on my current device.
It also seems like they're relying on the fact that people already know what the service does, as the copy isn't terribly informative either (at least at first glance). I hope the end product is worth it though.