Few days with Apple Music

I would, any give day, take a radio station where there is some talk and lot of music over a radio station where there is only music (and some ads). Presence of DJs makes the listening much better and less boring. that is exactly what Beats 1 Radio is. Free for all, Apple is hoping that this will make many subscribed to Apple Music and it worked in my case. I am piling up favorites based on Beats 1 radio and best part is that I can create stations based on artist or song.
There are few bugs though. I am not able to play Beats 1 from office while for all songs, the love ‘icon’ is darkened and I have to do a double click to truly select the song as favorite.

Radio

In the Radio section, there are around 30 stations. Unlike Beats 1, these only play music and are more like curated music lists. Bollywood and tamil are the only stations available here. The countless curated playlists make up for lack of regional stations. Do note that as of now, these lists have 15-30 songs in them and we expect this number to rise (as well as the number of stations/playlists).

Frankly speaking, except the beats 1 radio, this is just plain stuff and not too exciting. Compared to Rdio, this one feels like an infant but hey, this is not even a week old and comparing with a well set service is not entirely ideal case.

Connect

This is where the artists connect with fans. Artists can posts photos, videos or simple update posts. Music lovers can like/comment and share the post. The content here depends on the artists that you have favourited.

For You

This section lists songs, albums, artists and curated lists. This section is heavily customized based on your music feedback, favourites, selection of artists and genres as favourites. The list is exhaustive and this is going to the most used section of Apple Music.

New

As the name suggests, this sections lists all new music and the interface is similar to iTunes Music store with a carousel at the top followed by rows of genres/sections (like New music, hot tracks,
You can access features playlists from Apple Music Editors and Curators and also get playlists for different types of Activities (romancing, cooking, working out, studying, celebrating, driving etc). Each of these section will have lot of features lists. For example, Waking UP section under Activies will have ‘have an electric morning’, ‘instrumental music’, ‘sunday morning classical music’ etc playlists catering to various types of listeners.

Search

Unfortunately, the Apple Music does not share the catalogue (in full) with iTunes Store. You cannot go to iTunes Store, click on an album and start playing it. You can only buy or preview music on iTunes Store (like how it is before). The easiest option to listen to albums is by going to ‘new’ section or by doing a search using the search bar at top right corner. Search is very fast and you have option either search in your local music collection or search on Apple Music but you cannot do both. The search bar also shows ‘Trending searches’ and your ‘recent searches’. Remember this!. If you do a search for music from iTunes Store, it does not list music in Apple Music. We hope that this will change as more and more labels join the party.

Quality

Apple Music streams at 256kbps and unless you have a very sensitive ears and use high quality music playback equipment, you will not notice the difference. Regional song catalogue is very very poor (except Bollywood catalogue) but international catalogue is splendid. The interface is consistent, fast and easy to the eyes.

Conclusion

Beats 1 Radio is superb and this, along with “Connect” will be the trump cards for Apple and these features will pull music lovers towards Apple Music. Given how fast Apple can pull artists into the ecosystem, it will not take much time in India to see a bigger and better catalogue, something that can match Saavn and once that happens, we may see many other services struggling. The problem though is that Apple Music will only work via iTunes and that is one poor limitation (given that other services can be opened from a web browser and have apps on iOS/Windows Phone and Android).

How does it compare to Rdio, a service that I have been using for a long time? Well, Apple Music is still pretty behind Rdio and since the difference is only w.r.t curated content and playlists, it will not take time for Apple to cover the game. It is too early to give a verdict for Apple Music. Right now, it looks promising, feels exciting but lacks in quantity.