Apple Music will be a smash hit, according to early reviews
Apple Music launches later today, June 30, and some reviewers have already shared their thoughts on the new service. The reports have been quite favorable, with only a couple of caveats that barely detract from the enjoyment the reviewers got from the streaming music service.
For example, Re/Code’s Walt Mossberg gave a first look of the service after having a chance to test it for a day. He reports that Apple “has built a handsome, robust app and service that goes well beyond just offering a huge catalog of music by providing many ways to discover and group music for a very wide range of tastes and moods.” Unfortunately, Mossberg found the app “uncharacteristically complicated by Apple standards.”
Mashable’s Christina Warren had less than a day to try out Apple Music, and thought the “jam-packed” software was well done easy to navigate. Warren found Apple Music to be more polished and finished than the old music app, and loved the search button that’s always at the top of the screen. Her final word on the Apple Music experience?
Much of the Apple Music experience really is Beats Music. And this is a good thing. I always thought Beats had the best discovery mechanism of the streaming services. With live radio, human curated playlists and access to your iTunes purchase history, I’m really liking Apple Music.
For The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, Apple Music sounds like a dream come true, since he’s always wanted Apple Music to succeed. Because of past failures with iTunes updates, he “didn’t expect much from Apple Music.” Dalrymple’s opinion of Apple Music was that he was “not only pleasantly surprised when I started using it, I’m downright impressed.” Dalrymple states that the problems he previously had with iTunes Radio are completely gone, and the radio stations kept getting better. Unfortunately, he found a problem with the star on the left side of the screen in a radio station. The icon is supposed to allow you to play more like that song, play less like it, or add it to your iTunes wish list, but it only worked for him half of the time.
From these reviews, it certainly sounds like Apple Music will be a successful game changer. Stay tuned as we report more on the newly launched subscription music service. For answers to all of your questions about Apple Music, check out our FAQ on the service.
As a reminder, Apple will push out the iOS 8.4 update for iPhones and iPads at 8 a.m. PDT, which will include Apple Music support. The actual service is expected to go live one hour later. You can go to Settings on your iPhone or iPad anytime after then, and tap General -> Software Update to get the latest version of iOS.