Apple Music review – now available on Android

Radio

Following Apple’s acquisition of Beats Music and Beats Electronics, the other big selling point for Apple Music is its Beats 1 radio station. Fronted by some prominent DJs, including former BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe, Beats 1 is positioned as a global, 24 hour radio station. There are also radio slots hosted by guest DJs and artists. A lot of the content is repeated to make up for different time zones but you’ll only really notice if you’re listening to Beats 1 all day.

Beats 1 is a novelty, but the truth is I rarely found myself wanting to tune in aside from the odd guest show. When you have an entire music catalogue at your disposal, rarely do you want to have your music dictated to you without the chance to skip. Keep in mind that you don’t actually need to be a paid subscriber to listen to Beats 1 – anyone can tune in on their iPad or iPhone without paying a penny.

You also have various other radio stations, like ‘Pop Hits’ and ‘Classic Hip-Hop’, and those based around different genres and here, at least, you can skip tracks you dislike. It was also good to see a ‘World’ with sub-genres such as Bollywood and K-Pop, as well as radio stations geared specifically towards working out. It’s on the Radio tab that the user interface becomes a bit disjointed. At the top you have tiled icons but scroll down to the genres you have a basic two column list which is particularly jarring on an iPad.

Connect

The Connect section is the way Apple wants you to interact with artists and curators allowing you to follow them for updates on their fun and exciting lives. Apple promised this would include content such as lyrics, backstage photos, soundbites and videos but the reality is that content is rather thin.

As a concept, it’s solid. Everyone follows their favourite artists on a number of different platforms, be it Twitter or Instagram, so Connect could be a great way to bring everything into one place. Right now, it’s just not being used that heavily.

Everything is presented in a long, vertically scrolling timeline and similar to Instagram, you can like and comment on content. If you compare the interaction levels you can see that people still prefer to use Instagram, however. This could improve over time but there’s not really a massive incentive for artists to use Apple Music and its limited audience versus focusing their attention elsewhere.

Playlists and My Music

As you would expect, this is where you’ll find playlists that you save or create. When Apple Music first launched, creating playlists was a frustrating experience. This was because you couldn’t create a new playlist based on a particular song. Often when you’re listening you might come across a new track and decide you want to use it as a basis to create a new playlist. With other services this was easy as you can choose to start a new playlist and the track would become the first entry.

At first with Apple Music, you couldn’t do this and would first have to create a new empty playlist and assign it a name. Then you could choose to add the track to that empty playlist. Now, Apple Music has been updated so it behaves more intuitively and like other services.

My Music is where you’ll find any artists and albums you’ve added to your library and you can filter based on other fields such as genre or composer, too. You can also set it to only show music saved for offline playback, which is handy if you find yourself without an internet connection. Recently added content is also separated out.

Streaming Quality and Library

Apple Music streams at a maximum bit rate of 256Kbit/s using the AAC codec. This, on paper, sounds like it would be inferior to the 320Kbit/s used by Spotify and elsewhere, but in practise you’re not really going to notice any difference. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, in any case, as AAC performs differently to MP3. Unless you’re using particularly good audio equipment, Apple Music sounds fine, and if you do really care about audio fidelity you’re probably better served by Tidal’s lossless streaming or not streaming music at all.

In terms of library, there’s a reported 30 million tracks available, which equals Spotify. As always, there are going to be artists one service has and another doesn’t. Apple does have a feather in its cap in the shape of Taylor Swift’s full album catalogue, however.

Search and Siri

One of Apple Music’s strengths is Siri integration. Using natural language, you can use voice search to begin playing music by saying “Play the top ten from 1987” or “Play songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers” and Apple Music will just do it. Of course you can stump Siri with more obscure requests, but as long as you’re being sensible it works seamlessly and incredibly conveniently.

Android App

As promised at its initial announcement, Apple Music has now come to Android devices, albeit in a Beta form. You’re able to sign up to a three-month trial through the app, but at present there’s no option to sign up for a Family plan, just the individual subscriptions. Unlike the iOS version, there’s no way to turn off the subscription auto-renew, so you’ll need to do this from iTunes on a desktop or from an iOS version of the app if you don’t want to immediately start paying for the service after signing up. Music videos are also currently missing but are coming in the future. 

The experience is otherwise almost identical to the iOS version but, possibly depending on hardware (I’m using Apple Music on a Google Nexus 6), it actually at times feel more slightly responsive. The extra time in development has likely come in handy for smoothing the rough edges. The design is subtly cleaner than the iOS version as the buttons to the different sections (For You, New etc.) are now tucked away in a standard Android slide-out panel from the left, accessible either from the Android ‘hamburger’ menu button or a swipe in gesture.

The app has only just been added to the Google Play store, so it’s a little difficult to find. A search for ‘Apple Music’ doesn’t immediately bring it up, so you’ll need to expand the search to see more apps before it appears. You can also install it remotely to your smartphone or tablet from the Google Play browser-based store here.

Conclusion

When it comes to Apple Music, it’s easy to mistakenly equate ‘human curated’ with ‘better’, much how there are positive connotations with ‘handmade’. The reality of it, though, is that whether your music recommendations come from a fancy algorithm or a music journalist, there’s no major tangible difference for the end user. In my time with Apple Music the recommendations didn’t feel any better than rival services. Much like with other services, you’ll encounter a new artist every now and then that you wouldn’t have on your own, but then you’ll also get the usual mainstream or Top 40 recommendations more frequently than not.  

Still, as a music streaming service and one that costs the same as most other competitors, Apple Music is a more than capable service, especially if you already have an extensive iTunes library of music you’ve acquired over the years. Apple Music’s catalogue is as strong as you would expect.

Read our take on Apple vs Spotify

The added value options, such as Connect and Beats 1, still feel a little tacked on but it’s a service that is evolving. The Spotify of today is drastically different to when it launched, so here’s hoping Apple Music evolves in the same way and fixes some of the design issues with the mobile apps. Apple Music, as it stands, isn’t quite the de facto challenger to Spotify as some would have expected, but as Bob Dylan said, “the times, they are a changin”.