Who's sticking with Apple Music?

Spencerdl

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I just don't like that you can't listen to your music that you have purchased and downloaded if you don't have a Internet connection.


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See the three little (very little) dots on the right of the title of the song along with the little phone thingy....that's how

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ecr80

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I'm sticking with it as well. Although sometimes my wife gets the popup to start the free trial even though we're on the family membership.


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bamf-hacker

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I canceled my Spotify account and am using the family plan on  Music. It is so nice to let all 4 of us have our own playlists and music and... Play music at the same time
 

sting7k

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I'm going to keep paying for it. I had been considering a subscription service for awhile since I cancelled my SiriusXM subscription awhile ago. In addition I use Soundcloud less and less.
 

Ticojpunk

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What's the state of the bugs in AM? I let my trial run out at the end of last month. I really liked AM but I had a lot of issues with it so went back to Google Music.

If AM continues to improve I'd be happy to switch back. It's just hard to judge the state of things when you can't actually use it anymore.


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mactracker1138

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What's the state of the bugs in AM? I let my trial run out at the end of last month. I really liked AM but I had a lot of issues with it so went back to Google Music.

If AM continues to improve I'd be happy to switch back. It's just hard to judge the state of things when you can't actually use it anymore.


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I started my free trial in September which was when many people already on the free trial would have to make a final decision on staying or going. I figured many of the issues I've read about would be resolved. My experience is so far they haven't.

One of the biggest problems I'm facing is saving music for listening offline. I live in NYC so my commute is on the subway and that's a very important feature for me to have. It also saves on my data plan.

For some reason many songs I download for offline listening don't stay on the device. They download then the next day, mysteriously vanish. They also say they have downloaded when they actually have not.

Then there's strange and intermittent hangs and glitches that make me wonder how Apple could have released such an important product in this state.

My free trial ends in December and I think if I don't see an improvement in this time, I'm going to give Spotify a go. I really don't want to as Apple Music is so much better with integration across iOS devices and my Mac. I also find the discovery of new music to be very fluid. But using the app has proven to be highly frustrating. If you have no intention of saving any music to your device, you may be okay but even then I'm still disappointed on how flaky this whole system is.




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Ticojpunk

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I started my free trial in September which was when many people already on the free trial would have to make a final decision on staying or going. I figured many of the issues I've read about would be resolved. My experience is so far they haven't.

One of the biggest problems I'm facing is saving music for listening offline. I live in NYC so my commute is on the subway and that's a very important feature for me to have. It also saves on my data plan.

For some reason many songs I download for offline listening don't stay on the device. They download then the next day, mysteriously vanish. They also say they have downloaded when they actually have not.

Then there's strange and intermittent hangs and glitches that make me wonder how Apple could have released such an important product in this state.

My free trial ends in December and I think if I don't see an improvement in this time, I'm going to give Spotify a go. I really don't want to as Apple Music is so much better with integration across iOS devices and my Mac. I also find the discovery of new music to be very fluid. But using the app has proven to be highly frustrating. If you have no intention of saving any music to your device, you may be okay but even then I'm still disappointed on how flaky this whole system is.




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Thanks for that. Your experience mirrors my 3 months with Apple Music, so apparently nothing has really changed.

I had issues with offline music doubling, offline music not showing up and often re-downloading after I removed it, albums from my iCloud Music Library (that I have on my Mac) suddenly became unavailable with no way to fix it, crazy skipping of tracks on radio. I once watched it blaze through about 25 songs, failing to play each one, all Apple Music tracks. I've had tons of artwork discrepancies. Usually it'll be fine in iTunes but the art on my iPhone and iPad would be totally wrong. Only fix for that was deleting the artwork in iTunes, finding the artwork image on Google Images, downloading it, and then manually replacing the art, then re-sync with iCloud Music Library.
There was plenty of other stuff I'm not recalling at the moment. The bottom line is, I really wanted AM to work. I love so much about it, but it's totally an exercise in frustration. I'm pretty shocked they haven't regrouped and sorted this stuff out by now.

I love Google Music too, but have my list of complaints there as well. I can say though, that functionally, Google Play Music is 99% solid.


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bones467

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I was sure I would cancel but I'm in my first month of payment and think I'll be keeping it now! The more I used it the more I liked it ... So for now it's staying!!
 

mactracker1138

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Thanks for that. Your experience mirrors my 3 months with Apple Music, so apparently nothing has really changed.

I had issues with offline music doubling, offline music not showing up and often re-downloading after I removed it, albums from my iCloud Music Library (that I have on my Mac) suddenly became unavailable with no way to fix it, crazy skipping of tracks on radio. I once watched it blaze through about 25 songs, failing to play each one, all Apple Music tracks. I've had tons of artwork discrepancies. Usually it'll be fine in iTunes but the art on my iPhone and iPad would be totally wrong. Only fix for that was deleting the artwork in iTunes, finding the artwork image on Google Images, downloading it, and then manually replacing the art, then re-sync with iCloud Music Library.
There was plenty of other stuff I'm not recalling at the moment. The bottom line is, I really wanted AM to work. I love so much about it, but it's totally an exercise in frustration. I'm pretty shocked they haven't regrouped and sorted this stuff out by now.

I love Google Music too, but have my list of complaints there as well. I can say though, that functionally, Google Play Music is 99% solid.


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I too have had the mysterious doubling and tripling of songs and the strange skipping you mention. Artwork vanishes and reappears at will. It's just swirling chaos when I open the app. It's so not Apple like.

I have all my music on Google as well and, by and large, that functioned pretty solidly. And, yes, there are some issues with it but nothing like what I'm seeing here with Apple Music.

I just downloaded and got Spotify up and running and am on a free 7 day trial. I've downloaded some playlists for offline use and nothing odd has happened. I get the feeling like its there to stay until I make the call to delete it.

Also I noticed the playlist on Spotify seem to be much longer, there's a lot more songs for anything you're looking for. However it seems lacking in discovering new artists. It's there but not as proactive as Apple's implementation in the "for you" tab. I am aware that the Apple Music library is slightly larger than that of Spotify and Spotify has lost some artists but overall I think both libraries in their totality will be pretty comparable.

In the end I'm going to have to go with what works more reliably. I get the feeling by what I'm reading from earlier reports by frustrated Apple Music users (including yourself) that nothing has improved over the last few months. That's a bit shocking to me considering how much hype they put on this.

I'm not thrilled at the prospect of using Spotify as my daily driver but in this case, it just works. It pains me to write that.


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Ticojpunk

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I find Spotify to be 99% solid as well, functionally. However, Google Music's catalog is slightly better for my tastes than Spotify. I also need the ability to add my own music to fill the holes in a service's catalog. Only Apple and Google really offer that. Google's implementation is awesome for this. I don't upload my whole iTunes library to Google. I only upload things I find missing in the Google Play Music catalog (the Beatles for example, and some older punk records they don't happen to have, though they have a LOT).

There's something about Spotify I don't like. Maybe it's the dark interface, or just the way it's laid out. Trust me, I have plenty to critique when it comes to Google (what's with the dumb zoomed/cropped artwork?).

Enjoy Spotify. It's definitely a solid choice.

I'm hoping when the iPhone 7 and iOS X rolls around Apple Music gets an overhaul. I think it's incredible potential is being squandered right now.


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beeray

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I love Apple Music. I have four kids and my husband and myself so for $15 a month, we all use it. Never a fan of spotify.
 

mactracker1138

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I find Spotify to be 99% solid as well, functionally. However, Google Music's catalog is slightly better for my tastes than Spotify. I also need the ability to add my own music to fill the holes in a service's catalog. Only Apple and Google really offer that. Google's implementation is awesome for this. I don't upload my whole iTunes library to Google. I only upload things I find missing in the Google Play Music catalog (the Beatles for example, and some older punk records they don't happen to have, though they have a LOT).

There's something about Spotify I don't like. Maybe it's the dark interface, or just the way it's laid out. Trust me, I have plenty to critique when it comes to Google (what's with the dumb zoomed/cropped artwork?).

Enjoy Spotify. It's definitely a solid choice.

I'm hoping when the iPhone 7 and iOS X rolls around Apple Music gets an overhaul. I think it's incredible potential is being squandered right now.


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There is something about Spotify that I don't like either. Something feels gloomy about it. I think it is the dark interface. It is a solid and functional app which Apple Music is proving not to be for me. Yet still, there's something with Spotify that's nagging me and making me have second thoughts.

The cropped, zoomed in artwork on Google annoys me to no end. I don't understand that either. Why?

I've tried over the last couple of hours to once again download Apple's own curated playlists for offline listening and every attempted download has failed in some way. New playlists put out by Apple's own curators are suddenly not available anymore but are under the "new" tab. What happened? Do these playlists suddenly expire without warning?

Some only partially downloaded. While some songs aren't available for offline listening, these were not the songs in that category.

Only way to really get it going is to go into each individual playlist and download the songs one by one.

Just a terrible experience. Is there a server issue that is happening? It seems anyone with a decent sized library is having issues. Those who just want to stream are fine with the occasional hiccup but any heavy lifting with music libraries seems to cause issues. I can't wait for iOS 9.1. I'm hoping there's a fix for all of this in there.


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bobauckland

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I prefer Apple Music but without Sonos integration, staying with Google Music for now.
Tried and abandoned Spotify for Google Music and will likely move to Apple Music when Sonos integration comes.
 

GatsbyGlen

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I just recently got an iPhone after using Android for a long time. I've been a Google Play Music subscriber now for over 2 years and I'm checking out Apple Music's trial service. Apple ($9.99) vs Google ($7.99) - I'll read over the thread to glean some insight on the differences between the two.

Some questions


  • Can you cast Apple Music to a device, say a TV like Google Play Music?
  • Is there a limit to how much music can be made available offline?
  • Google provides a web front end for managing music. For Apple, is this only done via iTunes?
  • Does anyone know if there is a difference in streaming audio quality between the two?

Interesting hearing any info on differences from those that have used both :)

Thanks!
 

Ticojpunk

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I just recently got an iPhone after using Android for a long time. I've been a Google Play Music subscriber now for over 2 years and I'm checking out Apple Music's trial service. Apple ($9.99) vs Google ($7.99) - I'll read over the thread to glean some insight on the differences between the two.

Some questions


  • Can you cast Apple Music to a device, say a TV like Google Play Music?
  • Is there a limit to how much music can be made available offline?
  • Google provides a web front end for managing music. For Apple, is this only done via iTunes?
  • Does anyone know if there is a difference in streaming audio quality between the two?

Interesting hearing any info on differences from those that have used both :)

Thanks!

The only way to get Apple Music to stream through your TV is with an Apple TV 2.

No limit to offline music other than device storage limitations.

No Web player for Apple Music, only through iTunes.

I used both back and forth all summer and noticed no quality difference.

I ended up sticking with Google Music because of a slightly better catalog, Web player, no bugs, and the ability to easily upload whatever of my own albums I want to fill in any gaps in Google's library. With Apple Music iCloud Music Library it was all or nothing.

The icing on the cake is the new ad-free YouTube Red will soon be included with a Google Play Music subscription.

If you still have that $7.99 promo price I'd without a doubt stick with Google Music. I had that promo price in the beginning and for whatever reason I wanted to go with Spotify at the time and like a dope I gave it up.
 

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