![]() ![]() When you first sign up to one of Apple Music's app-supported plans, you’re presented with floating red bubbles highlighting various genres of music. The For You tab is where all the fun happens, with Apple Music recommending artists, albums, and playlists tailored specifically to your music tastes and listening habits. Hi-res streaming services compared: which should you sign up for?Īside from offering hi-res audio at no extra charge, it's important to note that Apple Music excels in terms of music curation.This might seem odd at first, but can be helpful when your collection grows and sprawls. Searching is split into two filters: across Apple Music’s vast catalogue or within your own library. If you have rare B-sides Apple Music doesn’t stock, you’ll have to store the song files on your phone to play them – it's easily done via Apple Music on your Mac or iTunes for Windows on your PC, but worth mentioning nonetheless. That can be a problem if you’ve got plenty of the former and would rather Apple didn’t replace it with a different version from its Music service. There's no way of knowing the file size or type of your songs – which tracks in your library are ripped WAV files and which ones are Apple Music tunes, for instance. We like being able to access our entire music library in one app, although you do have to sacrifice a degree of control over your music files for the convenience. Directly below these, you can scroll through your recently added tunes, which is handy if you want to revisit your latest earworm. Everything is grouped into categories: playlists, artists, albums, songs, downloaded music. The Library tab is where your entire music collection lives – every album (if you’ve turned the iCloud Music Library option on) plus your Apple Music-saved playlists and songs stored on your phone. The app is divided into five main sections: Library, For You, Browse, Radio, and Search. You’ll see three dots (or ellipses) everywhere: click them for sub-menus of various options such as adding to your library, downloading (a cloud with a downward-pointing arrow), sharing, playing later or adding to a playlist.Ĭrucially, you’ll find the red heart icon here, which you should tap if you like a particular song (or tap the thumbs-down icon if you dislike it) to help Apple curate music to your tastes. After a few minutes of figuring out where everything is, it becomes a breeze to use.Īpple has cleverly hidden plenty of options behind icons to keep the main screen as neat as possible. The app is easy to navigate (although there are sub-sections everywhere), and it looks appealing thanks to the prominent album artwork. Expect clean typography and graphics along with a simple, uncluttered and enjoyable layout. Since 2016, however, it's a different story. Ease of useĪpple Music initially launched in June 2015 with a visual-heavy, cramped interface very much at odds with the clean, simple interfaces seen on rivals such as Deezer, Spotify and Tidal. ![]() We’re in the former camp.Īpple Music is available on all Apple devices – it replaced the old Music app on iPhones and iPads and is integrated on Mac laptops – and is also available to download on Android devices. There’s no hi-fi tier price hike as there is with Tidal, and no free version as there is with Spotify (or Tidal, provided you're lucky enough to live in the US) – it's either brilliantly simple or a little restricted, depending on your point of view. you can't use the app, download songs, see the fun Lyrics View or access Apple's full Lossless audio and Dolby Atmos catalogue. Other deals include a student subscription of £5 ($5, AU$6) per month, a family membership that can be shared between six people for £15 ($15, AU$18) per month and the newest Voice Plan, which offers £5 ($5, AU$6) per month streaming if you only use Siri to verbally request songs – ie. Alternatively, you can pay an annual fee of £99 ($99, AU$119). The monthly subscription is £10 ($10, AU$10), which is the same as Spotify Premium and Tidal HiFi – but cheaper than Tidal's top HiFi Plus tier (which will set you back £20 a month). It certainly beats Spotify’s current 320kbps cap on streaming resolution… Also, certain tracks are getting Dolby Atmos support and the Cupertino giant’s own standard (or head-tracking enhanced) Spatial Audio treatment too. And now, all of Apple Music's 90-million-strong music catalogue is available in CD resolution or better encoded in the ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) format. With the standard membership, you can download 100,000 songs to listen to offline, too. Apple Music mixes your personal music library with an enormous catalogue of over 90 million songs – a mix of old and new tracks on par with Spotify’s extensive catalogue – along with Apple Music’s three live radio stations plus TV shows, films, music videos and over 30,000 expertly curated playlists. ![]()
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