Apple Music Followup: Part 1

A few new articles popped up in my RSS feed since I mentioned Apple Music

I got my music back. At least most of it

At this point, I’m just glad to have most of music back, but I still have no idea what happened to the other songs, for sure.

Jim was able to meet with Apple privately and investigate a lot of his issues. Check out his post for the full story

Dave Mark: Why I’m not done with Apple Music

My Mac and iOS devices might as well be on different planets. When I search for a song on my iPhone, I can tap the Apple Music tab and, assuming the song is available on the Apple Music library, I can add the song to my current playlist, download it to my device for offline play, and mark it with a For You heart. Easy peasy.

On my Mac, not so simple. Unlike the iOS universe, there is no Apple Music application on my Mac. On my iOS device, things are clear cut. There’s the iTunes Store app for buying music and the Apple Music app for streaming.

So all this said, why am I still pushing on? Why don’t I make the move to Spotify?

It’s all about potential.

Click through to continue

Apple Music ought to be better than this

Mark is not the only one willing to cut Apple some slack. I’ve heard other people — satisfied enough with Apple Music — sharing this kind of forgiving attitude.

Well, I don’t agree with it. I think people should expect better from Apple. A better service. Better quality, and yes, from day one. Apple has the resources to make it happen. Apple is a bigger company than any other in the music streaming industry. Apple has the advantage of its ecosystem, not to mention the data already accumulated through the Genius algorithm within iTunes. Yet Apple Music feels more rushed, more confusing, feels like a patchwork of different ideas and directions, and it ultimately feels more ‘beta’ than other competing apps and services when these first launched.

As I said last time. I expected more. A higher quality

The problems with iTunes 12.2, iCloud Music Library, etc., give me the impression that Apple Music’s features have been hurriedly bolted on the already pachydermic, bloated, jack-of-all-trades iTunes app, and shipped without extensive, thorough testing.

Would people be equally forgiving if third-party paid music streaming apps and services caused the same mess Apple Music did for a lot of users? Would they talk of ‘potential’, or things getting better with the next version/iteration? I’m not so sure.

A few people wrote me that I was “crazy” for not dropping Spotify and instantly switch to Apple Music like they did; none of them said exactly why I should do so, the only vague criticism towards Spotify being “It’s just a mess” (huh?)

I don't understand this

Don’t order the fish – Marco.org

But the iTunes Store back-end is a toxic hellstew of unreliability. Everything that touches the iTunes Store has a spotty record for me and almost every Mac owner I know.

And the iTunes app itself is the toxic hellstew. iTunes has an impossible combination of tasks on its plate that cannot be done well. iTunes is the definition of cruft and technical debt. It was an early version of iTunes that demonstrated the first software bugs to Grace Hopper in 1946.