Apple Music

I’m not a music aficionado, I like music playing while I’m working just for the background noise. So switching music streaming services shouldn’t be a big deal.

A few years ago I became a Spotify subscriber and although I tried other services I always came back to it. The user-curated playlists and the ability to easily find music was always nice, but one lacking feature was the ability to listen on more than one computer on the same network.

Every day, it seemed like someone in my family would start playing music on another device kicking me off. I finally had enough and decided to add a family plan but with a family of four, I didn’t like the pricing. $5 for each additional member would push my bill to $30 a month and I am unwilling to pay that.

After doing some research, I found Apple Music had a family plan for $14.99 for up to six people. Cutting the monthly bill in half sounded like a win/win so I made the switch and got everyone set up.

My wife and kids love it. They have a list of artists and genres that they only want to listen to and after learning the basics they were all set.

For me, the situation is different. I’m really missing the “Spotify Weekly” recommendations, the numerous user-created playlists, and the whole UI on Apple Music is basically terrible.

The “for you” tab, which is supposed to highlight music I would be interested in, is basically horrible. I’ve not found anything in this section that I’ve actually liked.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that I am not that into music and Apple focuses on the artists, where Spotify focuses on the playlist. That is a big difference.

Here is an example from the “Curator Playlists” page. This shows the first nine curators, all of whom I’ve never heard of, and clicking into it then shows their lists.

For as simple and gasp revolutionary as the iPhone is, they have missed the mark with the design of Apple Music. Even though I have these complaints I’m holding out with the hope they release new updates and make it friendlier. Only time will tell.