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Apple Music - Is it worth it???


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Old 02-07-2015, 10:23
Betty Swollax
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Despite Apple offering a three month free trial, is it with the asking price of a tenner a month? I have used the free version of Spotify but am not a regular User. I've always preferred to buy proper CDs and then rip them into iTunes for on-the-go use on my mobile devices. At home, I listen to better quality CDs on the CD player.

The new Apple iTunes music interface looks quite cool though on my desktop with all my own playlists still their along with the streaming radio channels and endless amounts of music streaming albums like Spotify.

However, I'm having this problem in that I just cannot get over the fact that I would be paying a tenner a month for not owning anything. It's quite expensive when you consider most of us have other monthly bills to pay plus I already pay for iTunes Match but that's a reasonable £21 a year.
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Old 02-07-2015, 12:57
emread
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That depends on how you value music I suppose. We already pay for Spotify and are very happy with that at circa the same monthly price. I listen to a lot of music and love having and exploring a whole diverse library of music available across a range of devices without having to manage the space downloads or rips of CD's would take up all available via desktop, laptop,tablet,phone etc and not owning it and rather renting it doesn't bother me.
Presumably a tenner a month or £120 per annum is in excess of what you're paying for vinyl, CD's or downloads over the space of a year, I don't know? I find it good value for money but find, say, the price of a cinema ticket or a cup of Starbucks coffee much less so. Some people pay circa £80 plus a month for access to various TV channels (I'll admit I don't. I just don't find that good value but that's just me).
What we value and are prepared to pay for is different for each of us I suppose.
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Old 02-07-2015, 14:09
akki007
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That depends on how you value music I suppose. We already pay for Spotify and are very happy with that at circa the same monthly price. I listen to a lot of music and love having and exploring a whole diverse library of music available across a range of devices without having to manage the space downloads or rips of CD's would take up all available via desktop, laptop,tablet,phone etc and not owning it and rather renting it doesn't bother me.
Presumably a tenner a month or £120 per annum is in excess of what you're paying for vinyl, CD's or downloads over the space of a year, I don't know? I find it good value for money but find, say, the price of a cinema ticket or a cup of Starbucks coffee much less so. Some people pay circa £80 plus a month for access to various TV channels (I'll admit I don't. I just don't find that good value but that's just me).
What we value and are prepared to pay for is different for each of us I suppose.

I rip all my music to a NAS drive and can access it anywhere from any device. CDs and Vinyl at home only! Spirit et al have too much, nobody listens to an album anymore.
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Old 02-07-2015, 14:31
jcm193
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I took out the 3 month trial and stopped the auto renewal so I don't get charged after the trial ends the music selection is very good but the app itself is very poor. At this stage I think I would rather pay for spotify as it seems to offer a better experience hopefully now Apple have come into the streaming market it will be the start of a price war of soughts.
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Old 02-07-2015, 15:33
-GONZO-
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Depends on how you look at it I suppose, so far I've downloaded 3 albums to my iPhone for my journey to and from work which I may never of even purchased if I was to buy.
I know I don't own any of the albums, but how many albums have you bought over the years which just end up in the back of a drawer/cupboard to never be played again.
At least this way for the cost of a new album a month on CD you can have access to as many albums as you wish.
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Old 02-07-2015, 16:19
akki007
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Depends on how you look at it I suppose, so far I've downloaded 3 albums to my iPhone for my journey to and from work which I may never of even purchased if I was to buy.
I know I don't own any of the albums, but how many albums have you bought over the years which just end up in the back of a drawer/cupboard to never be played again.
At least this way for the cost of a new album a month on CD you can have access to as many albums as you wish.
....compressed and soul less, just the way modern music should be.
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Old 02-07-2015, 20:27
Amanda_Raymond
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I think Apple Music is looking good, there could be improvements but i'm guessing that's why everyone is having the first 3 months for free
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Old 02-07-2015, 21:50
Kargo
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I like it - I'm just a bit wary now as in order to save music offline I had to enable 'iCloud Music Library' and in doing so it 'collected information about my library and sent it to Apple'.

A lot of the music I have is shared with friends so a lot of the files are tagged with my friends iTunes accounts. I'm just hoping Apple are not looking at these fields
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Old 02-07-2015, 22:08
akki007
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I like it - I'm just a bit wary now as in order to save music offline I had to enable 'iCloud Music Library' and in doing so it 'collected information about my library and sent it to Apple'.

A lot of the music I have is shared with friends so a lot of the files are tagged with my friends iTunes accounts. I'm just hoping Apple are not looking at these fields
Translation... I've downloaded a shed load of music in dubious ways! Ha ha
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Old 02-07-2015, 22:14
Kargo
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Translation... I've downloaded a shed load of music in dubious ways! Ha ha
No comment :P
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Old 02-07-2015, 23:07
Microkorg
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Does anyone know how they get the content?
I use Spotify & have just started the Apple Music trial but content seems identical..
I was searching UK Band The Bevis Frond & both have the album "New River Head", but on both it's cut into two albums and both only have part 2, no part one (which is the bulk of the album)
Do they both use the same central "database"??

I can't find any difference from one to the other regarding content
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Old 03-07-2015, 08:06
JEFF62
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I look at it this way. I listen to a lot of music in my car using my iPhone or iPod connected by bluetooth. I have around 3000 songs on my iPod. Now with Apple music everytime I get into my car I have 30 million songs to choose from! Compare that with the "old days" when you would have a cd or cassette with about 12 songs on!
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Old 03-07-2015, 08:56
akki007
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I look at it this way. I listen to a lot of music in my car using my iPhone or iPod connected by bluetooth. I have around 3000 songs on my iPod. Now with Apple music everytime I get into my car I have 30 million songs to choose from! Compare that with the "old days" when you would have a cd or cassette with about 12 songs on!
Quality not quantity. I've got 150,000 songs on a nas drive and every morning I choose a couple of CDs to listen to in the car. Perfect
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Old 03-07-2015, 20:06
Nonentity
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I've been reading quite a few horror stories about what can happen when you enable the iCloud Music Library in iTunes 12.2 for use with Apple Music.

Here's one of them.

If you go ahead and do it, be sure to back up first and be aware that any track you re-download will have DRM applied to it. (And that's assuming all your metadata doesn't get trashed during the transfer.)
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Old 03-07-2015, 23:09
Betty Swollax
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I've been reading quite a few horror stories about what can happen when you enable the iCloud Music Library in iTunes 12.2 for use with Apple Music.

Here's one of them.
Yes,..I'm having a bit of trouble with my iTunes library as it happens. Nothing too serious but things are a bit messed up from the way I had it all originally configured. I'm having to re-arrange everything,..'again!!

I also read that if you have all your own ripped music into iTunes Match (I do), then for goodness sake, don't cancel your subscription because if you do, and subsequently delete the original files from your Hard Drive, and re-download from Apple's iCloud, then you will receive a DRM copy from Apple Music instead.
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Old 05-07-2015, 00:32
Amanda_Raymond
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I think Apple Music are still missing quite a few albums that are on other streaming sites, that needs to be sorted out, hopefully it will be soon
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Old 06-07-2015, 16:54
aurichie
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Presumably a tenner a month or £120 per annum is in excess of what you're paying for vinyl, CD's or downloads over the space of a year, I don't know? .
This is why the labels have jumped on board. On average, people were spending a lot less buying CDs over a year than what they will spend on a music subscription. Even in the boom years of the humble compact disc. And of course the costs are a lot lower than manufacturing and shipping discs to retailers.

Also if you want to guarantee an artist or album will remain in your library, you still have to purchase. Artists/albums/songs disappear from these services all the time for licensing reasons. When that happens, all those tracks become unplayable on all your devices too - unless you "own" them.
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Old 06-07-2015, 21:13
Kargo
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I've just discovered that on enabling Apple Music and the iCloud Music Library (to have tracks from Apple Music available offline), I can no longer add my local music to my iPod Touch 5G. I find this pretty ridiculous, what if I was to buy a CD that wasn't on Apple Music, rip it with the intention of adding it to my iPod - I am no longer able to do that because I subscribe to the streaming service, which doesn't actually include the album in digital format.
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Old 20-07-2015, 20:34
Mark.
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I've just discovered that on enabling Apple Music and the iCloud Music Library (to have tracks from Apple Music available offline), I can no longer add my local music to my iPod Touch 5G. I find this pretty ridiculous, what if I was to buy a CD that wasn't on Apple Music, rip it with the intention of adding it to my iPod - I am no longer able to do that because I subscribe to the streaming service, which doesn't actually include the album in digital format.
If you rip a CD you can upload it to your iCloud library and it will be available on your iPod, either to stream or download.
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Old 21-07-2015, 19:41
Kargo
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If you rip a CD you can upload it to your iCloud library and it will be available on your iPod, either to stream or download.
That's pretty ridiculous though. So I'm ripping a CD into my local library, uploading it to iCloud and then having to download that same file (which already exists locally on my laptop) to the iPod touch. Why can't I cut out two of those steps and simply rip the CD and sync the file via USB.
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Old 21-07-2015, 22:12
Mark.
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That's pretty ridiculous though. So I'm ripping a CD into my local library, uploading it to iCloud and then having to download that same file (which already exists locally on my laptop) to the iPod touch. Why can't I cut out two of those steps and simply rip the CD and sync the file via USB.
Because the point of iCloud Music Library (and cloud computing in general) is to keep all your devices fully in sync. If a song is available on one, it's available on all (subject to an internet connection, or making it available offline).

You can turn off iCloud Music Library which restores USB-based sync.
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