Everything comes with a price and music is not any different. Especially, the songs that were recorded for commercial purposes. If there is any portal which is giving you commercial music for free, then it will be earning money through advertisements to pay for royalty. However, for an ad-free experience, and a great collection of Music, you’d have to subscribe to the paid-services of Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, etc.
The same applies to Movies as well. For latest and trending movies, you will have to either watch them in theatres or subscribe to paid services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. However, to watch little older movies, you can try getting them through various free movie websites such as Crackle, Popcornflix, etc.
In case of music – there are two types of portals available –
- Where you get Free mp3 Songs to Download – these websites include Jamendo, PureVolume, Noisetrade, Free Music Archive, etc.
- Offline Streaming of songs – In this type, you have portals that are ad-supported and free, the other ones are paid and ad-free. Apple Music falls into the latter category.
Launched in 2015, Apple Music has acquired a fair share of the market in a couple of years only. They were able to do it by providing a competitive pricing structure and getting a great collection of artists to stream their music on the platform.
In this post, we will try to provide an Apple Music App Review and rate it on parameters of:
- App Experience
- Music Library
- Music Player & Quality
But, before we start on the review, let’s talk about pricing because that’s the first thing you will see when you open the app.
Pricing
Apple Music Subscription comes free for the first three months. After the trial ends, it is available in three types of pricing:
- Monthly Subscription – It costs $9.99 per month in the US and other countries, whereas it costs only Rs. 120 (in India). The pricing below follows a similar order.
- Family monthly subscription for up to 6 people – Available at $14.99, and Rs. 190/month.
- University Students’ pricing – $4.99 or Rs. 60/month
Without registering for a trial, you can only access the Live Radio Station from the app. Making it a pointless app if you don’t subscribe to its services.
App Experience
As you start your free trial of Apple Music, you can start with setting up your account, follow people, get access to the music library, stream or download millions of songs, create playlists, and listen to DJs, Artists live on the Radio!
- Also read: Best Free Music Downloader
Once you register, you will see five categories to explore: Library, where all the songs you stream and download gets saved, and you can access them based on Artists, Albums, All Songs, and Downloaded Music on your phone.
For You, where you get song suggestions based on the Genre, Artists, & Friends that you follow. You will get some hand-picked collections of Music based on your region, or the day, etc.
All these songs suggestions are not from any algorithm and are quite literally hand-picked by the curators.
Browse is the section to explore all the music you’ve got. We will discuss this is in the Music Library. Radio is of course to explore the radio channels.
However, it’s the Search option I use the most to look for any song I want to hear or add to my library.
Compatibility with Devices
You’ll be surprised to know that Apple Music App is the first of its kind to enter the Android market!
You can download the Android app and get access to the 30-million-songs library!
However, you can only sync your Music Collection on your laptop through iTunes. Unlike other Offline Download providers such as SoundCloud that has both the app and website.
For the app experience, easy navigation, channels for music and various other functionalities, I’d give it a 9/10.
Music Library
Apple Music has a collection of 30 million songs, making it one of the biggest music libraries that exist today.
Genres
While you customise the app based on the music you follow, you get the options to choose from various Genres such as Rock, Pop, Indian Pop, Electronic, Dance, Jazz, Bollywood, Hip-Hop, Rap, Sufi, Ghazals, and what not!
Well, it’s not any other service we are talking about, it is Apple Music, so the User Interface is as hep, classy, and user-friendly as it can get. While selecting the genres or artists, you tap the bubble to like and double-tap to love a topic.
Artists
When I was selecting the Artists based on the Genres, I could find many artists right from Elvis Presley, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Swedish House Mafia, The Chainsmokers, Zedd, Deadmau5, Calvin Harris, Hardwell, Pearl Jam, Greenday, Steve Aoki, Maroon 5, Kishore Kumar, Farida Khanum, etc.
For the artists, I didn’t see in the suggestion such as Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, etc. I could find them through the Add Artist button.
I don’t remember facing any issue of not being able to find a song or artist I was looking for. However, there are a lot of artists which have still not agreed to the terms and conditions of streaming their songs, such as Bob Seger, Prince, King Crimson, etc.
For the Music Library, I’d give it a 9.5/10.
TV & Films
Apple Music has recently ventured into creating original series. You can check out the TV & Films by going to the Browse category.
You will find a couple of originals such as Carpool Karaoke which is based on the theme of artists, actors singing to some tunes in the car.
Find out about the music choices of your favourite stars such as Will Smith, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Metallica, Maisie Williams & Sophie Turner (known for the roles of Arya and Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones), etc.
There’s another original called as Planet of the Apps which is a reality show in which aspiring entrepreneurs come and pitch their ideas for iOS Apps to some badass judges such as Gary Vaynerchuk, Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow.
Radio
Apple Music has added a feature of Beats 1 which is a radio station that works 24/7, showcasing songs, news, events related to the music industry. Again, these songs are hand-picked by the curators & DJs.
Music Player Options
When you talk about Player Options, there’s a lot to do apart from the general Play, Pause, Next, Backward, Volume, and Song’s streaming bar. For example, you can read the lyrics of the song:
When you click on the three dots you see on the bottom right of the screen; You will get the options to Remove a song, Create a playlist, Create station on which you can select whether to play more or fewer songs like the one you’re listening.
You can also Share the song or select to Love the song.
(I don’t know why they call it Love. It sounds incredibly cheesy)
Lastly, you also have the option to use AirPlay and play the song you’re listening from any Apple device.
Music Quality
The Music is available to stream at a bitrate of 256 Kbps. It is definitely better than any free music website or app. However, it still falls short as compared to other paid-subscriptions such as Spotify (320 Kbps) or Tidal (1411 Kbps).
Offline Streaming
All the songs you select to download get saved in the Library. You can access the songs anytime you want without having an internet connection.
However, you don’t get the raw file of the song. The ownership remains with Apple as they are the ones who pay the royalty to the artists to stream their songs.
For the Player Options and Quality, I’d give it a 9/10.
Over to you
I hope this Apple Music App Review helps you answer some questions or make you use the app more efficiently.
Lastly, my experience with the app has been great so far. I have been able to find almost all the songs that I wanted to listen. The profile features, suggestions, radio stations and the library are fantastic. Read more about Apple Music at the support site.
What do you like to listen to on the app? Let us know in the comments below.