Apple Music: The Ultimate Guide

One of my favorite tech blogs, iMore, has been doing some killer work covering Apple Music since it launched. From longreads to how-to guides they have been providing an amazing amount of detail about the ins and outs of the service. Over the past few months they have written over 70 articles and recently compiled them into a handy eBook.

Naturally, such an ambitious service isn't without its complications. If you want to love Apple Music, but it’s got you scratching your head, we've got the guide for you. In this book, we cover Apple Music’s basics, the difference between Apple Music and iTunes Match, what iCloud Music Library is (and what it does), and how to use iOS 8.4’s Music app, Apple Music Siri commands, and iTunes 12.2.

Available on iTunes now, grab your copy from the source link below for $5 and check out iMore here.

Soulection Radio - Episode 221 Replay

I don't have much appointment listening. Soulection Radio on Beats 1 is quickly become that for me. If you have yet to check it out Soulection is a weekly show on Beats 1 that goes live on Saturday nights, 10:00 - 12:00 PM EST. I've had a really hard time putting my finger on what genre to call this collective of talented producers and DJ's so I will just leave it up to them and the listener. Get your week started with the most recent episode streaming below.

Soulection is a record label, radio show and niche collective of creative music makers and programmers worldwide. Based in Los Angeles, CA, Soulection curates timeless music from around the world and increases visibility for The Sound Of Tomorrow™ through weekly Soulection Radio broadcasts, traditional releases, live events and curated visuals.

As a trusted resource and global platform pushing forward honest music, Soulection aims to inspire and a cultural shift in music consumption that values the artistry of music and discovery.

Beats 1 Replays

I love Beats 1. It brings the nostalgia of listening to quality terrestrial radio. I'm probably in the minority when it comes to enjoying the DJ voiceovers and commentary though. One of my biggest gripes about the Beats 1 service is the inability to listen to past episodes I may have missed or wanted to play again. While individual DJ's are uploading the playlists of the tracks they played during the show to their Connect accounts it did not provide any of the DJ commentary/exact copy of what was broadcasted and discussed on that show. The process was rather cumbersome as you needed to go to the radio section of your music app, browse for the show and hopefully that particular DJ uploaded his or her playlist. We need a better solution. Enter Beats 1 Replays.  MacStories broke the news...

Now, if you've missed a show and would prefer to listen to it whenever you'd like, you can find the Replay (again, through Connect) and tap to start listening. The easiest way to find Replays is to look for the DJ's curator page on Connect (such as "Julie Adenuga on Beats 1"), tap the Connect tab, and look for a playable Replay.

As MacStories points out it does have some limitations. Beats 1 Replays won't display current track information so you lose the ability to love songs. Not a deal breaker for me.  

Apple Music in iOS 9 gets a much-needed redesign

Details coming out regarding changes to Apple Music in iOS 9's recent beta seed from Macworld...

The most drastic change to Apple Music in iOS 9 is the redesign of the More Options menu that can be accessed by clicking on the ellipses (...) next to each song. In iOS 8.4, this More Options menu was just a long list of options—pretty overwhelming, especially when listening to music on the go. Tapping it surfaced no fewer than 10 options for each song, and that didn’t even include the hidden-but-basic functions to View in Album or View Artist.

Hit the source link below for more details and screenshots.

My Playlists

I discussed in my Apple Music review my playlist methodology that I originally started on Spotify back in 2012.  I really enjoy my workflow for discovering new music.  I also find being able to go back in time to see what was hot or what I was into during that period of time shows me how my music taste has evolved.  I go through major shifts of music moods and it's interesting to take a look back and see what I was enjoying during that period of time.  

A few of my upcoming posts are going to stick to a similar "My Favorites" theme.  Feel free to add my playlists to your Apple Music account.  The only thing I hate about playlist sharing is the lack of social features such as playlist collaboration and being able to see who has subscribed to your list. Hopefully Apple strengthens the social aspect of Apple Music in future updates.  

The Playlists

As previously discussed my playlists are yearly lists containing tracks that I discovered that particular year or was simply digging during that period of time.  I typically like 20-30 track "mixtape style" playlists but for these averaging 100 tracks, it allows me to shuffle and listen to over 3 hours of music at a time.  Especially good for the gym or get togethers.  Here are my playlists as shared on Apple Music with links to each one.  

• 2012 - The interesting thing about this playlist is the mixture of hipster rock and hip hop. I was really enjoying Sean Parker's "Hipster International" Spotify playlist at the time and a lot the tracks were pulled from that playlist. This was also the year I was glad to discover Phantogram. Standout tracks: Santigold - Disparate Youth, Aloe Blacc - I Need a Dollar, Danny Brown - Grown Up and A$AP Rocky - Goldie.

• 2013 - This playlist is hip hop heavy. It was the year of Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, Drake and Danny Brown. New discoveries: Jonwayne and Joey Bada$$. Standout tracks: U.O.E.N.O Black Hippy Remix, Danny Brown - Molly Ringwald, Robert Glasper - Dillalude #2, Action Bronson - The Rockers, Phantogram - Black Out Days.

• 2014 - This year I did a lot of discovery using a combination of Sirius/XM and Shazam. I was really addicted to the Sirius/XM Chill channel and was Shazaming tracks and adding them directly to a playlist on Spotify called Sirius/XM Chill. The choice cuts were transferred over to my 2014 playlist. Standout tracks: Purity Ring - Push Pull, Hail Mary Mallon - Jonathan, Arctic Monkeys - Arabella, Run the Jewels - Blockbuster Night Part 2.

• 2015 - The work in progress. I've discovered some amazing tracks this year. While this playlist is again hip hop heavy I've been quite addicted to a view choice cuts that have been in constant rotation. Standout tracks: David Zowie - House Every Weekend, Crooked Colours - Another Way (GRMM Remix), Thundercat - Them Changes, Beck - Dreams, ZRO FOX - Might Not (Ft Sasha Go Hard).

Here are some of the Apple curated playlists I have discovered.

• Conscious Coupling: Indie and Hip-Hop

• Daydreaming

• Downtempo Dinner Party

• Electronica for a Rainy Day

• Trip-Hop Turn Ons

I hope you enjoy the playlists.  Feel free to add them to your My Music or find me on Spotify to subscribe to them there.  If you have any good playlist recommendations feel free to leave them in the comments.

Beats 1 Schedule Calendar

I've been looking for something like this since Beats 1 started.  In fact I messaged Eddie Cue on Twitter asking for this to be made available.

Apple Music - Two Weeks In

Apple Music was launched on June 30th after being introduced at WWDC 2015.  The services bring a Spotify like experience while integrating with your purchased and ripped iTunes library, keeping all your music in a neat and tidy place.  I've had a chance to take a deep dive into Apple Music and here are my first impressions.  

Apple Music is a version 1 product.  In fact it actually feels like it could still be considered a beta.  I took these points into consideration while using the service knowing that most bugs and issues would be cleared up with .1 updates and ultimately with the release of iOS9 this fall.  I've been reading many reviews on Apple Music with alot of negative feedback.  We live in a society where things must be perfect from the get go and Apple has always been held to a higher standard than most.  I try to keep perspective.  Rolling out an International streaming music service must be difficult. While I expect the best out of Apple I also expect bumps along the road.  This is what we get from "Tim Cook's Apple".  

Beats1

I think the problem most people are having with the selection of music itself on Beats 1 is it's very eclectic and not one genre.  This breaks the mold of the typical radio station that focuses on one specific genre or category.  This feature alone is what I think makes Beats 1 great and allows for excellent music discovery.  I got used to the Radio 1 style of broadcasts from my college days of downloading Annie Nightingale and other Radio 1 episodes which featured a variety of music styles.

In the first few hours alone of tuning into Beats 1 I've discovered new music from different genres I've never heard before or that I would have never searched out myself.  The fact DJ's like Zane Lowe and Julie Adenuga not only introduce me to these new tunes but also give me feedback on it's origin and their personal stories regarding said tunes really keeps me interested and locked in. Most people hate the voiceovers on Beats 1.  I really enjoy them.  It gives the station a human feel and not a computer curated feel.  The tracks that I discover on Beats 1 that I like or want to triage to another playlist later get added to a "Discovered on Beats 1" playlist.

Zane and Julie have been my favorite daily DJ's so far.  They are a pleasure to listen to.  Refreshing voices.  The voiceovers are minimal and just what you would expect from a radio DJ.  People say there is a special place in hell for radio DJ's who talk over music.  Listen to a DJ Clue mixtape and get back to me.  I think most of the complaints in this regard (crap, I'm going to sound old here) are millennials just not being used to the style of terrestrial radio.  It's like handing a 15 year old a walkman and saying enjoy!

iCloud music library / itunes

I think I may be in the rare category of not experiencing any issue with my library since day one of using Apple Music.  Mind you I have always been extremely anal with the organization of my library.  I currently have over 16,000 tracks and have been using iTunes Match since it's inception. Maybe I use my library differently than others?  I don't know.  I figured I would share my iTunes/iCloud Media Library workflows and experiences.  I will also share some of the things I have run into and the workarounds I have found to help me keep my sanity until all the bugs are worked out.  

First off a little background.  I've been an exclusive Spotify premium member since 2011 and have not used any other streaming services since.  I have also been an iTunes Match subscriber since day one.  My playlists on Spotify consist of years.  Each year I create a playlist that corresponds to that year and throw all the tracks I discovered within that year into that playlist.  So I have 4 playlists (all made available offline) each consisting of approximately 100 tracks going back to 2012.  I also have one master playlist called TBL (to be listened) which I throw tracks and albums into that I want to listen to later.  After listening to those TBL's I triage those tracks into other playlists or just remove them all together if they are not to my liking.  

I decided to spend the first weekend with Apple Music recreating all these playlists.  I wanted to wait for an import tool to bring my Spotify lists over to Apple Music but figured this was a far way off.  Any third party service available to handle this I was not confident in it working 100%.  I also wanted to manually search and see just how many tracks I could find in Apple Music that were also in Spotify's catalog (this is a lot faster using iTunes for Mac).  Amazingly I was able to recreate every playlist without missing any tracks with the exception of the recently removed Prince tracks from all streaming services.  That being said...

MY ENTIRE LIBRARY WAS NOW FULL OF TRACKS THAT WERE NOT BEING ORGANIZED PROPERLY!!!  ARGH!!!  OCD OVERLOAD!!!

This was my process.  I printed out all my Spotify playlists (pro tip, open a Word or Pages document, go to your Spotify playlist, CMD-A and drag and drop the whole list into the open document and the list will be ready for printing) and then started searching the Apple Music catalog for each track on my Spotify lists and started adding them to my new Apple Music playlists.  When I was done I was extremely satisfied, until I looked at iTunes for Mac.  I now had duplicate tracks. For example, I added Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta to my 2015 playlist.  When I looked at My Music, since I already had purchased Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly and it was in my library and iTunes Match, it now showed the Apple Music copy which was sitting right next to the other copy. This drove me crazy.  I know you can disable iTunes to only show offline music (View>Show Offline Only) but I didn't want to disable the viewing of tracks I discovered on Apple Music/Beats 1.  I simply wanted things more organized.  My solution...

What I figured out is Apple Music tracks may not match what is in your local library due to tags or some other metadata (this also could possibly just be a bug that will be fixed in a future update). So for now on, if I know a track or album is already located within my iTunes Match library and I want it on one of my "yearly playlists" I simply add the track to the playlist from THAT library and NOT Apple Music.  This was actually an easy fix after creating my playlists since tracks that are not in your local library have an iCloud icon next to them.  This now keeps my library neat and does not create new albums for songs.  I believe this is the way Apple intended for it to work but is not obviously clear.  

I would also like to mention that each one of these yearly playlists is also downloaded for offline listening. I have not had one issue having them all download to my iDevices.  I think there may be a bug with the iPhone icon that appears next to tracks that are available offline.  If you switch your playlist view to "offline tracks only" you will clearly see they all downloaded.  You can also view this by going into Settings>Usage and check the Music app section.

conclusion

I think for most people who collect a nice library like myself, Apple Music can cause some confusion in terms of organization.  For people who just stream and have never been about owning the music or collecting it, Apple Music is a smooth transition.  I take great pride in keeping my collection organized like a champ.  I blame this on just being an old skool music lover who collected CD's, cassettes, mixtapes and Napster MP3's over the years.       

I have been using Apple Music since day one and have not opened Spotify since.  I enjoy the curation immensely and the playlists that are recommended in the For You section are superb, mixtape style playlists.  

As of today I will be a subscriber.

shows of note

Here are a list of the shows I am currently enjoying on Beats 1.

• Elton John's Rocket Hour 
• Abstract Radio with Q-Tip
• OTHERtone with Pharrell Williams
• Soulection
• St. Vincent's Mixtape Delivery Service
• WRTJ with Run the Jewels

If you'd like to check out the daily schedule Apple has setup a Tumblr here.