Apple Music is here!
Apple Music is here!
Are you ready to rock? Apple Music is. After its unveiling at WWDC in early June, Apple Music went live Tuesday, along with iOS 8.4. While you’re updating, you can check out our full FAQ,
and we’re working on a hands-on as well. This handy guide will walk you
through setup so you’ll be up and running—and dancing—in no time.
Update your iPhone to iOS 8.4
Update your iPhone to iOS 8.4
Usually I recommend
you do this the smart way, which is to tether your iPhone to your Mac,
open iTunes, click your iPhone’s name in the toolbar, do a full
encrypted backup, and then apply the iOS update. That way if anything
goes wonky during the installation, you’ll have a backup to restore to.
But as of right this second, iTunes is telling me iOS 8.3 is the latest version, while my iPhone’s Settings app is offering me the update to iOS 8.4. So go ahead and update over-the-air if you’re not seeing the update in iTunes—usually you’ll be just fine.
But as of right this second, iTunes is telling me iOS 8.3 is the latest version, while my iPhone’s Settings app is offering me the update to iOS 8.4. So go ahead and update over-the-air if you’re not seeing the update in iTunes—usually you’ll be just fine.
Open the Music app and start the trial
Open the Music app and start the trial
Your old music app is
gone! The new one is here! It’s got a pretty new icon and everything.
Open it up, and Apple Music is front and center. If you aren’t
interested at all, there’s a button to tap to just go to your regular
music library, same as it ever was. But we’re going to tap “Start my
free trial” instead. The next screen has you pick a plan to kick in once
your trial is over: $9.99 a month for individuals, or $14.99 per month
for families (which requires the use of iCloud Family Sharing). You
won’t be charged now, but when your 3-month trial runs out, Apple will
charge the credit card you use for iTunes purchases. Sign in and tap OK!
Pro tip: To keep Apple from charging you, follow these instructions to disable the subscription from kicking in when the trial ends. Risk-free streaming!
Pro tip: To keep Apple from charging you, follow these instructions to disable the subscription from kicking in when the trial ends. Risk-free streaming!
Tell it what you like
Tell it what you like
The Music app has tabs
across the bottom. Tap the “For You” tab at the far left, and you’ll
see a screen filled with red bubbles listing musical genres. Tap the
genres you like (the bubble will grow), and tap twice on the genres you
really love (the bubble grows even larger). If you hate something, tap
and hold it to make it go away. If some of the bubbles start to nudge
offscreen, you can drag the whole group around with your finger to
access them again. Tap Next at the top-right to move on. The next screen
shows artists in your favorite genres. Same drill: Tap once to like,
twice to love, hold to disappear. If you’re like me and haven’t heard of
half of them, tap More Artists to get a new set (the ones you’ve
already tapped will stick around). Tap Done when you’re finished!
See what Apple suggests For You
See what Apple suggests For You
Now the For You tab
will be populated with the artists, albums, and curated playlists Apple
Music thinks you’ll enjoy. The more you use the service, adding music to
your collection, tapping the heart to favorite things, and just
listening, the better Apple Music’s recommendations should get.
When you get to the bottom of the list, don’t despair! Pull down on the screen to get more suggestions. Baffled by some of its choices? Tap and hold a recommendation for a hidden menu that contains a “Recommend Less Like This” option.
When you get to the bottom of the list, don’t despair! Pull down on the screen to get more suggestions. Baffled by some of its choices? Tap and hold a recommendation for a hidden menu that contains a “Recommend Less Like This” option.
Navigate around while the music plays
Navigate around while the music plays
When you’re in the Now
Playing screen, there’s a little downward-facing arrow at the very
top-left. Tap that to minimize the player, and you can navigate around
the rest of the app. Tap over to the New tab. When you see something you
want, tap it to see more details.
The big Plus sign adds that item to your collection. The heart isn’t a shortcut to a favorites list like it is in Rdio—it just helps Apple’s algorithm learn your tastes to improve its recommendations. At any time, you can tap the player, which is a strip just above the row of tabs at the bottom, to expand it again.
The big Plus sign adds that item to your collection. The heart isn’t a shortcut to a favorites list like it is in Rdio—it just helps Apple’s algorithm learn your tastes to improve its recommendations. At any time, you can tap the player, which is a strip just above the row of tabs at the bottom, to expand it again.
Add songs to your queue
Add songs to your queue
The little ellipses
button next to each song and album holds the most options. This is where
you can add a song or album to your Up Next queue. (Play Next puts it
at the top of that queue, while Add to Up Next just puts it at the
bottom.)
To see or reorder your Up Next queue, tap the button on the Now Playing screen that looks like a list. The Up Next screen has little buttons to Add more songs, Clear the queue, and Resume the last thing you were listening to. To reorder the queue, tap the hamburger icons by each song and drag them up or down.
To see or reorder your Up Next queue, tap the button on the Now Playing screen that looks like a list. The Up Next screen has little buttons to Add more songs, Clear the queue, and Resume the last thing you were listening to. To reorder the queue, tap the hamburger icons by each song and drag them up or down.
Save some music for offline listening
Save some music for offline listening
Also in the ellipses
menu, you can add items to your collection, and optionally save them for
offline listening. (Only items in your collection can be saved for
offline.) This puts a copy of the files inside the Music app on all of
your devices, so you don’t have to be connected to listen—crucial if
you’re going to take a plane trip, or you just don’t want your streaming
to hit your data plan while you’re away from Wi-Fi.
Music that you’ve synced for offline listening appears with a teeny-tiny iPhone logo on the corner of the album art. If you wind up needing storage back, find the album you want to delete in the My Music tap, tap the ellipses button, and select “Remove Downloads.”
Music that you’ve synced for offline listening appears with a teeny-tiny iPhone logo on the corner of the album art. If you wind up needing storage back, find the album you want to delete in the My Music tap, tap the ellipses button, and select “Remove Downloads.”
Share with friends
Share with friends
The ellipses menu has
sharing options too, letting you send the link to a song or album to
your friend via AirDrop, iMessage, email, Twitter, Facebook, and so on.
Weirdly, you can’t have a list of friends who also have Apple Music, and
send stuff to each other via Connect. Rdio and Spotify, for example,
have friends lists in-app, so you can keep track of what your friends
with excellent taste are listening to, send each suggestions right
inside the app, and even subscribe to and collaborate on each other’s
playlists.
Feel the Beats
Feel the Beats
Apple’s much-hyped
Beats 1 radio station sprang to life Tuesday morning, and will feature
24/7 programming, with live DJs and interviews. You can’t skip tracks on
Beats 1—it works just like terrestrial or satellite radio, all you can
do is turn it on or off. Tap the Now Playing strip to see the name of
the band and song, and you’ll be able to tap a heart to favorite the
track. Tap the share button to share either the song or the station, and
tap the ellipses button for the rest of the options. You can start a
new streaming station based on that track (that would be a Pandora-style
station where you can skip tracks), or add them to the My
Music collection, to a playlist… or, of course, buy them on iTunes. (If
you don’t see those options for a song, it’s not in Apple Music yet—darn
licensing agreements.)
The Radio tab has Pandora-style radio stations with no DJs too. You are allowed to skip tracks, heart tracks, add them to playlists or My Music, share them, or see them in the iTunes Store.
The Radio tab has Pandora-style radio stations with no DJs too. You are allowed to skip tracks, heart tracks, add them to playlists or My Music, share them, or see them in the iTunes Store.
Connect to your favorite artists
Connect to your favorite artists
The Connect tab is a
one-way stream of content from artists on Apple Music. (Again, you can’t
have a list of your own friends to interact with, like you can in
Spotify and Rdio.) By default, it follows all the artists in your iTunes
library and anyone you add to your My Music collection. That…could be a
lot of artists, so tap “See who you’re following” in the banner up top
for a switch to turn off the auto-follow behavior, as well as a list of
all the artists you’re following, in case you want to unfollow any. If
you’re hungry for more, tap “Find more artists and curators” for Apple’s
recommendations.
It’s early days, so Connect doesn’t have a lot in it yet. Right now you’ll see Twitter-style updates, mostly artists asking you to listen to their tracks or albums. Beck shared a concert poster. There’s a trailer for Pearl Jam 20, the Cameron Crowe documentary from four years ago. Hopefully as the service matures, the Connect tab will get more compelling.
It’s early days, so Connect doesn’t have a lot in it yet. Right now you’ll see Twitter-style updates, mostly artists asking you to listen to their tracks or albums. Beck shared a concert poster. There’s a trailer for Pearl Jam 20, the Cameron Crowe documentary from four years ago. Hopefully as the service matures, the Connect tab will get more compelling.
Your music is still here
Your music is still here
The My Music tab holds
your music—everything you have purchased in iTunes, and everything you
already had synced to your iPhone before you updated to iOS 8.4—along
with everything you add to the My Music collection from elsewhere in the
Apple Music app. It’s separated into Library and Playlists sections,
and you can make a new playlist by tapping the tiny New button below the
Recently Added strip.
The Library tab defaults to sorting by artist, but you can tap Artists to change the view to Albums, Songs, Music Videos, Genres, Composers, and Compilations. If you’re trying to save bandwidth, flip the switch to only see the music that’s available for listening to offline. The Playlists tab lets you tap the word Playlists to change the view to just Apple Music playlists, just the playlists you’ve made yourself, or just whatever’s synced for offline listening.
The Library tab defaults to sorting by artist, but you can tap Artists to change the view to Albums, Songs, Music Videos, Genres, Composers, and Compilations. If you’re trying to save bandwidth, flip the switch to only see the music that’s available for listening to offline. The Playlists tab lets you tap the word Playlists to change the view to just Apple Music playlists, just the playlists you’ve made yourself, or just whatever’s synced for offline listening.
If music be the food of love, play on
If music be the food of love, play on
Have fun and explore!
Build out your collection and playlists. Heart a bunch of tracks and
then go refresh the For You tab. And let us know if you run into issues
or problems—we’re hard at work updating our FAQ and writing hands-on and how-tos. Happy streaming!
Bonus: Update your Mac
Bonus: Update your Mac
If you want to listen to Apple Music on your Mac, you’ll need a new version of iTunes.
That comes along with a software update that finally went live a few
hours after iOS 8.4. You’ll find it in the Mac App Store’s Updates tab.
No comments:
Post a Comment