Apple Music review roundup: Cupertino is hitting all the right notes

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Apple-Music-iPhone
Apple Music sounds like a game changer.
Photo: Apple

Apple Music is set to launch at 11am ET/8am PT today, alongside the release of iOS 8.4. As we count down the minutes, however, we can entertain ourselves with the first batch of “early impression” reviews for Apple’s new streaming music service.

Has Apple done it again? With minor quibbles, the answer certainly seems to be a resounding “yes.” Check out some of the review highlights below:

At Mashable, Christina Warren praises Apple Music — and particularly its “For You” recommendation system, which she describes as the “real heart of Apple Music.”

“This was lifted directly from Beats Music and it’s one of the best discovery tools I’ve used over the years. You start by tapping dots with genres of music. The more you tap, the bigger a bubble gets. You can remove bubbles you don’t like and pick and choose what types of music you like. Then move to artists, where you do the same thing. Once you’re done, give the app a second and the Apple Music app will have a customized, ‘For You’ front page with recommended artists, curated playlists, albums and genres.

It’s hard for me to over-stress how much I like For You.” data-micro=”1″>It’s hard for me to over-stress how much I like For You. From the very beginning, the recommendations in playlists and albums that the app showed me were dead-on accurate, reflecting my various musical interests. Straight out, I was given a recommendation of a Taylor Swift love ballad playlist and albums from The Kinks, Sufjan Stevens, Elliot Smith, The Shins, Miguel and Drake. So basically my musical brain.”

Over at Re/code, Walt Mossberg is also positive, but with provisos. “Would I pay $10 a month — $120 a year — to use it?” he writes.

“My answer is a tentative yes, with some caveats. Apple has built a handsome, robust app and service that goes well beyond just offering a huge catalog of music by providing many ways to discover and group music for a very wide range of tastes and moods.

But it’s also uncharacteristically complicated by Apple standards, with everything from a global terrestrial radio station to numerous suggested playlists for different purposes in different places. And the company offers very little guidance on how to navigate its many features. It will take time to learn it. And that’s not something you’re going to want to do if all you’re looking for is to lean back and listen.”

Ed Baig at USA Today has similar notes regarding Apple Music, praising its attractive design but observing that it’s not exactly pick-up-and-play in its design.

“Apple Music certainly looks visually appealing on the iPhone 6 Plus preloaded with the iOS update, especially the way Apple extracts the colors and themes from an album cover and displays it across the entire display, though it also took me awhile to get comfortable finding my way around–there’s an awful lot packed into a section labeled New.”

Probably the most favorable review below to LoopInsight’s Jim Dalrymple, who writes that:

“I’m damned impressed. Apple Music is a quality service, with the right mix of human curation and algorithms to help users figure out exactly what they want to hear. I can only imagine that the service will only get better from here. The more I use it, like/dislike songs, the better it will know me.

I was interacting with Apple Music the entire time I was writing this and the radio station I started listening to improved quite a bit in those hours. I’m not skipping songs, instead I have a steady diet of Slash, Godsmack, Led Zeppelin, and Metallica. It’s hard to beat that.

While other streaming services didn’t worry much about Apple in the past, Apple Music will get their attention. In fact, it’s going to grab everyone’s attention.”

Of course, these are only first impressions, so we’ll have to wait until the full reviews come in (or at least until we’ve had a few days to get to grips with the service) to get a deeper dive into Apple Music. However, considering Apple’s late-starter position compared to more entrenches services like Spotify it certainly seems to suggest streaming music has a new champion on its hands.

Now we just need to see if paying customers respond the same way!

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