Apple Music Connect is like another version of Apple’s failed Ping service. It’s being promoted as a way to keep in touch with your favorite artists, but man is it impersonal.
My Connect page is full of bland PR-style stuff and links to buy music from artists I’m following. There’s just not enough quality posts in there to justify checking it each day.
Until now. Jonathan Poritsky has a fantastic idea over at his music blog: why not follow the folks on Apple Music who actually share and curate music? Follow Julie Adenuga, Zane Lowe, or any of the genre or curator profiles hidden in Apple Music.
These are the folks that are sharing amazing music. Here’s how to follow them.
Launch Apple Music on your iPhone running iOS 8.4 (or the public beta of iOS 9) and tap on the Radio tab. Next, tap on Beats 1 (not Listen Now) and swipe down past the “Upcoming Shows” area until you find “Featured Shows.” Tap on the show’s album art that you want to add to Connect and then tap Follow.
The genre and curator accounts are in the New tab, so tap there, and scroll down to where you see Apple Editors Playlists and Curators Playlists, above and below Activities Playlists, which you cannot “follow.” The Editors list will show you accounts for every genre in Apple Music, like Americana, Blues, or Indie. Tap through to the genre you want and tap Follow.
The Curators list are all the Apple partners with special accounts, like Complex, Decibel Magazine, and Rolling Stone. Tap through to all the curators you dig and hit Follow on their dedicated page.
Once you’ve filled up your Connect follows, it will be a lot nicer in there. You’ll see a whole ton of suggestions and posts from these very active non-artist accounts, letting you find your new favorite tunes right from the Connect tab.
Now if they’ll just open up Connect to everyone, we can social-network musically like we want to, letting even more curators hop in and create killer playlists and post amazing stuff to their Connect pages. Let’s hope Apple is listening.
