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.

One of the cool things you can do with a streaming service like Apple Music, Spotify, or Rdio, is making and sharing playlists. It’s a way to seriously curate your own musical taste, and then show off by sending along to others.

It’s not super tricky, but the downside of such a new user interface like the one in the just released Apple Music is that things may not be where you think they should be.

With that in mind, let’s jump right in and make a new playlist. Then let’s learn how to share it with our Apple Music buddies.

When you’re using iTunes in list view to see all your songs listed in order, you can sort that list by the columns across the top.

If you notice, there’s a little checkbox to the left of each track. These checkboxes tell iTunes when to use the tracks or not, like when you’re ripping CDs, using the Match Only Checked Items Smart Playlist option, and when syncing to your iPhone. If you uncheck a song, it won’t be burned to a CD, added to a specific Playlist, or synced to your iPhone. To make that happen, simply click on the checkbox to the left of any track and it will be unchecked.

But what if you want to uncheck more than one track at once?

Pocket Casts is arguably the finest podcast client on Android, and it’s pretty terrific on iOS, too. But it’s about to get even better. With the upcoming Pocket Casts 4 update, we’ll see a brand new user interface based on iOS 7’s new design, iPad support, cross-platform syncing for subscriptions, playlists, and play states, and lots more.

In about a month, every iPhone and iPad on Earth will suddenly gain the ability to stream an unlimited number of tracks for free, thanks to iTunes Radio.

For people who want more granular control over their music even when it’s streaming, iTunes Radio isn’t likely to tear them away from the likes of Spotify and Rdio, but if all you want to do is hear new jams without thinking about it, iTunes Radio is a killer feature that could potentially get you to cancel your service.

So Spotify, at least, is acting defensively. They’re rolling out a new feature called Expert Playlists. And it’s potentially way better than iTunes Radio.

It’s fine to listen to one podcast at a time, one episode at a time. Of course it is. You’re more than welcome to just download and tap your way through your podcasts on a one by one basis. I’m not judging.

Sometimes, though, it’s great to queue up a whole bunch of sweet podcasting content, especially when the content is a bit shorter, or you’re on a super long drive and don’t want to have to fiddle with your iPhone or iPad when on the go. That’s where playlists come in.

Here’s how to easily set one up in Apple’s Podcast App, which calls playlists “stations.”

If you share your songs and movies via iTunes on your home network, you might not want just any old people to access your shared media or playlists, even if you let them onto your Wi-Fi. While iTunes lets you share all the types of media it can serve up, maybe your kids or office mates don’t need to listen to those hardcore rap tunes.

It’s fairly easy to protect your shared items with a password, using the iTunes Preferences. Here’s how to do just that.

Smart Playlists are fantastic, and they really do work to help you listen to the kind of music you’re in the mood for, using a variety of user-controlled criteria. You can create a Smart Playlist for any given Artist in your iTunes library fairly easily.

But what if you want a playlist that includes more than one Artist? Well, that’s pretty simple, too.

Let’s face it, sometimes inspiration strikes when you’re mobile. You’re on the train, the bus, the airplane and the playlist magic just, well, happens. All the stars line up and you create, yes, the best. Playlist. Evar.

Then you get home and realize, with some chagrin, that you have no idea how to get them off of the iPhone or iPad you made it on. Instead of falling to your knees, weeping, and crying out, “noooooo!” you can actually just continue to read this tip.

It’s been a long time coming, but Spotify has finally arrived fully optimized for iPad. But if you’re a newcomer to Spotify on iOS, be warned: you need a Premium account to really get the most out of this app.