Apple Music Alternatives, Similar

The Apple Music app combines your personal iTunes library with Apple’s music subscription service. You can find music you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store or synced from other sources on the “Library” tab. If you have an Apple Music streaming subscription, you can access many additional features. The “For You” tab allows you to create a profile and connect with your friends. You can see the playlists your friends are listening to and share which music you love.

It also shows special social media publications “Connect” from artists and groups. The “Browse” tab lets you create playlists on any of the 45 million songs available in the Apple library, or listen to playlists created by others. The “Radio” tab provides access to some free radio stations, such as NPR, or you can access countless stations of many different types with your subscription.

I use the Apple Music app every day. I don’t like that playlists you can browse are created by people and only mixed with algorithms that don’t really understand music or mood. I think the streaming service is better than Pandora or Spotify because music and videos are ad-free. I always make my own playlists. I have lists of songs tuned to the genre I’m listening to when I’m with some people. I have a 60s rock playlist for my mom and 80s headbands for my husband, or sometimes I make playlists for events or specific events. Even though my personal library is very large and measured for days rather than hours of music, I can easily find everything I want because I can look by artist, album or song title. Also, I really like my streaming and personal music library combined in one application.

As far as I like the iOS Music app there are some declines. If you synchronize your phone with your computer, all playlists made or edited on the phone itself are deleted or match the playlist on the computer. Since I tend to create playlists directly on the phone, this can be particularly frustrating, especially if I’ve spent a lot of time putting together a perfect playlist and I don’t remember updating on my computer. In addition, music that does not come from the iTunes store is not backed up to iCloud. So if anything happens to my phone or data, I need to sync the music again. On the flow side of things, Apple’s music library is inaccessible, not even ad-based.