iTunes Music Streaming – What to Expect

Apple is currently one of the biggest technology and software innovating company. It has some of the best performing devices that people go crazy about that can be used for various purposes. There was even an entire movie made with an iPhone instead of a professional camera and it turned out great.

People also love to use their iOS devices for gaming since they offer seamless performance and rarely show glitches. They are used for all sorts of large and small games, Facebook games, and especially 3D casino games like those from NetEnt  because iOS devices seem to make them even more attractive visually and show their full potential. They are truly wonderful devices that make life easier.

However, the biggest practical use of iOS devices seems to be for music listening and video watching. At the moment there is a big commotion going on among iTunes users stirred by the latest music streaming product called Apple Music. Lots of cool features can be found in it, but there are also some ideas that don’t appeal to the users at the moment.

Apple Music was launched with the iOS 8.4 and can be used for streaming music. It offers a 24/7 radio station called Beats 1 and a feature that can be used by fans to connect with musicians called Connect. With Apple Music your music catalog is unified with Apple’s own gigantic catalog comprised of millions of songs, and you can mix your streamed music with your purchased or uploaded songs.

However, there are some issues that have made iTunes users not too keen about Apple Music. For example, now they won’t be able to use the Home Sharing feature, which allowed them to share their central iTunes library with other computers and iOS devices.

With Home Sharing iTunes users were able to access their entire library of music and videos from any iOS device, while with Apple Music the Home Sharing works only on Apple TV and from computer to computer, so iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch cannot be used for this. The only way to access your library from any device is to upload it on iCloud. But, users have reported severe issues with Apple Music in terms of corrupting iTunes.

In the first three months Apple Music will be available for free, but after that you can choose to pay $9.99 a month if you want to continue using it. You can even choose a family plan for $14.99 a month with which up to 6 family members can use Apple Music by turning on iCloud Family Sharing (probably the reason why Home Sharing was turned off). But, if you pay $24.99 a month you’ll get iTunes Match and thus you will be able to listen to any music you have uploaded to iCloud regardless if it is on your device or not.

Also, you’ll be able to view and follow an artist’s Connect stream, listen to the radio, have an unlimited skips for Apple Music radio stations, have the ability to save, play, comment and like Connect content, listen to the entire Apple Music catalog without limits, and add songs to your library and listen to them offline. Plus, your entire ripped and purchased library will be available to iCloud and you will have access to Apple Music’s playlist and recommendations. You can even sync any music to your Apple Watch without the help of your iPhone. Sounds great, but have yet to see if users will stick to Apple Music after their trial period has ended.