Apple Music

Apple Music app combines your personal iTunes library with Apple's music subscription service. Music you have purchased from the iTunes store, or synced over from other sources, is available in the "Library" tab. If you have an Apple Music streaming subscription, you can access a lot of extra features. The "For You" tab lets you create a profile and connect with friends. You can see playlists your friends are listening to and share what music you enjoy. It also shows "Connect" posts, essentially exclusive social media posts from artists and bands. The "Browse" tab lets you create playlists from any of the 45 million songs available from the Apple library or listen to playlists created by others. The "Radio" tab gives you access to some free radio stations like NPR or with your subscription you can get access to a myriad of stations from many different genres. I use the Apple Music app daily. I really like that the playlists you can browse are created by people and not just churned out by algorithms that don't really understand music or mood. I think the streaming service is better than Pandora or Spotify because the music and videos are ad free. I am always making my own playlists. I have songs lists set up by genre that I listen to when I am with certain people. I have a 60s rock playlist for my Mom and an 80s hair band one for my husband, or sometimes I make playlists for events or certain activities. Even though my personal library is huge, measured in days instead of hours of music, I can find everything I want easily because I can look by artist, album or song title. I also really like that the streaming and my personal music library are combined in a single app. As much as I love the iOS Music app, there are some downfalls. If you sync your phone with your computer, any playlists that were made or edited on the phone itself will be deleted or made to match the playlist on the computer. Since I tend to make playlists directly on the phone, this can be frustrating, especially if I have spent a good deal of time thoughtfully putting together the perfect playlist and don't remember to update it on my computer. Also, music that doesn't come from the iTunes store is not backed up to iCloud. So if something happens to my phone or my data, I have to sync the music back over. On the streaming side of things, there is no free access to Apple's music library, not even an ad-based one.