Not too long ago we uploaded a blog covering some nifty tricks to help you get the most out of Spotify. Don’t worry Apple Music lovers, this time we’re looking at some tips and tricks especially for you. Here are a few features you might not be using!
Edit the ‘For You’ section
The ‘For You’ function is a great way to discover new music, displaying your ‘New Music Mix’ playlist and anything else you’ve recently been listening to. However if it hasn’t been working that effectively, there’s a simple way to change it. In the For You tab, tap your profile icon in the top right corner, you should then see the ‘Find More Artists and Curators’ tab. From here you can select artists and genres at your own leisure!
Love and Dislike
Another way of helping Apple Music understand your music tastes is by marking songs, albums and playlists with either ‘Love’ or ‘Dislike’ tags. To do this tap the three dots icon and mark them accordingly. Apple Music will learn from your decisions and use this to shape future recommendations.
Custom Alarms
Exhausted all the sounds built into the clock app? Well using Apple Music you can choose any song from the service and use it as your alarm ringtone. On your device head to the Clock app, then to the alarm tab and tap edit to select which alarm you want to change. Tap sound and choose your song from your Apple Music library. Remember you’ll need to have added the song to your music library to use it.
Bringing Back the Stars
So the aforementioned Love and Dislike method of rating replaced the Star rating that existed before it. However if you prefer this method there is a way to get it back. Head to your settings, then music and enable ‘Show Star Ratings’ if this is the rating system that you prefer.
Optimise Storage Space
If you’re constantly seeing the ‘Storage Almost Full’ window pop up on your device, Apple Music has a clever way of helping you manage your downloaded music. Once again, head to your settings and then to music. Tap the ‘Optimise Storage’ option and turn it on. From here you can set a minimum storage amount for your music on that device, so if you exceed this amount Apple Music will delete songs that you haven’t listened to recently.
3D Touch for Menus
As with most Apple apps and menus, the UI is clean and minimalistic, so even simple features are tucked away out of plain sight. Use 3D touch [iPhone 6s or later] by pressing firmly on a playlist or artist to bring up quick actions. From here you can view lyrics, queue the song, download it and much more!
iCloud Music Library
An extra that comes with an Apple Music paid subscription is the iCloud Music Library, which lets you store up to 100,000 tracks in the cloud, separate from your regular iCloud storage capacity. Anything you store in there gives you access to your saved music on up to 10 devices, both from Apple Music and your own library you might have stored on a Mac computer. This way you can have the best of both worlds!
Built-in Equaliser
Just like we mentioned in our Spotify tips blog, there’s a built-in equaliser for Apple Music to enhance musical performance based on the genre of music. There are 23 presets laid out based on different genres including jazz, hip hop and classical, with even more options for boosting bass. Bear in mind that you’ll need to dip back into the settings and change the equalisation manually if you listen to a different genre.
Using Siri
The benefit of using the Apple streaming service on an iOS device is that it works effortlessly with Siri. If you’re already using the tool, it’s worth using Apple Music with her too as Siri will act as your personal DJ! Ask her to ‘play my hip hop playlist’ or to play ‘Biffy Clyro’ for example and consider it done. You can even ask to play more in depth requests like ‘play the top songs from 1993’ or to ‘like this’ so you can come back to a song you’ve just heard later. There are plenty of commands to check out so give it a Google!
Know any more hidden tricks for Apple Music we haven’t mentioned? Make sure you share them in the comments below!
Apple Music is Apple's streaming music service, comparable to similar streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music Unlimited, Google Play Music, Tidal, and others, though it has a leg up over many of its competitors with lossless audio and Spatial Audio support.
Apple Music boasts access to more than 75 million songs. Content can be streamed or downloaded for offline play, and there are also song and genre-based radio stations available along with the curated Beats 1 radio station.
Apple Music integrates with your existing iCloud Music Library, so you can combine Apple Music songs with songs that you have previously purchased on iTunes all in one unified location.
Apple Music's Standout Features
As of June 2021, Apple Music supports Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio, two features that are being provided to Apple Music subscribers at no additional cost. Both of these features significantly improve the Apple Music listening experience.
Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos
Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos provides an immersive, multi-dimensional audio experience that allows artists to mix music in a way that makes it sound like the notes are coming from all around you. Apple previously had a Spatial Audio feature available for television content, and now it has also expanded to Apple Music audio content.
Apple Music automatically plays Dolby Atmos tracks on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, as do the built-in speakers of the newest iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Support for Spatial Audio is also available in the Apple Music app for Android.
Apple plans to add new Dolby Atmos tracks on a regular basis, offers up a curated selection of Dolby Atmos playlists. At launch, there were thousands of Spatial Audio songs available across a wide range of genres. Apple is working with Dolby to make it easy for musicians, producers, and mix engineers to create songs in Dolby Atmos.
- Apple Music: How to Enable Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio
Lossless Audio
Apple in June 2021 upgraded its entire music catalog to Lossless Audio with the ALAC [Apple Lossless Audio Codec] that preserves the details in the original audio file. Apple Music subscribers will be able to hear songs exactly as the artists recorded them in the studio.
At launch, 20 million songs supported the codec, with all 75 million Apple Music songs to available in Lossless Audio by the end of 2021.
The standard Lossless tier starts at CD quality, which is 16-bit at 44.1 kHz, and it goes up to 24 bit at 48 kHz. There's also a Hi-Res Lossless tier available at 24 bit 192 kHz, but Hi-Res Lossless requires an external digital-to-analog converter [DAC].
The AirPods, AirPods Pro, and AirPods Max do not support lossless audio. Apple says that lossless audio can be listened to using the latest Apple Music app on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. Support for lossless audio on the HomePod and HomePod mini will be added in a future update.
Other Apple Music Features
All of the streaming services have differences, and with Apple Music, Apple has focused on human curation. While there are some algorithmically created playlists, a lot of the content highlighted on Apple Music is done by Apple Music editors.
Apple offers regularly updated personalized playlists in a "For You" tab, including a favorites mix, a chill mix, a friends mix, and a new music mix, along with other playlist options that are updated on a daily basis.
Apple Music also often has exclusive album releases, documentaries, and music videos that aren't available on other platforms as a way to lure subscribers.
Beats 1, Apple Music's 24/7 live radio station, is also one of the service's unique features. It features songs curated by DJs along with a multitude of special shows, sometimes created by artists.
Live Radio Stations
Apple in iOS 13 added support for more than 100,000 live radio stations from around the world to Apple Music, so you can ask Siri to play your favorite local radio station.
- Unlimited access to Apple Music songs on demand
- Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos at no extra cost
- Lossless audio on supported devices at no extra cost
- Personalized algorithmic playlists
- Curated playlists
- Mood-based playlists
- User-created playlists
- Beats 1 Radio
- Access to other radio stations
- Offline song playback
- Existing music matched to iTunes catalog and added to iCloud Music Library
- Music and playlist syncing across all Apple Music-compatible devices
Apple Music Availability
Apple Music is available in over 100 countries and regions, with a full list of countries available on Apple's website.
Classical Music
Apple in August 2021 acquired classical music service Primephonic, and Primephonic's offerings are being baked into the Apple Music app.
Apple is creating a dedicated Primephonic experience in Apple Music, which is aimed at classical music fans. The Apple Music app will offer playlists and audio content from Primephonic, along with improved browsing and search capabilities by composer and repertoire, better classical music metadata, and more.
In the future, Apple plans to create a dedicated classical music app that combines Primephonic's classical music user interface with added features.
Apple Music Voice Plan
Apple in December 2021 introduced the Apple Music Voice Plan, a $4.99 Apple Music option that allows for content to be accessed solely by Siri command on supported devices like HomePod, iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
The $4.99 per month Apple Music Voice Plan is entirely separate from the $9.99 per month full Apple Music subscription, which already includes all of the features of the Apple Music Voice Plan. If you already subscribe to Apple Music, you have full Siri access and won't also need the Apple Music Voice Plan.
Apple designed the Apple Music Voice Plan as a more limited version of the standard Apple Music subscription. It's primarily designed to allow you to ask for songs and albums from the Apple Music catalog by Siri request rather than through the Apple Music app interface.
So to find music, you'd just go ahead and ask Siri to play something instead of looking it up in the Apple Music app. You do need to have Siri enabled on your devices, and Apple Music Voice works well on all devices that support Siri. It's particularly useful with CarPlay in the car and on the HomePod where the natural inclination is to use voice control.
Apple Music Voice Plan has a limited interface in the Apple Music app, but it does offer full access to Apple's song catalog and radio stations, as well as playlist suggestions. You can actually search for artists, albums, and songs using the Apple Music app, and you can listen to previews of songs, but not the full song. If you find a song in Apple Music that you want to play after hearing the preview from tapping it, you'll need to ask Siri to play the full version.
With the Apple Music Voice Plan, there is no option to add songs or albums to the Library, nor can you create playlists or save music for offline listening. Apple Music Voice does not support viewing lyrics, watching music videos, seeing what friends or listening to, nor does it off Spatial Audio or Lossless Audio.If you want those features, you need to upgrade to the full Apple Music subscription.
Device Compatibility
Apple Music works on all of Apple's devices, including iPhone [CarPlay included], iPad, Apple Watch [with no iPhone on LTE models], Apple TV, Mac, HomePod, and HomePod mini.
It's also available on non-Apple devices, so you don't need to be an Apple user to get it. It works on on PCs with the PC version of iTunes, on Android devices with the Android Apple Music app, on Sonos devices, and on Amazon-branded Echo devices.
Cost
Unlike Spotify, Apple Music does not offer a free ad-supported music tier. A paid subscription is required for all Apple Music content.
A standard Apple Music subscription costs $9.99 per month in the United States. With UNiDAYS verification, college students can sign up for a discounted Apple Music subscription that costs $4.99 per month. The Apple Music Voice Plan is $4.99 per month.
A family plan is available for $14.99 per month, and it allows up to six people to listen to Apple Music. A family subscription requires Family Sharing to be set up, which requires all people in the family to use the same credit card for iTunes billing purposes.
Apple Music can also be combined with other Apple services as part of an Apple One bundle to save money compared over subscribing to the services individually.
Pricing for Apple Music does vary by country, but is generally similar to the U.S. pricing.
In the United States, Verizon subscribers with Beyond Unlimited or Above Unlimited data plans can access Apple Music for free.
Free Trial
Apple offers free three-month free trials for Apple Music, and in some cases, has been known to offer additional trial months to encourage listeners to sign up for a paid subscription.
Apple Music Basics
Using Apple Music
Managing Your Music
Finding Songs
Radio
Sharing
Apple Music on Other Devices
More Apple Music Tips
Apple Music Comparison Guides
Trying to decide between Apple Music and another service? Make sure to check out our guides comparing Apple Music with other streaming music options that are out there.
In a nutshell, Apple Music is the ideal choice if you're in the Apple ecosystem, have a HomePod, prefer human-based curation, and already have an existing iTunes music collection.
Music Quality
Apple Music uses 256kb/s AAC [Advanced Audio Coding] files for standard playback, but Apple Music also has a lossless tier.
Apple Music lossless in the ALAC format starts at CD quality, which is 16-bit at 44.1 kHz [kilohertz] and goes up to 24-bit at 48 kHz for native playback on supported Apple devices. Apple Music is also available in a Hi-Resolution lossless tier that goes to 24-bit at 192kHz, but a USB digital-to-analog converter [DAC] is required.
Music quality can be adjusted in the Apple Music app by going to Settings > Music > Audio Quality, and music types can be picked for different connections and playback methods, including cellular, WiFi, and download.
DRM
You can download songs from Apple Music for offline playback, but the content that you download is protected by DRM [digital rights management], much like other streaming music services.
If you cancel your Apple Music subscription, the Apple Music songs that you've downloaded were no longer work. Apple Music songs also can't be transferred to other devices, downloaded, burned to CD, or used off-device in any way.
Note that with iCloud Music Library enabled, all of your Apple Music content will be available on all of your Apple Music-compatible devices.
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