Getting Started with Apple Music Streaming Service

There is a new way to listen to music on your iPad. Apple Music was launched on June 30th 2015.

What is Apple Music?

It is a music streaming service similar to Spotify.

album-with-music-notes

A good analogy is to think about iTunes as your record store, while Apple Music would be like the Netflix for music. Apple users can purchase music on iTunes and then listen to their music through the Music App on iPad or iPhone. With iTunes, you own the music you play and the songs or albums are stored on your iPad, iPhone or Mac. With Apple Music, you stream music or play music remotely from Apple servers through the Internet on your devices. You pay a flat fee and can access about 30 million songs but you do not own the songs you play.

To be able to take advantage of Apple Music, your iPad needs to have iOS 8.4. You can check which iOS you have by following this post.

3 Month Free Trial

In order to promote the new service Apple is giving away a 3 month free trial. To sign up, tap on Music:

music-app-icon

and then tap “START 3 MONTH FREE TRIAL”.

apple music 3 month free trial

Apple Music currently offers two membership plans. “Individual” costs $9.99 per month and “Family” which costs $14.99 per month. Both plans start charging after the 3 month trial period ends. In case you don’t want to continue with the service, I’ll show you at the end of this post how to deactivate the automatic renewal to prevent being charged.

After selecting the plan you will be prompted to enter your Apple ID and password. If you need help creating an Apple ID, click here.

Tell Apple Music What You Like

Once you sign up, you can tell Apple Music which genres and artists you like. Bubbles with artists or genres appear on your iPad screen. Tap once on the artists you like, or tap twice on the ones you love. Press and hold on the artists you do not like to make them disappear from the screen.

Choose Genres

apple music genres tell us what you like

Choose Artists

apple music artists tell us what you like

New Apple Music / iTunes Menu

The old Music App has been updated to accommodate Apple Music. When you open the Music app, the following menu is displayed at the bottom:

apple music itunes menu

For You

This is where Apple Music shows you suggestions for artists and genres based on the selections you made when starting the trial. If you see anything you like just tap on it and this will lead to a list of songs you can play by tapping on them.

apple music for you

New

Looking for new music, hot albums or tracks?
Tap on New to find them.

apple music new

Radio

apple music radio

From Dance to House, from Blues to Country, from Indie to R&B there is a radio station for you.The Beats 1 station can also be found here as well. Beats 1 broadcasts 24/7 from New York, Los Angeles and London.

Connect

In this section, artists share their work, in-progress lyrics, backstage pictures and more. You can connect with them by commenting or liking their posts and the artists can reply back to you.

apple music connect

Playlists

Playlists already existed on iTunes and the previous version of the Music App. A Playlist is a private list of songs that you can put together. I usually create playlists for different purposes such as for working out, hanging out with friends, studying, relaxing, etc.

My Music

This is where you can find the music that you own and also the music that you download to your device from Apple Music (yes! you can download to listen offline). You can filter or change views and display Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers and Compilations.

my-music-filter

Search for Artists or Songs

At any time, you can search for albums, songs, artists, etc. Just tap on the magnifier icon on the top right corner of the screen. The search is divided between “My Music” and “Apple Music”. To search your local song library, tap on My Music. To search the streaming service, tap on Apple Music and enter your keyword(s).

apple music searching artists songs

Playing Music Offline

There is a way to download music to your iPad to play it offline. This can be very useful if you are going to be in an area where you do not have an Internet connection or if you just want to consume less bandwidth for music you’ll be playing often. Word of caution, the day you decide to stop the Apple Music service, the downloaded music will disappear.

apple music available offline

To show the music that is available offline, tap on My Music and then tap on the top middle of your iPad screen (i.e.: Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers, etc) and turn on “Music Available Offline”.

Downloading Music to Play Offline

Tap on For You. Select an album that you like, then tap on the 3 dots “…” to display the menu and select “Make Available Offline”.

apple music make available offline

The music will download to your iPad and you will be able to play it offline.

Turning Off Automatic Renewal

apple music view apple id

I mentioned earlier that if you do not want to continue with the service, you can stop the renewal before the trial ends. To do this tap on the top left corner of the Apple Music App (where the profile icon is), then tap on “View Apple ID”, scroll down to Subscriptions and tap on “Manage”. Look for the Auto Renewal line and switch it to Off.

apple music manage subscriptions

Questions? Thoughts?

I am enjoying playing new songs and old favourites using Apple Music. The “Make Available Offline” option is really cool! Have you tried Apple Music? How do you like it so far?

I welcome your feedback. Please leave a comment below.

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