Month: August 2020

Here are seven things to know to get started as soon as you update your iPhone.

1. Release Time

Apple Music launches this Tuesday, June 30. Ian Rogers, Apple Music’s senior director, tweeted that users should update their iPhones at 11 a.m. An hour later, at 12, Zane Lowe will start broadcasting Beats 1 from Los Angeles.

2. Price

Apple Music costs $ 9.99 per month or $ 14.99 if you choose the family plan that allows up to six users. Like Spotify and Rdio, this includes offline service and unlimited streams from the Apple Music library. There is no free option for music on-demand. Apple is offering a three-month trial period to attract users from its competitors.

Meanwhile, Apple Radio (which includes the main station Beats 1) is free to anyone with an Apple ID and will include advertising.

3. What about iTunes?

iTunes is not dead. You’ll still see that little purple icon from the iTunes Store on your iPhone whether you like it or not, and customers who prefer to buy their music by song won’t have to change a thing. Everything you own from iTunes will be integrated into your Apple Music library without you having to do anything, even that horrible album you bought in 2007 and no longer want.

4. The catalog

It will still be available on iTunes and if you buy it separately, you can stream it, download it and use it wherever you want. The experience must be transparent and you will not realize, after the initial purchase, if the music you listen to is what you own or not. There will be over 30 million songs to start with, but whether any of those will be by the Beatles or Led Zeppelin (two bands not available on streaming so far) remains to be seen.

5. What is Connect?

Good question. The details of the Connect tab in Apple Music are still few, but in essence it is a place where artists can share multimedia content, users can comment, and artists can reply. If it goes wrong, it will be a closed version of Tumblr that has crept into your music player. Acoustic versions of songs not yet released? Yes please. Lots of blurry selfies in dark places? No thanks.

6. The extras

To separate itself from the competitors, Apple Music has added various extras, such as the Discover tab where you can select genres and artists that you like and Apple Music will create a playlist and album recommendations. You can also ask Siri to “play hits from 1982” or “more songs like this.” But even if it works as well as Apple promises, this won’t be the thing that will make you ditch Spotify in the long run.

…

It has taken more than half a year since Apple released its first trial version of this music player for browsers, but finally, the company has just announced the removal of this beta tag, extending the availability of Apple Music Web to everyone. Subscribers, regardless of the operating system you use and even the platform from which you connect.

In this way, Apple manages to position itself even more against its main competitor, Spotify, after the elimination and dismissal of the classic iTunes, currently replaced by three applications dedicated exclusively to each of the music, podcasts, and TV sections.

However, although Apple Music Web can finally be considered a complete service, we continue to find some limitations in its use compared to the application, one of the simplest examples being the impossibility of making downloads to listen to music offline. Something undoubtedly driven by the very nature of this tool, oriented for use on computers, and not so much on roaming devices.

Thus, the rest of the functionalities will be available, with full access to the more than 60 million songs in its catalog, the synchronized lyrics, the exclusive content about artists, the radio stations, and all the functionalities of the profiles of Apple Music, with which we can create and share our lists with the rest of iCloud users and friends.

Currently, we can subscribe to this service from 9.99 euros of its monthly rate, with offers and reduced prices such as the student rate or the family plan, which will reduce its price to 4.99 or 2.49 euros per month, respectively. In addition, Apple Music is currently offering a free seven-day trial, as well as an offer for new users, with which we will have access to all content for free for the first three months.

Find album covers

iTunes is usually quite efficient at finding the covers, but if you want no one to be left without that essential part of the album, you have two options:

Tell him to search again

Right-click on the album that has no cover art and selects Get Album Artwork. In my experience, iTunes is more successful in getting the covers of the most popular albums, but it also surprises you by finding less conventional things, so it is worth checking this option first, and it takes only a few seconds to know if it has it or not.

Do the same

Go to the browser of your choice and look for the cover. Right-click and select Get Info, in the Info tab, you will see that the part that the box that says Artwork will be empty and all you have to do is drag the photo from your browser to the Artwork box. You can also save the image and double-click Artwork to upload the local file that is on your computer.…