You may remember I had a pre-launch wish list blog post that I released back in May.  Well, now that I am past the initial thrill of finally having music streaming with Siri integration and having my iTunes Match library merged into a streaming service, I am now ready for an updated wish list.  These are the top twenty things I would like to see addressed in the near future by Apple:

1.  Remote control features - The ability to control a computer app with the iOS app was the main reason I stayed with Rdio when Tidal came out with lossless streaming.  Apple had this built into their Remote app, but you can’t control Apple Music with it.  They need to add the ability ASAP.

2.  Airplay multi-room streaming from iOS.  It can’t be a post-PC world if I have to go to a computer to have access to features that should and can work with iOS. 

3.  Continue play - when an album ends, it should start playing music that it has curated around my tastes or similar music rather than just stopping.  Rdio can do this and Apple needs to do this.

4.  Playlists - you should be able to create a new playlist right from the song/album.  Right now it feels clunky because you have to navigate away from the page, add a new playlist, and make your way back to the song/album (it is easier to do if you started playing the album before navigating away, though). 

5.  Better Siri interaction - When I say “Play Classic Jazz from 1955", the service should know what I want to hear.  Don’t get me wrong, the way Siri works now is amazing, they just need a few tweaks.

6.  Similar Artists - On iOS, sometimes I pull up an artist and look for similar artists.  They have each artist present in a round icon with their photo.  Half the time, I click on it and it does nothing.  Probably a bug, but there is missing links that should be there.

7.  Bugs…  Too many of them.  People should not have to worry about messing up their entire library when installing the new version of iTunes.  When I open the app, I should not get a screen telling me to sign up for Apple Music after I have already signed up.  The iCloud music merging was buggy, as well.  I had to toggle the “switch” back and forth before my library showed up.

8. Better instructions - An explanation of how DRM works with your files that are uploaded, what it means to have the iCloud music library box checked in iTunes preferences, etc.  I think a lot of the stuff you can figure out if you have ever used an app, but these basic features need to be spelled out.

9.  Videos - I should be able to Airplay video to my AppleTV.  Instead, I hit the Airplay button and only get music.    

10.  Video should have a full screen option on the iPad.  Instead, it is in a small box that does’t utilize the entire screen in landscape mode.

11.  Speaking of landscape mode, I got a 6 plus to be able to turn the phone on the side and use it in landscape mode.  In this case, it works for video, but the rest of the app is inexplicably only in portrait.  

12.  AppleTV app - If I can’t Airplay videos, I should be able to play them natively on my AppleTV, but there isn’t an Apple Music app.  The entire point of having an AppleTV instead of a Roku/Fire is that it interacts with Apple stuff.  Not having this capability at launch is a disappointment.

13. An option for lossless or hi-rez versions of the music for an additional fee.  Right now, Tidal has lossless audio that sounds fantastic.  I realize that Apple has “mastered for iTunes” songs that sound great, however, I don’t see a way to know when or if you are getting “mastered for iTunes” quality.  Also, no matter what they do with their lossy compression, lossless has the potential to sound better.  

14.  Speaking of compression, I want the ability to dial down the bitrate from 256k.  AT&T is nice enough to send me a text when I am nearing my monthly data cap.  I would love to be able to tell the app to steam at a lower resolution on cellular only.

15.  Album/Artist Reviews - Rdio uses AllMusic/Rovi reviews to populate their reviews.  Apple apparently has their own method and it is awful.  I thought I would just go to AllMusic’s website to get reviews, but it has pop up ads that steal the audio steam, so your music cuts off.   Apple has spent a lot of time on the “For You” recommendations, but when a new album turns up, you usually have no way to read about it in the app.  

16.  Pick up where you left off - When I close the app, I want the music I was listening to when I closed it to show up in the que when I restart the app.  

17.  Sorting albums by release date, alphabetical, or its popularity.

18.  Search/Listen to music by music label. ECM, a Blue Note, etc.

19.  Bring back Homesharing - I don’t want to waste my data cap streaming from the web when my music is sitting on iTunes in the office.  Also, my music is in lossless formats.  I don’t want to stream in 256k when the lossless file is available.

20.  Instead of putting Beats1 at the top of the page (on iOS) with a huge icon, they need to put “recently played” at the top.  If people are listening to Beats1, it will be in the recently played.  If they aren’t, it should show up below their recently played music.   

I will cut to the chase...No, it isn’t perfect.  However, none of the other services available are perfect, either.  However, it is a great service that I have been enjoying thoroughly since it came to market and it is FREE for 3 months!

I have three words for you:  Siri, Siri, Siri.  I have heard some complaints at how much has been packed into the iOS app and how it has gotten more complicated.  Yeah, it has “For You”,  “New”, “Radio”, “Connect”, and “My Music”.  Just because it has tons of features, it doesn’t mean you have to use every single feature all the time.  I tried Beats 1, for example, and it did not fit my taste.  Nothing wrong with that.  I also use Adobe’s Photoshop app and have never used the 3D feature or many other features.  It is still one of my favorite programs for photography.

That being said, any idiot can use Siri. You simply push a button and say, for example,  “Play James Taylor’s Newest album” and his newest album “Before the World” will start playing.  Want to add it to your music collection?  Just say “Add the album to My Music” and it is added.  Want to hear a specific album?  I just say “Play Sonny Rollins Way out West” and it starts playing.  For those that are so confused by the app, just stick to this format and you should be just fine.  You can also just say “play top hits from 1977” or  “let’s listen to some jazz” or “play something by the Beastie Boys” and it simply starts playing.  Since it is intertwined with my collection, I can also say “Play Revolver Mono Remaster” and its starts playing The Beatles “Revolver (2009 Mono Remaster)” even though it isn't available on Apple Music.  

To test the ease of use, I asked my girlfriend, that never uses music apps (she likes SiriusXM in the car with an occasional CD thrown in for good measure), to play Journey's Escape using the app.  Five seconds later, her album was playing.  She intuitively knew to use the search button and type in the album name.  

To say it is complicated is to say that plumbing is complicated every time you use the faucet.  

I have mentioned that I loved Beats “For You” section and I am very happy they brought it over to Apple Music.  I also thought ”The Sentence” was a dumb gimmick and it is gone.  The “For You” section is fantastic.  You start the service by choosing balloons of your favorite genres and artists and it continues to gather more information for suggestions by who you follow.  

The choices they come up with have been interesting, imaginative, and simply a fantastic way to discover new music.  I have tried every service out there and the curation on Apple Music is the best (at least for me).

I was already a member of iTunes Match, but having that music available alongside the on-demand streaming app just makes me want to use the service more often.   I have seen a couple bugs in my collection, like the app showing a picture of Koko Taylor when I pull up the artist Willie Dixon, but it is hardly even a real problem and I am sure Apple will get the issue fixed in time.  However, having the Beatles available at the touch of a button or via a voice command is simply priceless. 

The New Music section is a welcome update from when I tested Beats Music last year.  Now you can get to all of the new releases much easier.  I also like the tab at the top that lets you choose different genres.  That way, if you are a fan of Jazz music, you don’t have to suffer through a bunch of releases in other categories.  Just go straight to Jazz and you have “new music”, “hot tracks”, “recent releases”, “top songs”, “more top charts” (this pulls up top songs, albums, and videos), playlists, and more.  

I should mention that I have several books (like All Music and Rolling Stone Album Guide) about music, so I love to dig deep into certain genres.  Personally, I consider this type of variety in many genres to by one of the best things about the service, but I can see how some would consider it complicated.  For those people, see my section above related to Siri.

iTunes got an overhaul to include Apple Music.  I personally prefer using iOS since you get Siri, but there is one major plus to the iTunes implementation….multi-room Airplay.  While I don’t know why this isn’t implemented on iOS, it is nice to have it built right into the iTunes interface.   The Beats1 radio service is not currently compatible with Airplay in iTunes, but you can still use Airfoil to send audio where you want it.  

Overall, they have given us a lot of options.  However, I still have a few small complaints:

1.  I will complain about the lack of Apple Music Multi-Room Airplay implementation in iOS until the cows come home.  iOS is able to do this without an issue with the Whaale app, so it makes no sense that this isn’t available right now.  

2.  Remote app or Apple Music on iOS needs to be updated to control Apple Music running on a computer.  You can control Spotify and Rdio running on OSX with their iOS apps, so there is no reason Apple can’t get this done. 

3.  Lack of continue play - When a song ends, I want to continue to listen to related music.  I don’t want music to end until I tell it to.  Rdio already has this feature.

4.  Lack of bit rate adjustability - A lot of people want to use lower bitrates because of their cellular data plans.  The other services let you independently control the bitrate on cellular and wifi.  Apple Music needs this, too.

5.  Lack of choice in artist radio - Rdio has a slider for "artist only" that slides to "adventurous".  Nothing like it on Apple Music.

6.  No AppleTV?  Really Apple, you don't even support your own stuff?  It is supposed to be coming in the Fall, but I want it now!

7.  I love the ability to watch videos and I like how easy it is to find video in iOS (Tidal could learn from the Apple implementation).  However, I could not find a way to open it in full screen on the iPad, there isn't a native Airplay button for video, and when I tried mirroring from iOS the screen would go black.  If this is some sort of licensing issue, Apple should have fought harder to get Airplay compatibility. If it is a bug, hopefully, it will be resolved soon.

8.  Bitrate - I would love to see lossless streaming for more money (like Tidal), but I know I am just dreaming.

While there are more features and bugs (or things missing) that I mention here, keep in mind that the service is on version 1 and it is free for 3 months.  That makes it a "no brainer" to at least give it a try if you are on iOS (it won't be on Android until the Fall) .  I have mentioned my love for Rdio in the past  but Apple Music may be enough to get me to switch.  The Siri integration and iTunes Matching features are just huge advantages even if Rdio has so many great features that Apple currently doesn't match.

I read a lot of forums and blogs and many are saying that Apple is too late to the streaming market.  Spotify has a 60 million users, but only 15 million are paying for the commercial free stuff.  In comparison, Apple is reported to have 800 million credit cards on file….800 million.     There are over 1 billion iOS devices on that have been sold.  In other words, 15 million paying users is a small group…a really, really small group.

Warner Music announced that streaming revenue passed downloads for the first time last quarter and they were the first large music label to hit that milestone.   In short, I disagree with anyone that thinks this market is mature.  

While many complain that iTunes is a bloated mess, it is still one of the most popular music applications, if not the most popular.  Many still get their music from iTunes and listen to music using iTunes.  It comes with each Mac and many have it on their Windows machines.  An update will add Apple Music to iTunes and it will be in the face of the millions of people that listen to music using iTunes.  Unlike Spotify, Rdio, and other services, it is already right on your desktop. 

Once again, the Music app is already on your iOS device.  Yeah, you may have it hidden if you never listen to your own music, but I would venture to say that many still use it to listen to their own music or to iTunes Radio.  

The iOS integration doesn’t stop there.  They have implemented incredible search features into Siri.  I have used iTunes Match for a couple of years and pay for it just for Siri integration.  In fact, merging my music library with Apple Music is a huge bonus.  With this new service, I can tell Siri to play just about anything and it will start playing.  Now the fact that the service doesn’t have "Back in Black" available isn’t going to require me to go to a separate app to play it. 

While I don’t currently have an Apple Watch (nor will I buy a 1st gen version of it), Apple Music is a major selling point for the watch and vice versa.  Think about sitting in your living room listening to a playlist of music and going to get a snack.  While you are in the kitchen, a song comes on that you have heard one too many times.  You simply open Siri on the watch and tell it to skip the song.  Sweet!  

Instead of going to Youtube and hoping to find a video, this could be interesting, especially with the AppleTV and/or Airplay to the AppleTV.   I rarely watch music videos these days unless I see something browsing around on Youtube.  However, this will be built right into the same app I use for all of my music.  

At first blush, I can’t see that I would ever use Beats 1 Radio other than trying it out, but I wanted to mention it since a lot of people like DJs.  I remember when I first picked XM radio over Sirius, which were two separate companies at the time, the main argument for and against XM was the lack of DJs.  Personally, I usually prefer music without them, but sometimes I think they can bring some interesting facts to a song/artist/album and I do enjoy that in specific genres.  However, I doubt anyone like Jonathan Schwartz will be  on Beats 1, but I will at least try it out.

When I tried Beats Music Streaming Service, there were several features missing that I wanted to see and I didn't see any of those features addressed (continue play, artist radio slider, etc.), so I am not canceling Rdio until I have a month under my belt with it.  Luckily, it is free for 3 months, so I have plenty of time to try it out before I decide.  However, if Siri works properly with it, it will be hard not to switch.