Roger Fingas
Apple treats "likes" in Apple Music in a very narrow manner — mostly as a way of tailoring the "For You" recommendations in the service, along with the help of things like personal library data, a report revealed on Thursday.
Tapping or clicking a heart button when playing content in Apple Music in fact only affects For You, and will not skew the content of the service's built-in radio stations, Apple said to Jim Dalrymple of The Loop. Those stations are noted to be curated entirely by Apple editors.
Significantly, the For You section is also influenced by additions to a listener's personal library, and any time a track is listened to in full. The company is reportedly ignoring skips, since a person might feel like hearing a song one day but not another.
To further refine For You suggestions, the iOS version of the feature lets users tap and hold on an album and pick "I Don't Like This Suggestion."
When a person creates a custom Apple Music Radio station, on iOS, the heart icon turns into a star. Tapping offers the choice of asking for more or less of the same, and will indeed adjust station content, much like Pandora or Apple Music's predecessor, iTunes Radio.
Apple's system is not dissimilar from some other streaming services, but the company's use of personal library data to generate recommendations isn't universal, and some services do take skips into account. Apple Music's chief competition, Spotify, depends mostly on past listening habits and the artists a person chooses to follow.
Andrew O'Hara
Malcolm Owen
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
13 Comments
From an audiophile point of view... We bought Spotify Premium to test the audio quality vs Apple Music. Spotify wins the sound quality test hands down. (On a reference audiophile system). On a mediocre system, there was no real discernible difference. So unless you have a real nice system, the decision will be more about the interface and ecosystem than sound quality. The system: 27" iMac Paradigm MilleniaOne CT Arcam irDac Audioquest Carbon USB Audioquest Sydney interconnects Audioquest X-2 speaker cable We did a blind test in our studio - flipping back and forth between the 2. Delta Spirit - hold my end Metric - artificial nocturne Zero 7 - somersby Miles Davis - kind of blue Spotify was the unaminous winner - with a bit more natural and detailed sound. - expected with a higher bitrate. AM didn't mess up my library like others - however, I find the way it adds albums and playlists a bit clumsy. I don't want it mixed with my cd rips. I also liked and added some albums... But the next day they were nowhere to be found? Not even in history. More development needed. If Apple offered true lossless- it would be a no brainer for me.
Over here in Germany - and as it looks like in other countries as well - without an Apple Music subscription you can only listen to Beats 1 radio. You have neither access to the other stations (except for BBC news, strangely), and you cannot create your own radio station. Would have been nice, if this would be explained by a sensible message instead of the error message "unable to connect, please try again". Would be even nicer if it would work...
Creating a new playlist from a song that is currently playing is a pain in the butt. You just can't do it from the song itself. You have to go out and create the new list you want and then go back and add the song to the new playlist. Such a pain.
From an audiophile point of view...
We bought Spotify Premium to test the audio quality vs Apple Music.
Spotify wins the sound quality test hands down. (On a reference audiophile system).
On a mediocre system, there was no real discernible difference.
So unless you have a real nice system, the decision will be more about the interface and ecosystem than sound quality.
The system:
27" iMac
Paradigm MilleniaOne CT
Arcam irDac
Audioquest Carbon USB
Audioquest Sydney interconnects
Audioquest X-2 speaker cable
We did a blind test in our studio - flipping back and forth between the 2.
Delta Spirit - hold my end
Metric - artificial nocturne
Zero 7 - somersby
Miles Davis - kind of blue
Spotify was the unaminous winner - with a bit more natural and detailed sound. - expected with a higher bitrate.
AM didn't mess up my library like others - however, I find the way it adds albums and playlists a bit clumsy. I don't want it mixed with my cd rips. I also liked and added some albums... But the next day they were nowhere to be found? Not even in history. More development needed.
If Apple offered true lossless- it would be a no brainer for me.
Spotify's bitrate is lower than Apple Music. AM is AAC, not MP3.
Spotify's bitrate is lower than Apple Music. AM is AAC, not MP3.
Spotify Premium is 320 kbps mp3
AM is 256 kbps AAC
More kbps = more information
While I agree that AAC is a better compression format, it doesn't mean a 256aac sounds better than a 320mp3.
It is questionable however, that at lower bit rates, a lower bit aac may be better then a higher mp3 - but definitely not at higher bit rates.
Especially when you throw a DAC in the mix.
That's why I clearly stated that unless you have audiophile gear, you won't hear much of a difference.