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Apple vs Amazon Music
July 5, 2015
— Amazon Prime, Apple Music, streaming
Amazon app
Apple has rolled out the new streaming music subscription service. They are offering it for a three month’s free trail to everyone. I decided that there is no reason not to use if for three months. I also determined right away that I would not want to pay $10 a month for this, so I have already disabled the future paid subscription. My friend Carolyn Nicander at the Wonders of Tech blog taught me all the important things I need to know, such as turning off the subscription before I am charged. If you are considering it, do read her informative post to help you navigate wisely. One important point she makes is that the phone uses data minutes to stream the music when not connected to WiFi. This could make a big difference for some people.
My iPhone 4 will not be able to upgrade to the new operating system, meaning I can not have it on my phone. I downloaded it to my iPod touch, which I use liberally. Since this is my second day I have only tried a couple of playlists and beats radio. The playlists for cooking and chilling sound interesting. I wonder how well the music for various activities will suit my own taste. I have saved barbecue music playlist to test this idea. The playlists are curated by DJ’s and music critics and writers. This feature will be the most interesting to me, I believe. However, I am a happy customer of Amazon Prime. The music service already included in my Prime membership is loaded as an app on my phone. I use it daily since I started trying it, adding new material a couple of times week to my cloud collection. I can start to delete some if I decide I have heard them too often. My Amazon strategy is to add and then select shuffle recently added songs. This gives me all I need in a streaming service without paying extra. Apple service works in a similar way, giving you access to the tracks you select for your own collection . When I quit the Apple service all the material I have chosen will be lost, so I am not bothering to download anything. I am using this free time to discover and or remember artists and genres I like to hear. If I like them enough I can always buy their material. I still do that.
Are you using Apple Music yet? What are your impressions of the service? I think it is well worth the zero dollars I will pay for it. I am thrifty, but not cheap. I plan to live it up for the next three months and then happily go back to my Amazon app.
comments
Great post Pam! I know that no matter what kind of smart phone or what kind of content, streaming anything that isn’t connected to wifi will generate a larger bill. (the travails or raising a teenager!).
I would love to know your progress in evaluating playlists!
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Hi Pam, Thanks so much for the kind words about my article on Apple Music at The Wonder of Tech. Yes, people can try it out free for 3 months but that’s probably long enough for us to forget to cancel the service if we don’t like it enough to pay for it.
Better to cancel auto-renewal now and then sign up again later to avoid unnecessary charges.
Yes, streaming music and videos when you’re away from Wi-Fi can eat up your monthly data allotment quickly. Apple Music lets you download songs you like to your device so you can avoid running out of your monthly data early. Better to take a few minutes to do that than run out of data.
The beauty of only having it on the iPod is that I must use WiFi..it has no account to charge. That download point is a good idea for those using the phone for this. Thanks for being the cutting edge guru of all things tech. I count on you to keep me updated…and you always do.
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I do prefer Amazon, and let my neighbor use my Apple TV so I can get Amazon Prime on my Roku box…it is pretty silly that they make you choose..Apple will not appear on Roku. But 3 months of the music is free, so I am using it. So far very good, but not worth paying for it.
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