Compare this to Spotify Premium:

- Syncing an album for offline play is a checkbox.

- I can play music on any device logged into the account from any other device logged into the account

- Robust song discovery

- Massive back-catalog

- HD Playback

It's absurd that iTunes, my phone's native media player, is worse than a third-party app.

Apple Music has ALL of these features.

Spotify is the best for discovering new music from other users. Apple is great because of Beats 1 and their curated playlists. But the core features are basically identical.

> Spotify is the best for discovering new music from other users

I guess you've never experienced rdio? There we had a real thriving community of music lovers. Albums were discussed in comments under the item in questions, comments were rated, replies could be added. Popular and recent comments of your friends were featured on your frontpage. The heavy rotation section revealed a single users' (or a group for that matter) current taste at a glance, I could start any user's personal radio station.

Compared to that Spotify is a social tragedy - the activity tab has to be one of the most disappointing areas of the service. I can shout, but nobody can get back to me or discuss anything there.

I would love to try rdio, but since I do not live in the US I can't register at all.

Unfortunately you can't register from anywhere anymore. They closed shop (or have been bought by Pandora, which then closed the service) late last year.

Well that's unfortunate.

>> the core features are basically identical

Apple's UI for the Music app is practically unusable compared to Spotify's. They make it so bloody hard to find anything. One screen contains 4 different actions, with a tiny half-height panel being swipeable to get at critical functionality that should be on a dedicated screen. It's not a professional interface.

>> Apple is great because of Beats 1

... if I wanted radio I would subscribe to Sirius. I'm not going to pay $10+/month for a single radio station.

You're blowing my mind. Apple Music's interface is so bad that I literally did not know it could do any of these.

Spotify is great for many more foreign and obscure genres and artists. It's nowhere near complete, but it gets closest to having everything I look for.

> - I can play music on any device logged into the account from any other device logged into the account

This is the only reason for me sticking with Spotify instead of Apple Music. It lets me have the Spotify app running on my htpc and I can easily control it from any device running Spotify. No need for AirPlay, Bluetooth etc.

Issue 1: Settings App -> Music -> Show Apple Music (toggle this off, obviously)

Issue 2: iTunes being so terrible is probably the best argument against resolving Issue 1.

I believe the default is not to automatically use Apple Music, though, and rather to prompt the user to try it. I know that I declined, and haven't seen it since.

Though the iOS Music app has been getting worse every year regardless. I keep meaning to write a replacement that just operates mostly the way it did until iOS 6 or 7.

> Issue 1: Settings App -> Music -> Show Apple Music (toggle this off, obviously)

I was secretly hoping that somebody would post the solution to the problem, so I just excitedly opened up the Music section on my Ipod touch...only to find that there is no "Show Apple Music" slider. I just googled it again and found a page with your same solution[0] which says it should work on the ipod and includes a screenshot, but my ipod doesn't have that section. When I get home, I'll try disabling Apple Music on iTunes to see if that works.

I love living in the future.

[0]http://osxdaily.com/2015/07/31/hide-apple-music-ios-itunes/

So I have "Show Apple Music" set to off in Settings, yet still when I get out in the boonies with a really weak cell signal, opening Music will result in a black Apple Music splash page that never fully loads, blocking me from accessing all the music I've synced to my iPhone. I end up having to turn on Airplane Mode to access the songs on my device. It's so stupid.

This happens to me, too, about once a week. I get a splash screen that won't go away until I do a hard "force close" on the app.

> I keep meaning to write a replacement that just operates mostly the way it did until iOS 6 or 7.

We should partner up and procrastinate together.

> We should partner up and procrastinate together.

"Displacement Activity Swap Shop" http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Displacement_20Activity_20Swa...

> We should partner up and procrastinate together

I would join that club.

I'd think about it, but I'd never get to applying

Also go to

Settings App -> General -> Restrictions -> Apple Music Connect (toggle to off)

We did it! It worked!

So the trick is to first enable Restrictions, then toggle off Apple Music Connect, then do what bydo says in his comment above (Settings App -> Music -> Show Apple Music (off)).

Pretty intuitive really. Great work everybody.

Yup. I ditched the built in music player after they insisted on making it worse and worse every release. I installed Google music right when it came out and haven't looked back. Pretty much the features Spotify has, but I was able to upload all my songs that gmusic didn't have.

A co-worker pays for the music on iTunes. Then goes and pirates the music and puts the non DRM-ed version on the portable music player.

While their integrity is admirable, you should let your coworker know that iTunes music has been DRM-free for about 6 years now. :)

It was years back so it probably when they still had it, or maybe it the format mp3 vs some other thing.

It literally was in 2009 that they dropped drm in the iTunes music store. I'm not sure telling this story really applies any longer.

Just install Vox for iPhone. Much better music player.

Maybe you should just install an old version of iTunes

I'm seriously, seriously considering this. Just gotta figure out how to make it happen. But my guess is that since my ipod touch is fairly new (1 generation old now) it won't work with old iTuneses.

Then you will have the continuous nagging to update itunes...

On Windows you can block iTunes from the firewall...