Still, the service is littered with clever, editor-picked playlists. It’s not as great an emphasis as it used to be, and the home “Listen Now” tab can be a smorgasbord of hit-and-miss suggestions based on your recent listening history.

In general, it emphasizes human curation more than peers like Spotify or YouTube Music. Relative to other music streaming services, Apple Music’s UI is perfectly serviceable. Spatial audio, on the other hand, is more of a fun gimmick: technologically impressive, yes, and sometimes genuinely immersive, but just as likely to make a record sound less natural.

That said, even if the difference is subtle, a lossless file does sound better than a more compressed one, particularly in the way it draws out higher-frequency sounds from cymbals, strings and the like. You need a decent set of wired headphones and an external DAC (or a good speaker system) to take full advantage, and the upgrade isn’t so stark that non-enthusiasts will care. Lossless streaming isn’t a game-changer for most casual listeners. A significant number of albums are also available in Dolby Atmos surround sound mixes, or “spatial audio.” A smaller but still significant selection can stream at higher resolutions up to 24-bit/192kHz. It’s one of the few music streaming services that lets you upload your own music files and naturally it’s tightly integrated with Apple devices.Īpple Music’s ALAC files have a minimum resolution of 16-bit/44.1kHz, which is the same quality you’d hear from a CD. Its user interface doesn’t make it too hard to get to your music library and strikes a balance between useful algorithmic recommendations and smartly curated content from actual people.

It has a library of more than 100 million songs, all of which are available in lossless streaming quality for no extra cost. No music streaming service is perfect, but for many, Apple Music should get the closest to covering all of the necessary bases.

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