Once upon a time, a little more than a year after the iTunes Store opened in 2003, I signed up for an iTunes Account, typed in my credit card number and downloaded two songs. They were the only two songs I ever downloaded from Apple and shortly thereafter, I removed my credit card from the account and for the next few years my children began redeeming iTunes Giftcards to seed their own digital libraries. The account lay dormant until Christmas 2010 when I got a 64GB iPod Touch for Christmas and began downloading apps using iTunes Giftcards, which i have continued to do until this day.
Because I didn't have a "sufficient credit amount" (ie $9.99) on my iTunes Account, I bought a $15 Gift Card that would allow me to participate in the free three month trial of Apple Music. If you're asking how can it be free if you have to pay, the answer is you don't have to pay now and it is truly free. Apparently, most people do indeed have credit cards on their iTunes Accounts and when the three month trial is over, they will be charged for October in advance UNLESS they cancel the Automatic Renewal option. (This also applies to users like me who have Credit balance of more than $9.99 on iTunes Account due to Gift Cards.)
In iTunes 12.2 on a Windows PC, you can access your Account Info from drop down menu to left of search bar next to silhouette. Once Account Information screen is up, scroll down to Settings and then find Subscriptions and then Manage. The screen above is what greeted me. Then I just ticked the Off circle under Automatic Renewal. That's it. Now that I've locked in my three months free trial without worry of financial penalty (though I can always change my mind), let's see what Apple Music is all about.
I used the Beats app during its introductory free trial period and a lot of the stuff I've come across in Apple Music is exactly the same or very similar to what Beats offered up though Beats was never available on the desktop of my PC like Apple Music, which is now an integral part of iTunes. The screen above is what I saw when I selected For You so I deleted six genre bubbles, liked the rest and then loved two of those likes. I was then presented with ten artists. I deleted two, liked the rest and loved two of them. Next screen gave me three playlists Apple Music thinks I would like based on my choices.
All three of the playlists are Beats holdovers, familiar to me cause I wrote them down during my trial notes, except instead of being credited to Beats as they were originally, they are now credited to Apple Music Hard Rock, Apple Music Classic Rock and Apple Music. At the bottom of the screen (not pictured in above screen grab), there were six albums I like, one of them I would classify as all-time favorite. While I enjoyed some of the songs from each playlist, I would consider none of them essentials and I exited the For You section. I really didn't see any other navigational options within For You, no way to get more suggested playlists or suggested albums. Yet when I clicked on the For You tab nearly three hours later, three new playlists and six new albums stacked atop the previous offerings. Will keep checking that to see if it updates as I listen.
The next stop was the New tab at the top of the screen in iTunes. This brought up a scrolling spotlight list at top of screen with neatly arranged rows below for New Music, Hot Tracks, Recent Releases as well as charts for Top 5 Songs, Albums and Music Videos. Clicking on each of the headers listed brought up screens of 24-100+ songs while clicking on any of the Top 5 headers brings up a screen that lists Top 100+ in each category. Scrolling further down the New screen revealed Hot Albums, Discovered on Connect: Audio, Discovered on Connect: Video, Recommended Music Videos, Summertime Playlists, New Artists, Spotlight on Sia and three albums listed as Alternative Essentials. But hidden among all of that, coming right in between the Discovered areas was the simple graphic pictured above. This is where I spent the next four hours, deep in the music via all sorts of playlists until my early bedtime beckoned. One of the catchy songs I discovered and enjoyed on my first full day with Apple Music is the one below which has no less than half a dozen videos:
The screen grab at the top of the blog was taken minutes into my Apple Music experience today. I do not know what caused it but I closed down iTunes and opened it back up and proceeded to listen for the rest of the night without further incident.
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