Beats Music is now available for iPhone on the App Store, after being originally announced back in October. The app is a very stylised adaption of a typical music streaming service app, with Beats heavily pushing the idea of customisation and curation to distance it from its many competitors.
For instance, there is a ‘Right now’ view that serves song recommendations based on what only can be described as a mad lib. The app asks you what you are doing, what you are feeling, who you are with and what kind of genre of music you want. It then makes an endless playlist supposedly based on these choices. Although this sounds cool, I’m not sure how much of the first three questions even affect the suggested playlist.
While the first three questions are abstract, the last is a direct question about genre preferences and the app seems to heavily rely on this last answer to construct its playlist.
You can also get song recommendations in a more traditional fashion by genre, find a friend’s playlist or play a ‘curated’ playlist from “some of the best experts in music”, according to the app.
Right now, Beats Music is US only. Although the app offers a 7-day free trial, there is no permanently-free ad-supported option like Spotify, Rdio or even iTunes Match. After the trial period ends, you can subscribe to the service for $9.99 a month. More details can be found at Beats’ website. AT&T subscribers can get the service for their entire family for $14.99 a month.
