I wanted to post my first impressions on Apple Music since it launched on Tuesday June 30th. I have been listening to it every day since and here are my initial thoughts.

• The 3 month free trial is very nice and will give me plenty of time to decide if I want to pay $9.99 or $14.99 for the family plan after the trial ends.
• The service seems to work pretty good and almost every song I have searched for has been available.
• The new Music icon on iOS and the new iTunes icon on Mac are pretty dope (a small but nice touch).
• The curated playlists are really close to my tastes. I have very diverse musical tastes so color me impressed that they were able to provide me with stuff that is interesting to me.
• Beats 1, the new radio station has been the biggest surprise for me. That Apple was able to pull off an old school radio station but at the same time make it modern for todays kids is most impressive. I have already discovered about 15 songs I really like that I had never heard before thanks to listening to Beats 1. Apple Music makes it very easy to save these songs for offline listening as well. Zane Lowe is my favorite of the Beats 1 DJs so far. I really like his energy.
• One complaint I have regarding Beats 1 is it has had some hiccups ever since it’s launch. It frequently will stop the music for no reason and force me to hit play again for it to start back up again. Hopefully they get these issues worked out soon.

Over the last few years my music listening has pretty much disappeared as I started listening to more and more podcasts. When I do listen to music it is the same 3 or 4 albums over and over. I have stopped listening to any traditional radio as well as it seems to get more and more terrible as the years go on. I have really enjoyed using Apple music these last few days and while I don’t think I will ever go back to just listening to music I can see myself having a more even split between music and podcasts. Also, even if I decide not to pay for Apple Music after the free trial, Beats 1 will still be free to listen to and I plan to keep tuning in when I can.