I listened to music from Apple Music on a Samsung TV with Smart TV - a review

Apple Music unexpectedly appeared on the Samsung Smart TV platform, and I have fewer and fewer reasons to keep connecting to the Apple TV.

There was a small earthquake on the streaming market a few years ago. It is true that Spotify is undoubtedly a leader in terms of quantity, but one of the younger players in the form of Apple's music service, although it came to the party late, still ahead of the rest of the rate. The Cupertino company is now on its heels in Scandinavia.

Apple Music is now the second largest music streaming in the world.

At first, it could be suspected that Apple will provide the music service and the VOD service presented a few years after it only to the owners of its devices, as is the case with e.g. FaceTime, but this did not happen. The company from Cupertino now wants to earn not only on equipment, but also on services, which is why Apple Music and Apple TV applications are coming to other platforms.

Apple Music is available from the beginning in the Android version, and the service can be used recently from the level of smart speakers and through the website - and this is not the end. Today, a completely new Apple application has appeared on Samsung TVs. It is also available in Poland and I have already had the opportunity to check it in practice.

How does Apple Music work on Samsung Smart TV ?

After launching the application, I was very pleasantly surprised - rarely does the TV application work as well as Apple Music prepared for the Samsung Smart TV platform. Navigation is smooth, and the highlighting of subsequent interface elements using the navigation buttons on the remote control is decorated with attractive animations.

It is extremely pleased that the application can be used to a limited extent even without logging in. Thanks to this, you don't have to set up an account, which could involve the start of the trial period, just to look at the Apple Music library. In addition to the songs, which are very important in the context of the debut of the service on TVs - music videos.

The interface of the Apple Music service on Samsung TVs is reminiscent of that of the Apple TV app.

The only thing that distinguishes these applications is the background, which on Samsung is a bit darker, but the interface itself is consistent with the one that users know from Apple TV and Apple Music on mobile and desktop platforms. The main tab signed For you before logging in encourages you to set up a trial account for three months, and after logging in you can see playlists and the Recently played section.

In addition, on the top navigation bar characteristic of the tvOS application you can find the main catalog, section with the above-mentioned music videos, radio, library, screen of currently playing songs and search engine for songs, albums and artists. Since I've been using Apple Music on other platforms for years, I felt like a fish in the water right away.

To start listening to music on the Apple Music app, you must log in to it.

Fortunately, this process has been simplified to the limit. Instead of entering the login and password from the remote control level (which of course is possible, but it takes a long time), just go to activate.apple.com and copy the short code from the TV screen. An even simpler way is to launch the Camera app on your phone and point the lens at the QR code.

In the latter case, the smartphone will automatically detect the code and open the appropriate website in the browser itself. There is also no need to rewrite the code in this case. In order to log in to the application on the Smart TV platform, all you have to do is confirm your identity from your phone. For iPhone, you can use the Face ID scan.

Apple Music on Samsung TV works so well that I lost another argument for having the Apple TV snap-in.

I bought the set-top boxing from the iPhone manufacturer long before the company launched its offensive in the world of video on demand services. Today I would probably not decide on it and wonder if I still need Apple TV. In fact, Samsung as part of its Smart TV platform already offers me everything I need from a TV.

Of course, it is worth mentioning that some of the applications work on the tvOS system a bit better than when running them directly on the TV. Among them are the two most important to me, namely Netflix and HBO GO ... although such YouTube because of the disagreements between Apple and Google on Apple TV does not support 4K resolution.

The only thing I really miss directly on Samsung are Apple services.

However, there are fewer and fewer shortcomings with regard to Apple TV. It is true that I still cannot view photos from the iCloud Photos service and videos from the library on my computer from the TV screen - these materials can only be sent from other devices to the TV thanks to AirPlay - but that would be enough. Music service appeared today, and earlier you could use Samsung TV with Apple's VOD service.

It was Samsung last year that got exclusive access to the Apple TV application. The application appeared on almost all Smart TV from 2018 or newer. Later, the company added AirPlay support in selected models, and today other companies from TV sets and set-top boxes also offer access to the company's VOD service from Cupertino and Apple's protocol for multimedia transmission.

We can expect it to look similar in the case of Apple Music. Unfortunately, the official list of TV models on which you can now listen to music from Apple servers, we still do not have. However, you can reasonably assume that the application will eventually appear on all devices that have access to the Apple TV service, and Samsung will have access to it on a temporary basis.

I listened to music from Apple Music on a Samsung TV with Smart TV - a review