Music playback glitching or almost skipping on songs

I have noticed this too. I've used Apple Music mostly on cellular (T-Mobile, on an iPhone 5S), so I'm not sure if this happens over Wifi, but I suspect it doesn't. It almost sounds as if someone is jiggling a loose RCA cable on the back of the CD player, or to me, like bit-rot on a burned CD. I'm guessing it's Apple being really aggressive when it comes to dynamically adjusting things so we get a quick start to streaming and no drop-outs. If that is the case, then I'm pretty disappointed. If the music starts to distort as a result of efficiency decisions, then that's unacceptable.

As a test, I compared a song that was giving me these issues on Apple Music with the same track on Spotify (I have it set to stream at 320 kbps). The song was The Spirit of Radio by Rush. Not only did Spotify not have any distortion, it sounded noticeably better, even over a Bluetooth connection to my car stereo.

I wish Apple was more transparent about what kind of quality to expect when streaming over cellular vs wifi... but even if it was dropping to say, 128 AAC, it shouldn't be cutting out like it has been. Also, it would be nice if you could specify to only stream at 256 AAC. I would tolerate more delay with a stream for better sound any day.

I like the service so far so I hope this can be chalked up to launch-week kinks that will be ironed out in short order. But, if you're listening Apple, I'm not paying for the service no matter how much I like it unless it can stream music in an un-distorted fashion (and be used with Sonos).

Thanks!

I was beginning to worry that I was the only one having this issue as I've been thoroughly annoyed by this issue but noticed that I only experience glitching and stuttering when I'm streaming over cellular. If I switch to WIFI it's okay.

While that addresses the issue I never had these issues when I was streaming music over cellular using Spotify so I have to believe it has less to do with the cell signal in my office (which isn't that great) and more to do with Apple Music.

Hopefully this gets addressed in future updates.

I reckon this is because Apple Music uses 256kbps compared with Spotifys 96 or 160kbps for the free version. It's only the paid spotify subscription that allows extreme streaming at 320kbps in the settings... Perhaps see if spotify stutters and stops when set to 320kbps to do a fair comparison.

if so, then it will be down to the poor cellular signal.

Prior to Apple Music I always streamed premium Spotify (set to Extreme) using my cellular connection and it NEVER stuttered or glitched like Apple Music.

I recently read that Eddy Cue confirmed that selectable bit rates are coming to iOS 9 so maybe that'll fix the problem but as of now the only way to get reliable, stutter-free playback is to be on WIFI.

I'm not sure if it's related but when I had Beats I had serious problems between LTE, 4G and WIFI. Specifically the volume of songs would drop dramatically when I was on 4G versus LTE or WIFI. I communicated this issue with the Beats team over Twitter for a couple weeks but I eventually just canceled the service after the trial and stuck with Spotify. The Beats team did their best to help me out by giving me a free month but I refused to pay for a service that wasn't consistent. I use an AUX cable in my car to pump the sounds through the speakers which means driving through LTE and 4G zones. Volume between songs was enormously annoying.

This is a different situation but if it's built on the same Beats backbone it could explain why it's having issues.

I think the automatic bit rate as used by spotify has to be the solution to this issue as the cellular signal is often changing both in big cities and wider rural areas. I think having a single bit rate would be doomed to failure.

I have no doubt that Apple Music will get sorted eventually, but I am inclined to wait a while until these issues are sorted before I renew my subscription anyway. I certainly will not sign up if they decide to limit the iCloud library songs to 25000, which is causing problems too for other users.

Lets hope 'Eddy' is a man who sticks to his word and that Apple throw some more 'developer' time and effort at the Music App, because it clearly has a long way to go, to catch up with its competitors.

I have this exact same problem. It is constant, no matter the song and no matter the signal. It happens on AT&T LTE as well as at home on WiFi. I've been using Slacker Radio for years and don't have this problem at all, regardless of where my network connection is coming from. Clearly this is an Apple problem that hopefully they continue to work on, since these posts originated in July and I am experiencing this in August. **my phone is current on all updates.

I have this problem in the UK as well, but I have the same problem with Spotify and Apple Music when in my car. I'm using iPhone 6 on iOS 8.4.1 and have 4G signal when driving. It's only over the last week or so that half way through a track it cuts out and then about 45 secs later starts again. Like I say I get the same on Spotify and Apple Music and can't figure out why it's only just started happening. Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

I'm having this issue, too, with my iPhone 6 where I'm getting skips during playback (like a scratched CD) when streaming using LTE. There's really just something infuriating about music skipping like that, and I wasn't having any problems with Spotify's Extreme streaming mode on LTE.

Hopefully the problem is resolved before the 3 month trial is up, otherwise I won't continue using it.

Glitching like a bad CD on WIFI on my laptop, unimpressed doesn't quite do it justice