Weekend Road Trip to Tulsa with SharePlay and Apple CarPlay

We went on a road trip to Tulsa, OK for the weekend to celebrate Greg’s 50th birthday, which was last Thursday. The trip was a surprise, and we hit the road Friday morning, picking up our friend Jason along the way to join us.

Once the queue started playing, it was cool to see who added each song displayed on the CarPlay screen. That added a fun, social element to the music experience.

We did run into a few hiccups when driving through areas with poor cell signal. When the signal dropped, everyone was disconnected from SharePlay. Once the signal returned, each person had to reconnect to continue adding or viewing songs in the queue. That felt a bit clunky, especially since I had read that SharePlay supports Bluetooth sharing. Oddly, Bluetooth didn’t seem to keep the connection alive when the cell signal dropped. It seems like Bluetooth should have been able to maintain the session, but that wasn’t the case for us.

Despite that, we had four people in the car all sharing songs, and it was a blast letting others take control of the playlist while I drove. SharePlay also lets passengers skip or replay songs, which came in handy. At one point, someone was sleeping, and we wanted to replay a song that had played earlier. With SharePlay, it was no problem to go back one or multiple songs so they could hear what we were all talking about.

What a fun way to have full car participation what to listen to while on a road trip. I highly recommend giving this a try. I did read that this is also available on Apple TV, but I have not tried that process yet.

Apple Music with Three Live Radio Streaming Options and My New Found Love

 

Quietly, Apple rolled out Apple Music which was formally called Apple Beats Radio for their live stream. I had not seen any posts or notifications in the Apple Music app but did notice as browsing the radio option that there were three live stations showing up. I had listened to the Beats Radio live station a few times through the years, but usually stuck with my own library to play songs I know and love.

Doing a search, I did find an announcement from Apple from August 18, 2020 (Apple announces Apple Music radio) about the change in name and the new stations being available. However, I do not recall seeing any tweets, email notices, etc., from Apple about the change when it was rolled out back in August. I just happened to stumble across it one day while looking through my music options.

Three options are offered for live music in addition to listening to your own library, new songs, etc. through the Apple Music app. First, they have Music 1 which features exclusives, remixes, and various hosts for every hour of the day. Next, you have the Music Hits station which includes artists hosting the shows which go throughout the day. The last live radio station is Music Country which is again live hosts, new songs, and discussions with various country artists. 

I have enjoyed all three live stations from Apple Music. My favorite and the one I listen to most days is the Music Country. I go through points in my life where I listen to all country, pop, blues, or whatever is trending. Country is a genre that I come back to throughout the year and while I used to only like the older artists from the 90's or early 2000's, I have found that I am enjoying some of the newer artists lately too.

I have tried other streaming services, but I am liking Apple Music the best so far. I think Carrie is going to let her subscription expire with Amazon Music and switch us over to the family plan for Apple Music which is only an additional $4. 

Happy music streaming to whatever service you enjoy. Feel free to respond to this post with your favorite service and what you like best about the service.