CheckMag | Apple Music for Windows: Why its garbage listening experience has been failing loyal users since 2023

When Apple launched dedicated Windows apps for its media services in 2023, replacing the aging iTunes, users expected a modern, reliable music experience. Instead, Apple Music for Windows has become a sad tale of how not to port software between platforms. After a lot of digging through user forums, support threads, and firsthand accounts, the evidence is hard to ignore: Apple Music for Windows is fundamentally broken - plagued by audio failures, synchronization nightmares, and performance issues that render it nearly unusable for serious music listening. And this is coming from a loyal Apple Music user, which has a very optimized interface on both iOS and Android.

Audio engine failures: What kind of music app can't play music?

The most damning evidence of Apple Music's Windows failures lies in its broken audio engine. It's not just me either - multiple users across Apple's support forums have reported identical symptoms: tracks playing for just two seconds before audio cuts out completely, while the progress bar continues moving. This is no minor glitch - rather, it's a complete and utter failure of the app's primary function - playing music. I've tried turning off lossless music (which defeats the purpose of Apple Music, but still) and disabling Sound enhancer to no avail. Nothing fixes this.

As per a user's detailed post: "When I select a track from my library in Apple Music for Windows, it will play for about 2 seconds and then the sound will stop for about 8 seconds while the track appears to be running. Then the audio comes back". In my experience as well, this problem repeats every time I restart the application - and in my case, the audio doesn't even come back. I absolutely hate being in a Sisyphean cycle where basic music playback becomes a constant battle. 

Even worse, the audio engine/volume control in Apple Music for Windows has been broken for a while now, if it ever worked, that is. The slider becomes completely unresponsive, sometimes for tens of seconds, and muting/unmuting causes volume to drop to 50% regardless of the slider position.

Sync disasters

Apple's promise of seamless synchronization across devices practically crumbles on Windows. Apple Music occasionally stops recognizing locally added files after restarting the app or computer. Adding music to the library requires removing and re-adding files multiple times, with sync operations to iOS devices failing repeatedly until users perform the process five or more times. 

Performance issues

Apple Music's Windows performance issues aren't just limited to slow loading times. I've experienced memory leaks on Windows 11 where the application consumes ever-increasing amounts of RAM until it becomes unresponsive.

The app's sluggish performance also affects basic navigation. Loading pages in the Browse section takes way longer than comparable streaming services, like Spotify or Tidal. I have a pretty decently specced PC (with a Ryzen 5800X (curr. $170 on Amazon), RTX 3060 Ti, and 64 gigs of RAM), but even then, Apple Music is nearly always slow despite having more than sufficient processing power.

Don't even get me started on the crashes during routine operations. The crashes often require force-quitting through Task Manager, and some users on forums even report that Apple Music can freeze their entire system so severely that even Task Manager becomes unresponsive.

The app's integration with Windows is equally problematic. Unlike Spotify, which provides basic interactive taskbar previews with playback controls and song information, Apple Music offers no such functionality. The app also lacks proper keyboard shortcuts for basic operations like searching, forcing users to manually navigate to search boxes instead of using standard Windows conventions. That's kind of unacceptable in 2025.

Why is Apple Music garbage on windows 11?
byu/Extension_Flounder_2 inAppleMusic

Network and loading problems

Even when the app does launch successfully, I get stuck on the "Loading Library" screen sometimes that always asks for an app restart. Multiple reports online as well describe the app getting stuck in permanent loading states, displaying the message indefinitely while never actually loading content. Reinstalling the app, clearing caches, and restarting Windows has failed to resolve these issues, at least for me.

Missing features further fuel irritation. Power users will agree that this Windows build lacks long-standing iTunes capabilities. One community member listed even more "major issues": you can’t reorder songs in a playlist view, can’t remove songs without deleting them from the library, Home Sharing and column browsing are gone, and even essential menu controls are absent. Understandably so, he followed: "If Apple is serious about killing iTunes for Windows without addressing these major issues, I will quit my Apple One Subscription and move to Spotify, which runs on more devices and has better features." Many other support posts mention workarounds like uninstalling the new app and reverting to the old iTunes client, which is nothing but a blunt admission of defeat.

For most users, benefits such as lossless/hi-res lossless streaming and gapless playback are overshadowed by the myriad bugs. I'm paraphrasing the words of one long-time iTunes fan here: "It is not possible that a company of this size cannot make an app that works in a decent way for other devices."

You won't find any other evidence in technical specs or feature comparisons, but in the forums full of paying customers such as myself, begging for basic functionality while being told to use web browsers or revert to deprecated software. When your solution to a broken music app is "don't use the music app," you've acknowledged that the product shouldn't exist in its current form.