Apple Music launched yesterday across all iOS devices. Trent Reznor, who came to Apple after the software giant acquired his employer, Beats, played a key role in designing the streaming service. He also premiered instrumental versions of Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile and With Teeth LPs through Connect, Apple Music's social aspect that allows artists to upload their own music and other content to the service.

Several hours after Apple Music launched, Pitchfork spoke with Reznor over the phone about his role in developing the service, his opinions on other services, and creating a curator-centric alternative to the digital “big box store” experience. As Reznor discussed the service, he didn’t focus on Apple Music's vast library available for on-demand streaming. He’s more excited to talk about Beats 1, the built-in radio station run by a small team of DJs and featuring shows hosted by various musicians and celebrities.

"It’s kind of a miracle to think that a device in your pocket can play pretty much any song that the world has ever created,” he says. "But I think now, the experience is what matters, and my experience with competitors has been less than optimal. I feel like I’m walking into a big box store where all the merchandise is in a cardboard box."

Pitchfork: What has your day-to-day involvement looked like for this project?

Trent Reznor: It’s kind of shifted over time. Initially it was a lot of sitting with Apple’s design team and some of the iTunes engineers, honing in on strategically and holistically what we were trying to pull off—what features mattered in terms of what we were trying to accomplish with Apple Music. It was a lot of design meetings and overall roadmap things. Then, it started to change into some other roles. In the last several months I’ve been a lot more involved with the messaging and marketing that’s come out—the way we were trying to engage artists and try to explain the service to them in a way that feels right and sits right with people.

Pitchfork: How has this experience with Apple been compared to your experience working with Beats?

TR: That’s interesting. I’ve always been a fan of Apple’s, and I think a lot of the frustration we ran into with Beats Music was trying to pull off something that really needed a budget and a head count and resources that were really beyond what we were cobbling together. Then you put something out in the world, and then you realize now you’ve got the burden of trying to convince people what it is and how to install it and then start the seemingly impossible task of expanding across the world, country by country.