| Price | Free |
| Version | VARY |
| Category | Music & Audio |
| Developer | Apple |
| Source | iOS, Android |
| Rating | (4) |
Apple Music is Apple’s streaming music service. After arriving as an option to iTunes for iOS and PC/Mac, now comes its Android version as a standalone app.
Apple Music is an app for listening to online music in the style of Spotify or Google Play Music. The app allows you to listen to the entire iTunes song catalog for a monthly fee. You can also easily listen to music you have purchased from the service. Apple Music wants to personalize your listening experience as much as possible, so with the “For You” option it shows you the music it thinks you might like, based on tastes you have previously indicated and your previous listening. Do you prefer to go on your own? You can also do it using the search engine or accessing the news section. In addition to albums and playlists focused on genres or themes, another asset of Apple Music is its radio stations. These are not automatic playlists, but stations managed by prestigious DJs from around the world. Another interesting Apple Music option is “Connect,” a sort of social network where artists share updates to keep fans happy.
Since Apple Music is a standalone app on Android its use is much simpler than as an integrated iTunes option. All your options are well laid out to make it easy to find and listen to what you want. Its light-colored aesthetics are also very pleasant. Special mention should be made of its recommendation system, which is quite accurate, although without detracting from Spotify’s, which also tends to be quite accurate. Apple Music is paid and does not have any free mode. However, so that you can try it, you are offered 3 free months of the full service, after which, if you do not unsubscribe, you will be automatically charged the fee (9.99 euros in Spain). However, it seems that this is not always the case. Some users who have signed up for the trial period report that they have been charged for the first month when entering their credit card. We believe that this problem is due to the fact that we are dealing with a beta version of the app and that Apple will take action (and refund the money to affected users). Another problem with Apple Music is its high resource consumption. On the one hand, it consumes quite a lot of RAM and, on the other hand, its data consumption is higher than its competitor Spotify. In addition, the song download system also needs to be improved.
Apple has launched an app on Android that still needs a lot of polishing, but it’s not something they don’t want to lose sleep over: they don’t mind not having the unanimous approval of Android users, since their user base uses iOS. Anyway, if Apple Music solves its problems of payment, stability and resources in the long run we will be facing a great alternative to Spotify and the like.
