Very recently, Apple released iOS 8.4 to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners and with it comes one of the company’s most anticipated services in year – Apple Music.
‘Apple Music’ is built into iOS 8.4 and it represents Apple’s long awaited debut in the streaming music space and gives Spotify another whale to compete with as Google steps up its own streaming offering ‘Google Music’ (spotting a trend here?). As well as quietly killing Beats Music.
So did Apple Music brings to the table? It may be arriving years later than many expected, but it definitely debuts as a remarkably well rounded service.
Perhaps most importantly it fuses some of the best aspects of Google Music and Spotify in one, namely:
Apple has yet to detail how Apple Music will work offline and audio tracks max out at 256kbps verses the higher quality 320kbps of Spotify and Google Music (Apple uses AAC’s excellent compression, but Spotify and Google use the equally powerful Ogg Vorbis standard – both of which are far ahead of the ageing MP3).
In addition, while Apple Music will break new ground with a Fall release on Android, Google Music and Spotify are already available on iOS with the latter also on Windows Phone.
As such Apple Music isn’t quite the revolutionary knock-out blow many predicted, but it’s a compelling start and, with Apple’s marketing potential behind it, could well become the most high profile streaming music service around.
What would Wow Us? Apple giving Apple Music subscriptions free for two years with the purchase of a new iPhone or iPad (and probably one year with an iPod touch). Google and Spotify simply don’t have the hardware backbone in their business models to compete with that.
‘Apple Music’ is built into iOS 8.4 and it represents Apple’s long awaited debut in the streaming music space and gives Spotify another whale to compete with as Google steps up its own streaming offering ‘Google Music’ (spotting a trend here?). As well as quietly killing Beats Music.
So did Apple Music brings to the table? It may be arriving years later than many expected, but it definitely debuts as a remarkably well rounded service.
Perhaps most importantly it fuses some of the best aspects of Google Music and Spotify in one, namely:
- A 30M track library from major and independent record labels that matches both rivals
- The right to upload 25,000 of your own tracks free which will increase to 100k with iOS 9 (Google Music offers 50,000 at present)
- A manned ‘Beats One’ radio service that steps beyond the automated radio playlisting of Google and Spotify
- Bespoke, human curated, playlists
- A US$ 14.99 per month ‘Family Pack’ for up to six people versus the US$ 9.99pm single user rival options
- A longer 3 month free trial period (with enhanced Taylor Swift smackdown) compared to 1 month on Google Music and 2 months on Spotify
Apple has yet to detail how Apple Music will work offline and audio tracks max out at 256kbps verses the higher quality 320kbps of Spotify and Google Music (Apple uses AAC’s excellent compression, but Spotify and Google use the equally powerful Ogg Vorbis standard – both of which are far ahead of the ageing MP3).
In addition, while Apple Music will break new ground with a Fall release on Android, Google Music and Spotify are already available on iOS with the latter also on Windows Phone.
As such Apple Music isn’t quite the revolutionary knock-out blow many predicted, but it’s a compelling start and, with Apple’s marketing potential behind it, could well become the most high profile streaming music service around.
What would Wow Us? Apple giving Apple Music subscriptions free for two years with the purchase of a new iPhone or iPad (and probably one year with an iPod touch). Google and Spotify simply don’t have the hardware backbone in their business models to compete with that.
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