Apple Music – Everything you need to know

Apple had an “One more thing…” moment during the WWDC 2015 keynote and it turned out to be the much rumoured Apple’s music streaming service, aptly named Apple Music. Here is everything you need to know about Apple Music.

Apple Music is not just a simple music streaming app like dozens of others out there. It takes all the different aspects of music that fans love and combines them to a single redesigned Music app.

Everything included in the current iOS 8 Music app like the Artists, Albums, Songs and Playlists lives in a single tab called My Music in the new Apple Music app. This is where you will find all your purchased songs.

For You is the section where Apple gives you recommendations on music. You are asked to pick a few of your favourites artists and genres, and Apple’s algorithm automatically gets you the playlists which it thinks you should hear. As time passes, it learns more about you and produces better recommendations for streaming.

The best part of these curated playlists are that you can view all the coming up tracks and change their order if needed. The new Music app is also intelligent as it learns your daily routines and what songs and playlists you hear at various locations and different times of the day. And as soon as you plug in your head phones and even before you touch the screen, Apple Music makes the suggestions right on the lock screen.

Beats 1 is Apple’s own radio station which will replace iRadio in the Apple Music app. This is a 24/7 global radio telecast from three locations- Los Angeles, London and New York by renowned hosts like Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga. And if you are not feeling like it, you can also tune into iRadio’s curated stations which have been completely revamped for iOS 9.

And finally the Connect tab, which got introduced on stage by Drake. Here users and artists can interact directly with each other. Artists can share videos, behind the scene clips, previews, photos, lyrics, statuses and more via Apple Music and fans will be able to follow, comment, like and share them.

Apple Music will be available starting June 30th on iPhone and iPad via iOS 8.4 update, Apple Watch by pairing with a compatible iPhone, Mac and PC as updates to iTunes. Apple Music will also come to Apple TV and Android this fall.

The first three moths on Apple Music will be available as a free trial and subscribers are charged $9.99 per month after that. You can also take a family plan, which costs just $14.99/month and can be shared between 6 users. “Even without a membership, you can listen to Beats 1 radio, see what artists are posting on Connect, and hear our ad supported stations.”

So this is Apple’s concept of music streaming experience and is best described by them as “All the ways you love music. All in one place.”  Apple has shown their hand and it has the potential to replace a bunch of industry leaders like Pandora, Spotify, Instagram and Twitter, with a single streamlined app and a reasonable monthly fee. However only time will tell if Apple Music manages to achieve its targets.

Read more on Apple Music.

Also read: Everything you need to know about iOS 9