Category: Apple Music

Apple Music, the subscription music streaming service from the Cupertino company, is doing exceptionally well.  In an exclusive report at Variety, the company shared that the service now has 40 million subscribers world wide.  Perhaps even more of an indicator of the health of the service, it is outpacing Spotify when it comes to month-over-month growth.

Right now Spotify is gaining about 2% each month in new subscribers, which outstanding growth.  But Apple Music is growing at a staggering 5% each month.  The service, like Spotify, is helped by the fact that it works on both Android and iOS phones.

For those of you who use Google Assistant on your iPhone, you can now have it play music from your Apple Music account.  Just like other music services, you can link your Apple Music account via a toggle switch in the Music section of the Settings for Assistant.  Once linked, you can use Assistant to play music from the service by saying, “Play Rush on Apple Music“.

The functionality of Google Assistant on iOS is somewhat limited as you cannot have it as your default Assistant.  That still is reserved for Siri and is unlikely to change (on Android, you can change the default Assistant app).  That means that the functionality of this new feature is going to require you to fire up Google Assistant and give the command.  In other words, it isn’t as smooth a user experience as Siri… but it is Google Assistant which is documented at being superior Siri in accuracy.

Apple has released an update to the Apple Music app for Android today, bringing with it support for those subscribers with Family Plans as well as support for playing music videos within the app.  The update brings it more inline with Google Play Music for Android as the streaming music and video content battle (not really a war – yet) continues to heat up between the two tech giants.  Google has had Google Play Music for iOS for some time.

Apple Music, the subscription music service from Apple, has been updated for Android devices that brings support for SD cards.  The update is in the Google Play Store now and it is version 0.9.5 for those keeping score at home.  With the recognition of SD cards, users can now associate it with the app and download music to it for offline listening.  Previously you could only download music to your device memory which for many was a severely limiting factor.

Along with the support for SD cards, the update also brings the ability to search the Beats 1 schedule for shows that you want to listen to while on the go.  Beats 1, for those who don’t know, is a 24/7 radio station based in Los Angeles,

Apple Music for Android

New York and London that provides a wide range of programs for listening. This new update also brings improved searching functionality to the app.  Now you can search more easily by composer and compilations to find your favorite artist or type of music.

While the app is still very much in the early stages, Apple continues to tweak and improve it, offering a music alternative to the likes of Google Play Music and Spotify for Android users.  Users can also try the service for 3 months and then it is $9.99 per month, the same price as other services.  For those of you who have migrated from iPhone to Android but still have a big iTunes collection, Apple Music is a good way to keep those songs and play them on your new device.

Apple Music for Android – Free – Download Now

Today in San Francisco, Apple announced that Apple Music for Android will be coming in July as part of a larger announcement that the company made around iTunes.  The new service is a subscription model where you can pay $9.99 per month (or up to 6 people on the same account for $14.99 per month) will be yet another offering for Android customers but the question will be if it is too late.  There are certainly some advantages to having Apple Music on Android devices, namely the Apple catalog of music which is hard to beat.