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It’s only been a couple of days since the WWDC took place, an event dedicated to developers to show everything Apple has been working on software-wise. In this year’s event, the company announced that it is willing to compete with services as solid as Spotify, Google Play Music and Rdio with their own offering called Apple Music. What’s more relevant though, is that Apple has announced that this will be the first app they develop for the Android operating system and it will launch in the fall, and while not a big deal was made, a second app is under development for this OS that would make it easier to switch to Apple’s ecosystem.
Apple Music is a cloud-based streaming system that will make your entire library available through the cloud so you could free up some space in your device. It is offered for free or with a paid membership that costs $9.99 a month or there’s a family plan for up to six people for $14.99 a month. The service includes the Beats 1 radio station that has curated music playlists and interviews as well as some other radio stations and Connect is the social aspect of the service, you can follow your favorite artists to be the first to see their most recent uploads, both features are available in the free offering. The paid memberships let you save content for offline listening and some extra Connect features.
As for how the service will work on Android, some details have been contradictory, it was first believed that Apple would not offer the 3 months of premium service for free as they do on iOS, this based on that the service will launch more than 3 months later in Google’s platform, but recent reports suggest that it will indeed be offered as a trial and later as a free service. The big difference is that aside from the Beats 1 station, no more radio stations will be available on Android devices. What is still not clear is if paid Android users will have access to the rest of the radio stations or just the rest of the features, they most likely will, as they wouldn’t want to left out any features for those customers that are willingly paying, but nothing is certain until the app launches officially.