Skip to main content

Beta no more: After nine months, Apple Music hits version 1.0 on Android

After nine months in beta, Apple Music is finally hitting version 1.0 on Android. It’s the third app that Apple has published to the Google Play Store.

It hasn’t been nine months of nothing, though — Apple’s developers have been adding features that make Apple Music unique for the Android operating system. In February, an update allowed subscribers to play music from the SD card; in March, another update introduced a widget; and in April, the music service also began offering up music videos and the ability to sign up for the Apple Music family plan.

Recommended Videos

Differentiating between services on the iOS and Android platform is key if Apple wants to steal users from rivals such as Google Play Music and Spotify. But there’s still a long way to go — the app is currently rated at 3.3 stars out of 5 on the Play Store. People are pointing to bugs, lack of Chromecast support, an inability to stream music, and crashes as big issues. Google Play Music has 3.9 stars, and Spotify reigns at an impressive 4.5 stars out of 5 rating.

Apple launched its music service last year at its Worldwide Developer Conference with a three-month free trial. The service is quite similar to rivals like Google Play Music and Spotify — you can stream music and discover new tunes thanks to human-curated playlists. More importantly, Apple landed several exclusive deals with major pop stars like Britney Spears and Taylor Swift, allowing subscribers to gain access to their latest albums on Apple’s platform first.

Apple Music is also getting a massive redesign when iOS 10 rolls out this fall, but it’s unclear if the Cupertino, California-based company will bring the visual tweaks to Android. The official version of Apple Music is now available for download on the Play Store.

Apple says its music service has 15 million subscribers — that’s impressive for its first year, but the service still lags far behind Spotify. The Swedish music streaming service has 30 million subscribers.

Julian Chokkattu
Former Mobile and Wearables Editor
Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…
7 ways to listen to music on your Apple Watch
Apple Music on Apple Watch

The Apple Watch does it all: Personalized fitness regimens, intuitive sleep monitoring, extensive Siri capabilities, and an entire suite of iPhone skills (texting, calling, reminders, etc.) for when you want to ditch the phone. Speaking of which, one of the greatest Apple Watch features is the wearable's ability to connect and stream, both online and offline (more on that below), to a number of today's most popular music streaming services. To help you better understand exactly what music apps you can interface with your Apple Watch, and what each service can and cannot do, we've put together this guide to highlight the seven best ways to listen to music on your Apple Watch right now.

Keep in mind that certain features will only be compatible with particular hardware versions of the Apple Watch. The same goes for the operating system, as a number of music apps require watchOS 4.1 or higher for all in-app functions to work properly. Currently, the most up-to-date Apple Watch OS is watchOS 7.5, but with WWDC 2021 on the way, we can expect that to change and bring some new WatchOS features as well. We'll update this post accordingly.  
Apple Music

Read more
Spotify tweaks search functionality to make music discovery more convenient
Spotify logo on a phone.

As a streaming service, Spotify hangs its hat on music discovery, but until recently, its search functionality had made the process a bit more cumbersome than it needed to be. Fortunately, the company will soon release a small tweak that places search filters at the top of the page (just below the search bar), allowing users to easily switch back and forth between artist, song, playlist, and album searches.

Previously, people needed to scroll down below their search results to apply these filters, a process that was confusing to some and irksome to others.

Read more
Why the best device for Apple’s lossless music will be an Android phone
A woman wearing the silver Apple AirPods Max.

In recent days, there’s been some talk of Apple launching a new lossless hi-fi audio tier for its Apple Music streaming music service. The leading evidence for such a move is a few lines of code in iOS 14.6 beta spotted by 9to5Mac. Those lines, which have since been removed, referenced “lossless” audio with the Apple Music app.

Apple certainly has competitive reasons to finally venture into the lossless audio category: Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, and Qobuz all offer CD-quality or better-than-CD-quality music, which leaves Apple Music as one of the last holdouts. But I can’t help feeling that Apple has boxed itself into a corner when it comes to lossless audio, and I don’t see an easy way out.
Bring back the jack?

Read more