27 Facts About Apple Music

Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists.

Executive Jimmy Iovine has stated that the intention for the service is to become a "cultural platform", and Apple Music reportedly wants the service to be a "one-stop shop for pop culture".

Apple Music is actively investing heavily in the production and purchasing of video content, both in terms of music videos and concert footage that support music releases, as well as web series and feature films.

Original iOS version of Apple Music received mixed reviews, with criticism directed towards a user interface deemed "not intuitive".

Apple Music gained popularity rapidly after its launch, passing the milestone of 10million subscribers in only six months.

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Apple Music allows users to stream over 90 million songs to their device on demand.

Unlike traditional radio services, the radio feature in Apple Music allows users to skip songs, view previously played songs on the station, as well as view songs playing next.

Shortly before Apple Music was released, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift wrote an open letter publicly criticizing Apple's decision to not reimburse artists during a user's free trial period and announced that she would be holding back her album 1989 from the service.

Apple Music's said the policy was "unfair" as "Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those months".

Day after Swift's letter, Apple's Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue announced on Twitter that Apple had changed its policy, and that Apple Music "will pay artist for streaming, even during customer's free trial period".

Apple Music's concluded saying it was "the first time it's felt right in my gut to stream my album".

In negotiations with record labels for the new service, Apple allegedly attempted to encourage record labels to pull their content from the free, ad-supported tiers of competing services such as Spotify and Amazon Music in order to drive adoption of Apple Music and offered an incentive to Universal Music Group to pull its content from YouTube.

Hip hop artist Drake appeared onstage at the announcement event to elaborate on how he used the Connect platform, and Apple subsequently emphasized how "unsigned artists can share their music on Connect, too", in contrast to the iTunes Store, where small, independent artists were finding it difficult to participate.

In February 2016, Music Business Worldwide reported that, with Apple Music having launched in Turkey and Taiwan in the previous week, the service was available in 113 countries.

In January 2016, Fortune reported that, six months after launching, Apple Music had reached 10 million paying subscribers, having spent six months reaching the same customer base that took competing music streaming service Spotify six years.

In January 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple Music was exploring original video content, including its own television series and movies.

In June 2017, Apple Music hired two television executives from Sony, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg.

In early December 2017, Apple Music hired Michelle Lee, a programming veteran, as a creative executive of Apple Music's original video team, and a few days later, hired Philip Matthys and Jennifer Wang Grazier from Hulu and Legendary Entertainment, respectively.

In November 2015, Apple launched the Android version of Apple Music, touted by reporters as Apple's first "real" or "user-centric" Android app.

In 2020, Apple Music sealed deals with Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group for further promotion and streaming allowance of songs from artists on the labels including Taylor Swift, Lizzo and Adele.

Christina Warren of Mashable noted the emphasis on human curation in Apple Music, pointing out the various human-curated radio stations and the accuracy of the curated playlists recommended to users in the "For Me" section.

Jordan Novet of VentureBeat wrote positively about the changes, stating "Apple Music has improved the overall design, as well as the experience".

Mashable wrote that "Apple Music has not yet publicly acknowledged the problem or responded to our request for comment".

ICloud Apple Music Library has been reported to delete music from users' local storage, though this has been disputed by other publications as caused by user error or another application.

In July 2016, Apple Music switched the matching technology to incorporate features identical to iTunes Match, specifically the use of "audio fingerprints" to scan sound data.

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Ocean's independent move to Apple Music exclusivity caused "a major fight in the music industry", and Universal Music Group reportedly banned the practice of exclusive releases for its signed artists.

Lady Gaga told Apple Music's Beats 1 radio, "I told my label that if they signed those contracts with Apple Music and Tidal, I'd leak all my own new music".