Apple Music is a worldwide streaming service that plays music, audio and video on demand. It was launched by Apple Inc. on June 30, 2015. In a mere 6 months, Apple Music had more than 10 million subscribers. Today, as of June 2021, it has 78 million worldwide subscribers in 200 countries. 

Apple Music officially entered the streaming scene in the month of June 2015 after years of depending on iTunes for the music collected and played on its iPod. Since its entry, it has expanded into video streaming. An Apple Music Subscriber can stream up to 90 million songs on demand when accessing their full catalog. They can also select an artist to listen to and Apple will automatically surround your choice with a radio music station composed of similar music.   

Currently, Spotify Premium still ranks above Apple Music in popularity among consumers. Thus, Spotify holds the number one streaming service position. But Apple exceeds Spotify in at least one area, in its use of lossless audio. If you haven’t yet heard of lossless audio, don’t worry, you’re not even eligible to appreciate it if you don’t use a high-quality Hi-Fi stereo or very expensive earphones. Lossless audio is a way of compressing audio recordings, so they are composed of much fewer bytes of information, from 50 MB to as few as 30 without sacrificing sound quality. This means the Apple iPod will hold even more music because lossless will allow a larger collection to be stored.  

Now that Apple Music sits in the number two position behind Spotify, those bringing up the rear are Google (Music) Play, Pandora, and Tidal. Apple Music and Google Music Play are so close to the top because they have family plans, free trial periods, and access to music libraries. Apple started out offering a 3-month trial period, now it’s been reduced to only 1-month, but it’s still a good opportunity to test it out and make a decision about adding it to the budget. Google Play formerly had a 4–month free trial. Now it’s on par with the rest of the industry offering only 1-month as a free trial period. Apple Music gives you access to 37 million songs: those in the iTunes library, stored in iCloud, and those stored on your devices. Google Play offers access to the 50,000 songs stored in its locker. 

The Apple Music Family Plan offers six different members on up to six devices access for as little as $14.99 per month. Google Play allows 10 devices and up to six members access on their family plan and costs the same $14.99. The main difference is the number of songs that can be stored in Apple Music’s library or Google Play’s locker. Ideally, you can stream up to 37 million songs using Apple Music, while you can only stream up to 30 million using Spotify. The one thing that may be holding Apple back from the top spot is its lace of a free-tier. Spotify offers a free tier to occasional users. I have used it many times to simple hear a song I heard about to satisfy my curiosity. 

Here is Apple Music’s Description in great detail: 

1. Apple Music is a music streaming service. Play songs you have stored on your iOS devices: iPod, iPhone and iPad. You can also play songs that you’ve uploaded from iCloud on your devices.   
2. Apple Music’s radio component has those stations generated algorithmically, which are artists/genre-based radio stations and Beats 1, a live 24/7, human DJ based radio station. 
3. The single plan starts at $9.99 for a single user per month. 
4. You can download songs for offline playback. 
5. You can still buy music from the iTunes store to play and store in your library. 
6. Free users can listen to artist-based radio stations, with limited skipping of advertising allowed. 
7. Apple Music is available on Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Android. 
8. Apple Music has hired the expert curators once employed by Beats to generate great playlists for its listeners using their huge library of 37 million songs. 
9. Finally, Apple Music is $9.99 in the U.S. but only $2 in India, because they aren’t greedy. Their price will follow the willingness of the consumer to pay. 

Beginning in 2015, Apple Music introduced the music distribution industry to the iPod, allowing everyone to access their music anywhere anytime. They’re still evolving and recreating how we listen to music. Most importantly, they’ve filled the world with music. Apple Music is now in over 200 countries with hundreds of thousands of listeners and many more are pending.