Apple Music

• 1. Introduction

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  Apple Music arrived on the 30th of June 2015, carried in on a boast from Sony Music chief executive Doug Morris. On the 7th of June 2015, Morris told reporters, "It's happening tomorrow." He argued the new streaming service had a built-in advantage. Apple held "$178 billion dollars in the bank" and "800 million credit cards in iTunes," he said. Morris predicted the launch would be a "tipping point" for the whole streaming industry, saying "a rising tide will lift all boats." At almost the same moment, one of the world's most famous singers was threatening to pull her album. She objected to how the service planned to pay artists during free trials. Under former chief executive Steve Jobs, Apple had resisted the idea of a music subscription altogether. Within a few years, the company would be racing to turn a music app into something closer to a television network. It would fight over exclusive albums. It would also cope with a syncing feature that some listeners blamed for wrecking their own collections. What changed Apple's mind, and what did that reversal cost everyone else?

• 2. A Fight Over Free Trials

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  Taylor Swift published an open letter shortly before Apple Music's release, criticizing Apple's plan not to pay artists during a listener's free trial period. She called the policy "unfair," writing that "Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those months." She also said she would hold her album 1989 back from the service until the policy changed. The UK independent label Beggars Group raised a similar objection. It argued that it was hard "to see why rights owners and artists should bear this aspect of Apple's customer acquisition costs." One day after Swift's letter, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue announced on Twitter that the policy had changed. Cue wrote that Apple Music "will pay artists for streaming, even during customers' free trial period." Swift responded on Twitter that she had decided to put 1989 on Apple Music, "and happily so." She added that it was "the first time it's felt right in my gut to stream my album." The dispute over trial pay was not the only fight behind the scenes. Apple had reportedly pressed record labels to pull their catalogs from the free, ad-supported tiers of rivals such as Spotify and Amazon Music. It also offered Universal Music Group an incentive to remove its content from YouTube. In May 2015, the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into the alleged arrangement.

• 3. Chasing a Cultural Platform

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  Jimmy Iovine, then an Apple Music executive, said in 2017 that the goal was to turn the service into a "cultural platform." Apple reportedly wanted it to become a "one-stop shop for pop culture," and the company began investing heavily in producing and buying video content, covering music videos, concert footage tied to releases, web series, and feature films.

  At Apple's 2015 launch event, hip-hop artist Drake appeared onstage to describe how he used the new Connect platform. Apple contrasted Connect with the iTunes Store, where independent artists had struggled to gain a foothold. In October 2015, Drake and Apple struck a deal to release the "Hotline Bling" music video exclusively on Apple Music. Two months later, Apple released an exclusive Taylor Swift tour documentary called The 1989 World Tour. In February 2016, The Hollywood Reporter said Dr. Dre would star in and executive produce Vital Signs, described as Apple's first scripted television series. Days later, Recode reported that the announcement was more about promoting Apple Music than a genuine push into original television, citing a description of the effort as "content marketing."

  In June 2017, Apple hired two television executives from Sony, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, who had jointly held the title of "President" there and helped develop shows including Breaking Bad and Shark Tank. In December 2017, Apple hired programming veteran Michelle Lee as a creative executive for its original video team. Days later it also hired Philip Matthys from Hulu and Jennifer Wang Grazier from Legendary Entertainment. Earlier, in March 2017, Apple had brought on former YouTube product manager Shiva Rajaraman to help build out its video platform.

  We the Best TV, featuring DJ Khaled, premiered on the 5th of February 2016, alongside a companion radio station called We the Best Radio. The Score, a six-episode series about music scenes around the world, premiered on the 22nd of March 2016 with a curated playlist for each episode. Up Next, chronicling new and upcoming artists, began on the 16th of August 2017 and paired each season with live-performance interviews called Up Next Sessions. Carpool Karaoke: The Series, adapted from the segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden, premiered in August 2017, after Apple bought the format's worldwide rights from CBS in 2016. Planet of the Apps, a reality show pitting software developers against each other for funding in front of judges, premiered on the 6th of June 2017 to mixed reviews and was cancelled after one season.

• 4. Outpacing Spotify

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  Fortune reported in January 2016 that Apple Music had reached 10 million paying subscribers within six months of its launch, a pace that had taken rival Spotify six years to match. The count kept climbing: 11 million in February 2016-13 million in April, 15 million in June, 17 million in September, and 20 million in December. It reached 27 million by June 2017-36 million by February 2018, and 38 million by March 2018, just five weeks after the previous milestone. Growth continued to 40 million in April 2018-50 million by May 2018-56 million by December 2018, and 60 million by June 2019.

  Music Business Worldwide reported in February 2016 that Apple Music, having just launched in Turkey and Taiwan, was now available in 113 countries, covering 59 regions that Spotify did not reach. The service arrived in Israel and South Korea in August 2016. On the 21st of April 2020, Apple expanded to 52 more countries, bringing the total to 167 worldwide. From the 30th of October 2020, Apple Music was folded into the Apple One bundle alongside services including News, iCloud, Arcade, and TV Plus.

  On the 24th of June 2022, Apple raised its U.S. student plan from $4.99 to $5.99 a month, the first price increase for any plan since the service's launch in that country, with similar increases in the UK and Canada. On the 24th of October 2022, Apple raised standard pricing again: the Individual plan rose $1 to $10.99 a month, the Family plan rose $2 to $16.99 a month, and the Annual plan rose $10 to $109 a year. By August 2025, Apple Music had grown to 94 million subscribers.

  In 2025, Apple Music added a playlist transfer tool built with the third-party service SongShift, letting users import playlists from competitors such as Spotify and YouTube Music.

• 5. The War Over Exclusives

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  Frank Ocean released his album Blonde exclusively on Apple Music in August 2016. He made that decision independently of Def Jam Recordings, his label at the time. The move reportedly "ignited a music streaming war," following similar exclusive deals from artists including Adele, Coldplay, Future, Drake, Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Kanye West.

  Spotify's head of communications, Jonathan Prince, told The Verge, "We're not really in the business of paying for exclusives, because we think they're bad for artists and they're bad for fans." Prince added that fans want to hear whatever artists release. He acknowledged that short promotional exclusives were common, though he called wide release the best practice for everyone. After a two-week period, Blonde was released on Spotify as well.

  Ocean's deal reportedly caused "a major fight in the music industry." Universal Music Group banned the practice of exclusive releases for its own signed artists, and several other major labels followed its lead soon after. According to unnamed label executives, Spotify responded with a policy of reduced promotion for albums that arrived there after other services, including fewer playlist placements. Rolling Stone wrote in October 2016 that keeping up with several major artists "would have had to subscribe to not one but two streaming services," naming Beyoncé, Drake, Frank Ocean, and Kanye West as examples. The magazine added that "a backlash has developed against this new reality." Lady Gaga told Apple Music's Beats 1 radio station that she had warned her label about signing exclusivity deals. She said she would "leak all my own new music" if it signed contracts with Apple Music and Tidal.

  By May 2017, Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine struck a different tone, telling Music Business Worldwide, "We tried it. We'll still do some stuff with the occasional artist. The labels don't seem to like it and ultimately it's their content."

• 6. When the Cloud Went Wrong

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  Users began reporting problems soon after Apple rolled out iCloud Music Library, the system meant to sync personal collections with Apple Music. Tracks turned up moved to the wrong albums, album art stopped matching the correct music, and some listeners found duplicate artists and songs cluttering their libraries. Other reports described missing tracks entirely and syncing that simply failed to complete.

  Mashable wrote that "Apple has not yet publicly acknowledged the problem or responded to our request for comment." Some users also reported that iCloud Music Library had deleted music from their local storage, though other publications disputed that account, attributing the losses to user error or another application instead. There were additional reports that the feature had replaced some uploaded files with versions locked by digital rights management.

  In July 2016, Apple replaced the underlying matching technology with a system built around "audio fingerprints," identical to the method used by iTunes Match to scan sound data. That update also removed the digital rights management locks from previously matched downloaded songs.

• 7. Applause and Complaints

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  Reviewers gave Apple Music mixed notices when it launched, describing its interface as "not intuitive" and calling it an "embarrassing and confusing mess." Critics also flagged battery life problems on top of the navigation complaints.

  Christina Warren of Mashable highlighted the service's human curation, pointing to its human-curated radio stations and the accuracy of playlists recommended in the "For Me" section. Warren wrote that "the For Me section alone has made me excited about music for the first time in a long time." Sam Machkovech of Ars Technica suggested that Apple's emphasis on unsigned artists within the Connect feature might be an effort to restore its old reputation as a "tastemaker" from the mid-2000s.

  The iOS 10 redesign of Apple Music drew a warmer response overall. Caitlin McGarry of Macworld praised Apple for having "cleaned up the clutter, reconsidered the navigation tools, put your library front and center, and added algorithmically created playlists to rival Spotify's," concluding that the redesign was "a huge improvement over its previous incarnation, and a clear sign that Apple is listening to its customers." Fellow Macworld editor Oscar Raymundo disagreed, writing that "Apple Music in iOS 10 is not as elegant or intuitive as Apple promised." He added that the update piled on needless options, buried key actions like repeat, and left the For You section wanting. Jordan Novet of VentureBeat sided with McGarry, writing that "Apple has improved the overall design, as well as the experience."

  In December 2017, singer-songwriter Neil Young used his Neil Young Archives project to criticize the audio quality Apple Music delivered. Young said Apple Music "controls the audio quality that is served to the masses" and reduces it to "between 5 percent and 20 percent of the master I made in the studio in all cases." His claim did not hold up to technical scrutiny. Apple delivered an industry-standard high-quality bitrate of 256 kbit/s AAC, which reportedly edged out Spotify's own 320 kbit/s Ogg Vorbis bitrate in quality.

• 8. Beyond the Playlist

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  With the release of iOS 12 in 2018, Apple Music added the ability to search for a song using its lyrics. Subscribers can also build a profile to share what they listen to and follow other users' activity, while Apple Music's iCloud matching system lets a subscriber's iTunes library and Apple Music library live in one place. On the 13th of December 2018, Apple discontinued Apple Music's "Connect" feature in favor of a redesigned approach to artist profiles introduced with iOS 11, letting users share music and playlists with friends and followers.

  On the 15th of November 2019, Apple released Apple Music Replay, a feature that tracks listening down to the minute and ranks a listener's most-heard songs, artists, albums, and genres for the year. Replay plays a generated animation recapping the listener's year, alongside a section marking specific milestones reached. Five days later, Apple introduced Apple Music for Business, offering customized playlists for partnered retailers, and revealed that its catalog then held more than 60 million songs.

  Apple Music offers four audio tiers: a variable-bitrate High Efficiency stream, a 256 kbit/s AAC High Quality stream, Lossless ALAC files ranging from 16-bit at 44.1kHz up to 24-bit at 48kHz, and Hi-Res Lossless ALAC files at 16-bit or 24-bit reaching between 88.2kHz and 192kHz. On the 17th of May 2021, Apple announced it would add lossless audio through the ALAC codec, along with Dolby Atmos mixes, at no extra cost to subscribers. By the 28th of December 2021, Apple Music had upgraded its entire catalogue, then 90 million tracks, to lossless audio. With the release of iOS 16.2 on the 13th of December 2022, Apple introduced "Apple Music Sing," a karaoke feature with real-time lyrics and a slider that lets listeners adjust vocal volume independently from the instrumental track.

  On the 19th of October 2021, Apple introduced the discounted Apple Music Voice plan at $4.99 a month, limiting subscribers to accessing the library and playback only through Siri. Apple discontinued the plan on the 1st of November 2023, without explanation. Platform support kept expanding elsewhere. Apple Music reached Amazon Echo speakers on the 30th of November 2018, having previously been limited to Apple's own HomePod. Sony brought the service to the PlayStation 5 starting the 27th of October 2021. Apple Music arrived on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on the 12th of October 2022. Apple also released a web player in beta on the 5th of September 2019, and a Windows 11 app followed in beta in January 2023 to replace the aging iTunes for Windows.

  Apple acquired the classical streaming service Primephonic on the 13th of August 2021 and said it would become the foundation of a dedicated classical app. Apple Music Classical launched on iOS in March 2023, included at no extra cost with an Apple Music subscription. The Android version followed on the 30th of May 2023, and an iPad version arrived on the 16th of November 2023. On the 5th of September 2023, Apple also acquired the classical music label BIS Records.

  On the 19th of October 2020, Apple launched Apple Music TV, a free, continuous 24-hour livestream of music videos in the United States, modeled on the early days of MTV. It launched with a countdown of the 100 most-streamed songs in the US on Apple Music, and planned new premieres every Friday at noon Eastern time. Apple Music has also handed out its own Apple Music Awards each year since 2019, with early honorees including Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Finneas O'Connell, and Lil Nas X. On the 22nd of September 2022, Apple signed a multi-year deal with the NFL making Apple Music the main sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show, beginning with Super Bowl LVII. In February 2024, the app Djay added support for DJing with Apple Music tracks, and in March 2025 Apple announced "DJ with Apple Music," expanding compatibility to Rekordbox, Serato, and Engine DJ software and to standalone hardware from AlphaTheta, Denon, and Numark, though stem mixing remains disabled for streamed music. Separately, Apple partnered with Bharti Airtel to give the telecom company's premium clients in India free access to its music and video services starting in 2024.

  In February 2026, Apple Music introduced playlists generated automatically from prompts such as a genre or a mood, alongside a full redesign in the "Liquid Glass" style introduced with iOS 26. The same update added real-time translation for bilingual songs and new playback analytics tools. More than a decade after its launch, Apple Music was still rewriting its own interface, one operating system update at a time.