Apple loves to keep its services and software exclusive to its own platforms, but when it comes to music streaming, that kind of policy just won’t fly. Android has far too massive of a userbase for Apple to ignore, and Apple is far from stupid, which is why the company made it clear from the beginning that Apple Music would be coming to Android. However, when the service launched a few months ago, Apple clarified that it would be a few months before Apple Music came to Android, and it looks like that time is now. Earlier today, the beta version of Apple Music launched on Android.
As promised, Apple just introduced a major new app for Android—yes, Android—with the expected arrival of Apple Music. The company’s streaming service looks mostly the same for Android as it does on iOS, and has the same core elements: For You, New, Radio, Connect, Playlists, and My Music. Subscribers on Android will get the same free three-month trial that iOS users did. The app is currently in beta in the Google Play store, but that just means it’s missing a couple of features that launched on iOS, most notably music videos and family membership sign-ups and upgrades. You can still sign up for a family plan on an iOS device or a Mac and then sign in to use it on Android. The app is launching in every country where Apple Music is available for iOS, except for China. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of software and services, told TechCrunch that Apple purposefully kept Android design in mind when building the app, making sure to use a hamburger menu at the top and keeping the standard Android share button. “We wanted customers on Android to naturally be able to use it,” Cue told the tech site. “We wanted to make sure they felt very familiar with Apple Music when they sat down to use it.”
