Apple’s Music app gets new features on Android

Apple is trying hard to get more people into its ecosystem. So much so that they have released their app for Android covering all the features from their own operating system. Apple wants to conquer the music streaming industry from the likes of Spotify and Pandora. They are constantly upgrading their app to include new features and under the hood improvements, even on their rival, Google’s Android platform.

Apple’s subscription streaming service, Apple Music, rolled out a major (ver. 2.0) release to Android users recently, introducing a new design that largely brings the app to feature parity with its iOS counterpart. The update includes a visual makeover, which organizes content into a few main sections – Library, For You, Browse, and Radio – as on iOS. The Now Playing screen also resembles the screen on iOS, and includes lyrics integration.

However, it’s clear that Apple Music for Android is not a top priority for Apple, despite its seeming intentions to compete with rival services like Spotify or the now on-demand Pandora, for instance.

Case in point: this new version of Apple Music Android app is essentially catching up to the iOS one that rolled out with iOS 10 you know, last year which speaks volumes about the level of priority it has.

In addition, the update has surprisingly not addressed one of user’s complaints with the earlier version: the log-in bug, which was extremely frustrating. This is extremely nice to see from Apple. On select Android devices (it’s clear from Google Play comments this is not a universal complaint), users are asked to enter their Apple ID verification code in order to complete their sign in upon first launch, after entering their Apple ID and password which left a bitter taste among them.

Unfortunately, a pop up message alerting you to this fact remains, and there’s never a place to actually enter in the code provided to you on another Apple device.

In any event, the revamped Apple Music for Android certainly looks nice from the new Google Play screenshots, and the comments from those who can actually use it are so far largely positive, which is amazing indeed. The commenters note that many earlier bugs have been squashed and performance has been improved, and many complimented the new interface, which includes the big-lettered headings like you’d see on iOS. This makes the app look iOS-ish rather than material.

Despite Apple being oblivion to its Android app, Apple Music has been growing steadily thanks to its built-in status as the default music app on iOS devices. The streaming service is used by tons of musicians across the globe to release their new albums and chartbuster single songs.

The company announced recently that it had more than 20 million paying customers as of December, and a new third-party survey has found that figure has escalated to 40+ million monthly unique customers when free trial customers are included. Spotify, meanwhile, has around 50 million paying customers as of March.