What is Apple Music, how does it work, and what does it cost?

Apple Music is a subscription-based music streaming service, akin to Spotify, providing access to over 100 million songs. It’s rich with features, including offline listening for times when you’re not connected to the internet. Apple Music consolidates all your music in one place, encompassing even tracks ripped from CDs. Additionally, it offers live radio stations and is integrated with Siri, enabling voice command control for most functions.

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about Apple Music, including its cost, offerings, and top tips and tricks.

What is Apple Music?

Apple Music, which kicked off in 2015 after Apple acquired Beats Electronics the previous year, took over from the now-defunct Beats Music subscription service.

This streaming service does more than just let you play tracks from the iTunes catalog on demand. It brings all your music together in one spot across your devices. Whether your tunes are bought from iTunes, ripped from CDs, or downloaded from the web, you can access them all easily.

Beyond streaming individual songs, Apple Music spices things up with personalized music recommendations and internet radio, including its own Apple Music 1 station (once known as Beats 1). It also lets you download songs for listening offline, offers playlists put together by music experts, and works seamlessly with Siri on iOS devices. Plus, it boasts cool extras like Apple Music Sing and Spatial Audio.

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How much does Apple Music cost?

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Apple Music is free for a month when you sign up to the free trial, after which there are four plans available. An Individual plan costs £10.99 or $10.99 a month. A Family plan, available for up to six people, costs for £15.99 or $15.99 a month – which is the same as Spotify’s equivalent. The third plan is the University Student plan, which costs £5.99/$5.99 per month and the fourth plan is the Voice plan that costs £4.99/$4.99 a month, whereby you can access Apple Music but only through voice and Siri on your devices.

It’s worth noting there is the Apple One bundle too – detailed below – that will save you money if you subscribe to multiple Apple services.

Apple One bundle

Apple’s services bundle for Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and Fitness+ launched in October 2020 and is called Apple One. It allows you to subscribe to Apple Music through one of three different Apple One bundle tiers: Individual, Family, and Premier.

Here’s how much each Apple One tier costs:

• Individual: You get Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud storage for £16.95/$16.95 per month.
• Family: Up to six members of your family get Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade, and 200GB of iCloud for £22.95/$22.95 per month.
• Premier: Includes all the other benefits, but ups the iCloud storage to 2TB per month and adds subscriptions to the News+ magazine and newspaper service and Fitness+ service for £32.95/$32.95 per month.

First-time subscribers can follow these steps to subscribe to Apple One:

1. Open the Settings app on your iOS device.
2. Go to your name at the top of Settings.
3. Select the Subscriptions menu.
4. Select Get Apple One.
5. Choose the Apple One tier you want.
6. Select Start free trial.

If you already have an Apple subscription, like to Apple Music, you’ll receive a pro-rated refund for any days remaining on your existing subscription(s).

For more details, check out our guide on Apple One.

Do you need a subscription to use Apple Music?

If you don’t have a paid subscription, Apple Music still lets you listen to music you’ve purchased, ripped, or uploaded to your device but you won’t get access to all the features Apple Music offers, such as offline listening.

For those with iTunes Match, you’ll be able to use Apple Music to listen to any music you’ve uploaded to iCloud without an Apple Music subscription. You’ll also be able to listen to Apple Music 1 and listen to ad-supported Apple stations.

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An Apple Music subscription offers all of the benefits of iTunes Match, along with access to the entire Apple Music catalogue. You’ll get unlimited skips for Apple Music radio stations, unlimited listening for the entire Apple Music catalogue and access to your purchased and ripped library.

You can stream songs uploaded to iCloud, receive curated recommendations, and you can save songs to your library for offline listening.

Which devices support Apple Music?

You can access Apple Music via the following devices:

Mac and PC users will also need to upgrade to the newest version of Music, which you can do from this Apple support page. Meanwhile, Android users can go to this support page to learn more about how to get Apple Music on their phones up and running.

Does Apple Music work on Apple Watch?

You can sync music from your Apple Music library to your Apple Watch – just like a playlist. All music is locally stored on Apple Watch.

Where is Apple Music available?

Apple Music is available in more than 100 countries, including the US and the UK. Check out the full list here.

How do you navigate Apple Music?

Once you download the Apple Music app and sign up, you will go through a music-tailoring process, which will ask you to select music genres you like and dislike, followed by artists you like and dislike. After you’ve moved through the simple process, you’ll find yourself on the Listen Now screen.

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There is a menu bar at the bottom of the screen for navigation and to highlight which section of Apple Music you are in. There are five screen tabs in the menu bar:

Listen Now: A curated selection of music you should enjoy. It’s based on what you said you like, your listening habits, and the music you own. The first time you launch Apple Music, you’ll be able to specify what genres and artists you like. From that point, you’ll see the screen loaded with suggestions like genre-specific playlists, albums, guest playlists made by artists, etc. Recently Played also appears here, as well as playlists based on other playlists you’ve already listened to.

Browse: An editorially-curated selection of music from across the service. This section also highlights hot playlists, tracks and albums, top songs, new releases, etc. You can view these new curations by genre too. You’ll also find Artist Interviews, Daily Top 100 lists, City Charts, Music By Mood and music coming soon, among others.

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Radio: A home for Apple Music 1, the 24/7, globally-broadcasted radio station. You will see an option to listen at the very top of the section. Below that, you’ll see Pandora-like stations as well as iTunes Radio’s old channels. There’s also your own radio station that pulls in songs it thinks you’ll enjoy based on your listening habits.

Library: A place for you to navigate through all of your music, whether it comes from iTunes, a CD, or all the streamable tunes in Apple Music. Every time you add a song, album, or playlist, it can be found at the top under Playlists, Artists, Albums or Songs. This page is customisable.

Search: The Search tab allows you to search the whole of the Apple Music catalogue and your library. You can even search by lyrics, typing just a few words from a song you like and it will find it for you. It will also show you what’s trending in this section.

How does Apple Music work?

There are several features, controls, and options baked into Apple Music. Here are a few key ones worth remembering:

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Play music: Tap any play button on a playlist, or tap on an individual song or album, to see a miniplayer appear at the bottom of the screen. Tap on the miniplayer to see the Now Playing screen and various controls, including the ability to download a song for offline listening, skip, play next, favourite or dislike, share, AirPlay, add to your library, start a station, or see the lyrics. Swipe down to exit.

Use Siri: You can ask Siri to “play the top songs from 2023”, “play more songs like this”, “add the new Ed Sheeran album to my library”, “play all songs by Ed Sheeran” (to listen to all of Ed Sheeran’s music, even if it’s not in your library), and “play my music by Ed Sheeran” (to hear Ed Sheeran’s songs that you have saved to your library). You can also ask Siri to shuffle the songs in an album or playlist. You can also ask Siri to plan music for a dinner party for example, and it will pull up a playlist.

Search: Tap the magnifying glass button in the bottom right-hand corner to search genres, songs, albums, and artists. Search works across Apple Music and your own music. If you search Drake, you will see top results, songs, albums, playlists, artists, and stations related to Drake. To see results from your own music collection, just tap the “Your Library” option at the top.

Build library: Search for an artist, such as Beyoncé, then pick a song, and tap the “+” button to add an album or playlist to your library, or tap the three dots next to a song and then “Add to Library”. There’s also a “Download” option when you tap on the three dots, allowing for offline listening, or you can tap on the arrow next to the three dots. For albums, the “+” sign will turn into a download sign once added.

Edit playlists: You can add any song or album to a playlist by tapping the three-dot (more options) button from the Now Playing screen and selecting Add to a Playlist. From there, you can add to any playlist or make a new one. Also, under Playlists on the Library screen, you’ll see options to sort all your playlists and create new ones. Just fill in details and then add songs.

Share music: Tap the share button on any song or playlist in the three dots menu to share a link to Facebook or Twitter, send in Mail or Messages, or copy the link.

Hear Apple Music 1: Go to the Radio tab and then tap on the show on air or any of the featured shows. The radio tab will not only show what’s on air right now, but you’ll see a schedule of upcoming shows and DJs below too.

Listen offline: Apple Music lets you download copies of any available songs, albums, or playlists you want to your devices. It’s helpful if you’re going to be out of range. Just go to a song or album, then tap the arrow or three-dot button to see more options, and select the download button to download it to your device (and library). There’s no limit to what you can keep offline or for how long. You can also tap the “+” to add a song to your library and then tap it again to download it.

Your account: A profile symbol can be found in the top right corner of the Listen Now tab. Tap it to access account-related settings, such as see what your friends are listening to, upgrade your subscription, and manage notifications.

What is Apple Music TV?

Apple Music TV is a music video channel. You access it from the Browse section of the Apple Music app or the Apple TV app. You’ll need to scroll all the way down to On the Air 24/7.

Apple Music TV is different from Apple Music 1 (previously branded as Beats 1). Apple Music TV is a free, 24-hour, curated live stream of popular music videos, while Apple Music 1 is a 24/7 music radio station owned by Apple. Both are accessible through the Apple Music app.

Apple’s music video channel premieres new videos at noon ET every Friday. It hosts original Apple Music content, from concerts to interviews. For instance, Bruce Springsteen was one of the first to appear on Apple Music TV to promote his upcoming album, Letter to You in 2020, via music videos, a live stream, and a Zane Lowe interview.

What is Apple Music Classical?

Apple Music Classical is a separate app to Apple Music that you have to download separately from the App Store, though access to its content is included in the Apple Music subscription. It claims to offer the world’s largest classical music catalogue and the highest audio quality available with up to 192kHz/24-bit Hi-Res Lossless.

There are over five million tracks within the Apple Music Classical app and you can search by work, composer, conductor or other filters like opus number or key to find what you’re looking for.

Apple Music Classical is available worldwide in the same countries as Apple Music, excluding China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Taiwan and Turkey.

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What is Apple Music Classical and why is it a separate app?

Better yet, why did the Apple Music Classical Android app arrive before iPadOS and macOS? Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s newest app.

Top Apple Music tips and tricks

Check out Pocket-lint’s round-up of Apple Music tips and tricks guide, but here’s a few worth knowing.

Fine-tune EQ settings in Apple Music

Boost your music’s sound quality by going to your iPhone’s settings, hitting music, and then EQ to explore and select from a range of sound presets like bass booster or classical.

Create a personalized station

Build a station of songs that resonate with your taste by tapping on your favorite track in Apple Music, hitting the three dots, and choosing create station to get a playlist of similar tunes.

Classical music and radio access

Dive into classical melodies or tune into live radio by tapping on the dedicated classical or radio sections within the Apple Music app.

Use songs as alarms and singing along

Pick any Apple Music song as your morning alarm in the clock app, and sing along or host a karaoke session by displaying lyrics and adjusting vocal levels in the now playing screen.

Getting alerts for new tracks

Never miss a beat from your favorite artists by turning on new music notifications in your Apple Music profile under the listen now tab.

Year in review with Replay

Relive your year’s music journey with Replay by scrolling to the bottom of the listen now tab to find curated playlists of your most played songs for each year.

Share music with SharePlay

Enjoy music together virtually by initiating SharePlay in a Messages or FaceTime chat, selecting a song in Apple Music, and inviting friends to listen along.

Tailored music suggestions: Discover new favorites with Apple Music’s personalized recommendations in the listen now section, constantly evolving based on your music tastes and feedback.

Switch off personalized recommendations

If you prefer a more manual music discovery, disable personalized recommendations by going into your Apple Music account settings under listen now and toggling off personalized recommendations.

Are there any alternatives to Apple Music?

The obvious alternatives include: Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Deezer and Tidal. Each of these services allow you to not only stream music but also keep listening when offline, though you’ll need a paid subscription for access to offline-listening as well as other premium features. You can learn more about all these services by checking out the following Pocket-lint round-ups: