As was announced, Apple launched its Apple Music service in India on July 1st with the launch of iOS 8.4 in the country and several other geographical regions across the globe. This launch can be considered as an anomaly from usual Apple practices of launching the products in India much late after their launch in the West.
As it was earlier announced, Apple Music service will be available in India starting at Rs. 120 per month for individual users and Rs. 190 per month for a family subscription (up to 6 users).
At this price it is significantly cheaper than its pricing in the U.S. where it costs $9.99 (Rs. 634 approx.) for individual subscription and $14.99 (Rs. 951 approx.) for a family subscription. This translates to a discounted price of 80% approximately.
Free 3 Month Trial And Cross-Platform Availability
To make it more appealable, Apple Music comes with a free 3 month trial letting the users try the service first-hand before diving in to take monthly subscriptions. You’ll need a credit card or some gift card balance in your account to sign up for the service.
If you don’t want to subscribe to its monthly packs for any reason then you should cancel your subscription before the expiration of trial period and you’ll be good to go.
Apple Music is currently available on all iOS 8.4 running devices, Mac, and PC. However, the company is also planning to launch it for Android OS in near future.
Please note that the local players like Saavn and Gaana currently dominate the music streaming service industry in India but the launch of Apple Music on Android will surely give them a cut-throat competition.
What Does Apple Music Offer?
Apple Music not only lets you stream ‘New’ music tracks from a large online collection, but will also let you save them offline to your devices. You can also discover new music through a ‘For You’ section, and through curated playlists of your favourite genres.
The best part of Apple Music is that now listeners can create one library as the central repository for all of their music. so, if you’ve got an active subscription you can add any music from the streaming service to your library.
It also comes with a new ‘Beats 1’ radio service and a ‘Connect’ feature allowing users to follow various artists, comment on music, and share what they like. Artists can also use this service for sharing new music songs, videos, and images with their fans. It is like a social network for music lovers.
The live radio station section will be limited to just one Bollywood and a Tamil station for the time being, but the users will be able to listen to a lot of international stations sorted on the basis of music genres.
Saavn music streaming plans start at Rs.110/month for Saavn Pro Lite and Rs. 220/month for Saavn Pro. Gaana on the other hand offers its music streaming plans for Rs. 99 per month for an ad-supported model. Keeping the music subscriptions plans offered by its competitors, I can only say one thing about Apple Music – it is set to disrupt the Indian Music streaming Industry.
