No free Apple Music for Android users; Apple aims to sign up more paid subscribers than its rivals

Apple Music, just introduced on Monday by Apple, will offer two different tiers of service to iOS users. There will be a free level that has limited functionality, and a paid level that will cost $9.99/$14.99 a month. If you own an Android device, you are going to have the opportunity to sign up for the paid level of service. But the free level of service will not be available from the Android version of the app.

Yes, Apple Music will be the first native Android app produced by Apple. It will be launched sometime later this year, but will have at least one major difference than the iOS version of the app. Android users will not have access to the free tier of streaming service. What will Android users be missing? The free tier of Apple Music will most likely allow users to listen to the Beats One radio station and some other Apple Music stations. There will be a small number of skips allowed.

Can Apple do what its rivals have been unable to and sign up a large number of paid users to Apple Music? Consider that 45 million of Spotify's 60 million users are using the free tier of ad-supported service. And only 4% of Pandora's members pay for that service each month. Offering unlimited skips, the ability to access the entire Apple Music library, add that music to a user's personal music stash, and listen to music offline are some of the features Apple is using to attract paid subscribers to its service.

Will Apple succeed in grabbing a larger percentage of paid subscribers than the competition? We could know the answer to that by the end of this year, or early next year by the latest.

source: SixColors via Gizmodo