On June 30, Apple released a new music streaming app known as Apple Music. According to Apple’s Press Info page, “…Apple Music (is) a single, intuitive app that combines the best ways to enjoy music – all in one place.” It also includes a worldwide live radio system that broadcasts twenty-four hours a day.

New to the music streaming industry, Apple Music has to compete with dominating apps such as Spotify, which currently has over 75 million active users. Spotify’s news page said that the app has recently updated many new features including a Now start page, which recommends music to fit personal tastes, along with Spotify Running, which will detect and match running tempo and play music to the same beat.

Sophomore Hannah Paul has been using Spotify for three months. “I use music from my library when I listen on my phone and when I want to hear other music, I usually just listen on Spotify because that’s what I’m used to using,” she said. “I like that you can save songs and playlists and you can add to playlists and create your own playlist versus just streaming music, (listening to) whatever pops up next.”

Apple Music advertises that they organize existing iTunes music as well as ripped CDs all on the app, along with 30 million other songs in their music catalog. Additionally, they have their first live radio, Beats 1, broadcast to over 100 countries, including exclusive interviews and guest hosts.

Senior Aneesh Luthra has been using the Apple Music app ever since the day it came out. “(I decided to try it) because of the three month free trial,” he said. “It’s free, why not? Give it a chance.” Luthra used to use Spotify, but stopped once Apple’s new app came out. “The main problem I always had with (Spotify) was (that) I would have music that’s not on Spotify, so I’d drag it into the app on my laptop,” he said. “ And it says that it should move it over to my phone, but it never ended up working for me, so I ended up dropping it. That actually works with Apple Music, and I have a lot of music that would show up on Apple Music so that’s the main reason why I switched over.” In addition to this, Apple Music works with the voice command Siri, which allows Luthra to ask to play a song and it will play.

Even though Paul had an Apple device, she did not know about the new Apple Music app. “I’ve never tried the app because I just use Spotify and I’ve never heard about it, so maybe, if there were advertisements or more publications about it, I would know about it,” she said. “I don’t plan on trying it in the near future because I doubt I will have time for that, but if I did it would probably be by recommendation of a friend.”

“I think when they add the Android app in October, and the Windows app later, that’ll help,” Luthra said. “Definitely, they need to improve the interface. It’s good, but the one on, like, my Mac, it’s really cluttered. It’s hard to follow what section is for what. So I think that’s the main thing they will need to do before they get more customers.” Luthra is still on his free trial, but plans on paying for the app once his three months are up.

“Give it a chance,” Luthra said. “ It’s (a) three month trial for free, just pause your Spotify if you have it, it’s like 30 bucks of savings.”