Apple Music hits 15m subscribers, unveils new look

Apple Music now has 15 million subscribers, the tech giant’s Senior Vice President Eddie Cue announced during its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote in San Francisco. The year-old app hit the 13-million mark only two months ago, such is its rapid growth.

Apple Music also unveiled a new look “redesigned from the ground up,” said Cue. “It’s been an incredible year (and) “we’ve learned a lot along the way.” What we’ll get is a simpler interface, a greater emphasis on discovery, the music library pushed up front, a new lyric section so you can sing along, and a new daily curated playlist.

The Connect section, to create a stronger bond between acts and fans but little used, is still available but dropped from the navigation tabs at the bottom of the app.

Apple has also integrated Apple Music with iMessage, the most-used app on iPhones.

The company is going to make new versions of the app available for iOS, Android and Apple TV.

Apple’s radio station Beats 1 has a much-improved interface do-over, showing far more information. But those expecting updated news on the arrival of Beats 2, 3, 4 and 5 were kept waiting.

The redesign comes as Pandora and Amazon are set to launch subscription streaming services of their own. Despite Apple’s growth, Spotify is not yielding any ground. In March it announced it exceeded 30 million paying subscribers. It plans to get into exclusives like Tidal and Apple, and its addition of video content has become highly popular with mobile users.