Apple will launch its Apple Music platform today at 11 am. EDT. Here's what you need to know about the new streaming service, which has gotten its fair share of hype, thanks in part to Taylor Swift's initial resistance to the platform and later change of heart.
The streaming service will require iOS 8.4 - also launched today - according to TechCrunch and Beats CEO Ian Rogers, who revealed some specifics in a blog post.
As previously reported, the service is free for three months. After that, users will be billed $9.99 a month. Family memberships are being sold for up to six people for $14.99 a month, CNN reports.
A few media types, including USA Today's Edward C. Baig, were given an advance look at Apple Music and have shared their first impressions.
"Apple Music certainly looks visually appealing on the iPhone 6 Plus preloaded with the iOS update, especially the way Apple extracts the colors and themes from an album cover and displays it across the entire display, though it also took me awhile to get comfortable finding my way around - there's an awful lot packed into a section labeled New," writes Baig.
Baig goes on to note the similarities between Apple Play and Beats, which Apple acquired for $3 billion in 2014. He tried out the "My For You" recommendations and said the results "were pretty on target and included music from many familiar artists - Herbie Hancock, Barbra Streisand, Lena Horne, and Coldplay - but also a few artists I didn't know."
However, the Connect feature, which is intended to link artists with fans, "seems pretty thin at the outset," Baig writes.
"[Connect is] somewhat of a discovery social network and you can't do that until it opens," Beats co-founder and Apple executive Jimmy Iovine tells Baig. "Day one is day one."
CNN calls out the ability to listen online as an attractive feature of Apple Music, noting that "Apple Music lets you download copies of any available songs, albums or playlists you want to your devices. If you're on a train, out of range, or short on data, you can still rock out. There's no limit to how what you can keep offline or for how long. There's a switch in the app to see what songs are stored locally versus in the cloud."
Last week - less than a week after denying Apple Music the rights to stream her current album "1989" - Swift announced via Twitter that the album will indeed be featured on the new streaming service .
Click HERE to read HNGN's in-depth feature about streaming music platforms and artist payment structures.
