When it comes to the big three technology companies around the world – Apple, Google and Microsoft – they take very different approaches where “cross-platform” is concerned. Some of Microsoft’s products have always been available cross-platform, but under the leadership of Satya Nadella, the company has become much more cosy with Android and the firm now happily offers the majority of platforms access to their services. Apple, well, they continue to be Apple. Finding an Apple app outside of iOS is almost unheard of, and while Macs have their advantages in some areas, they’re not as open as Windows and a far cry from a Linux machine. Apple Music however, is one app and service that’s available across Android, iOS, Mac OS X and Windows (sorry, Windows Phone, not you).
The app launched towards the end of last year, soon after the official launch of the service that saw Apple enter the ring along with Spotify, Pandora, TIDAL and company. The latest update, somewhat ironically, embraces a feature that no iPhone has ever been able to make use of; microSD cards. As per the listing in the Play Store, users will be able to download their offline music to their microSD cards, giving them more room to play with when keeping their favorite songs on their Android smartphones. There’s also the ability to see the full Beats 1 schedule and better browsing options, but the big takeaway here is the microSD card support. iPhones ship with at most 128GB, while of course charging a massive premium for the privilege, while Android devices can use microSD cards up to around 200GB in size and pay much less for the additional storage.
It seems the times are changing for Apple with Apple Music, as the service now seems to almost fully-embrace Android, adopting one of the platform’s key advantages. It’s unlikely however, that Apple will be able to pull many users away from Spotify or Google Play Music on Android, as they have a lot more features included and well, it’s unlikely most Android users will be comfortable having an Apple app installed on their devices in the first place.