Apple Music is a subscription service set up by Cupertino to counter their green rival’s flagship option, Google Play Music. While Android and iOS may be locked in eternal battle, there are many converts one way or another who end up missing an app that they enjoyed on the other ecosystem. This crowd is exactly the kind of people targeted by Apple Music for Android, along with streaming music enthusiasts who like Apple’s iTunes selection or want to check out a different service for their beloved OS. As it turns out, there are a lot of people that fit one or both of those molds. In fact, there are enough such people to bring Apple’s app past the prestigious 10 million download mark.
While this milestone may not seem like much in the face of apps that have achieved over 1 billion downloads or daily users, there are a few good reasons that this is a major accomplishment. For starters, the app has only been around for one year, and only officially exited beta status roughly a month ago. This is also yet another streaming music subscription service, facing down tons of stiff competition like Spotify, YouTube Music, SoundCloud, and Pandora, some of which are over the 1 billion download marker themselves. The app has also been slowly adding in features that have been considered not only common, but essential, over the last year. Features that most music player users take for granted, like a homescreen widget and playback of saved music files from your device were added on bit by bit while the app garnered its 10 million download status.
With Apple Music having hit 15 million paid subscribers back in June, the download numbers for the Android version of the app point to a healthy population of paid Apple Music users being on Android. This means that, in a roundabout way, Apple is profiting from the success of their rival. As of the most recent update, the Android app is pretty much on par with the iOS app on features, making it that much more appealing to Android-loving music fans who would rather not carry around an iDevice as their daily driver.