Apple Music now has 100 million songs and has emphasised the importance on human curation and not algorithms. Announcing this milestone Apple said, “Twenty-one years on from the invention of iTunes and the debut of the original iPod, we’ve gone from 1,000 songs in your pocket to 100,000x that on Apple Music. It’s phenomenal growth by any metric. The entire history, present, and future of music is at your fingertips or voice command.”
They continued, “Back in the 1960s, only 5,000 new albums were released each year. Today, anywhere in the world, in 167 countries on Apple Music, any artist of any description can write and record a song and release it globally. Every day, over 20,000 singers and songwriters are delivering new songs to Apple Music — songs that make our catalogue even better than it was the day before.”
Rachel Newman, Apple Music’s Global Head of Editorial stressed that “human curation has always been the core to everything we do, both in ways you can see, like our editorial playlists; and ways you can’t, like the human touch that drives our recommendation algorithms. Now more than ever, we know that investment in human curation will be key in making us the very best at connecting artists and audiences.”
One example of this is the new Apple Music Today series, where a new song is picked every day and its history is explored in depth.
Apple Music costs £9.99 per month for an individual subscription and a Family subscription for up to 6 people costs £14.99 per month. A student subscription is available for £5.99 per month and Apple are currently bundling in free Apple TV+ access as a bonus to verified university students.
