Apple Music offers worthwhile options for students

If you step into a hallway, you will see students with Airpods and headphones, and on the way out the building carrying a portable bluetooth speaker in their hands or on their bag. 

Teens thrive on music, but there’s so many places to stream from. Apple Music is one of many streaming services. It’s a little difficult to acquire statistics on downloads because Apple Music is preinstalled (but easily uninstalled) on Apple devices. If it’s any indicator, Apple Music ranks as the eighth highest music/audio app on the Google Play store. Apple offers Apple Music with four different subscriptions, all with free trial times at minimum a month long, along with a free student plan when purchasing Apple TV+ and six months of Apple Music when purchasing an eligible audio device, Apple One,

Each plan has its own benefits and downsides. The question is, what plan is right for you and is it even worth the price? For starters the first thing you are considering is the price. Apple offers a “trial period” of free Apple Music when you purchase it, where it is typically around a month free of charge.

This can be a big tempter, but remember it’s only for a month after you purchase it. Apple Music is offered with four plans: Voice: Specialized for Siri and voice companions, Student: (college students only, and student ID required along with .edu email), Individual: the basic plan includes everything you need to thrive and Family: This plan allows multiple members to use the same plan and have different apple music accounts, very useful for families. 

I think Apple Music falls behind in its region lock/censorship problems. Often time it will say the music that I have downloaded to my device is region locked, or it will censor it, and this is a pain to disable, but you can do it.With the region locking, it appears to be temporary (one-three days), and you can access that music anywhere else during that downtime. 

It also seems to struggle with availability. Not a lot of creators/artists put their music on Apple Music as a first choice. Lesser known artists without record labels also struggle to have their music on Apple Music. 

I think Apple Music is proficient in its discoverability and its information on music. No matter where you look you can find facts about artists, statistics, general information like release dates and chart rankings for music, along with interviews and descriptions from Apple and the artists themselves. For the discoverability, Apple Music has ever changing playlists and all sorts of methods to feature genres, artists or albums, and it’s great for opening your mind to new music.

I think that Apple Music is worth the price tag, especially if I was a senior going into college. I would go on the Voice plan for the rest of the year, and then when I got to college apply for the Student plan. Apple Music helps broaden your horizons, and has great audio. It just  really struggles with availability.