As rumored, Apple’s music streaming service got a shiny redesign at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference today (June 13).
Yet it looks … familiar.
Aside from a handful of aesthetic tweaks—cleaner lines, bigger fonts, an easier-to-navigate interface—the most significant change to the Apple Music platform is the expansion of “For You,” its playlist curation feature. The “For You” section of the app now provides users with a list of recently played tracks, as well as newly added songs and their accompanying lyrics. It also offers a daily curated playlist—something that Apple is calling “Discovery Mix.”
That last offering, down to its name, is so unabashedly similar to Spotify’s Discover Weekly feature that it seems Apple isn’t even trying to hide its flagrant imitation.
Music streaming platforms in general aren’t exactly being subtle about stealing each others’ ideas: Spotify, for its part, just last month announced an Apple Music-like plan to introduce original video content, and several streaming services have been using the same gimmick of exclusive album releases and artist partnerships to try to snag customers.
The revamped Apple Music is friendlier to use, but its success is nowhere near guaranteed. Though the year-old platform is up to 15 million subscribers according to Apple executive Eddy Cue, it faces ever-tightening competition from established players like Spotify, and soon-to-be entrants like Amazon.
