Apple Music offers up to 6 months of free music for the holidays

By

Streaming services like Apple Music dominate the US music market
And it's open to existing subscribers, too!
Photo: Apple

Apple Music’s standard free trial offer is a generous 90 days. But, for the holidays, someone in Cupertino has decided to double this.

By using the Shazam app, would-be Apple Music subscribers can get a total of 6 months Apple Music for free. And you can even get some free months it if you’re currently, or have previously been, an Apple Music subscriber.

The Apple Music holidays offer was launched by Apple for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the USA, UK and Canada. It ran from November 29 through December 2. However, Apple has seemingly decided to extend this for the holidays.

How to get your free 6 months’ holiday offer with Apple Music

To take advantage of the offer, download and open the Shazam app. Next, hit the Library symbol on the top left of the home screen or swipe left to right. This should bring up a “Limited Time” offer for Apple Music. Tap Try Now, then Try It Free. Finally, hit Confirm and you’re all sorted.

An alternative way to take advantage of the offer is to use Shazam to identify a song. When you get Shazam to listen to a song, it will bring up associated info, such as lyrics and other tracks by the artist. In addition, this will bring up text reading: “Get up to 6 months free of Apple Music.”

Tap the text and you’ll get ushered through to a page where you can Try It Free.

And existing Apple Music customers too

The frustrating thing about these offers, of course, is that they often don’t apply to the most ardent supporters of a service. They’re there to pull in new customers, so if you’re someone already paying your monthly $10 there’s no need to offer it to you.

Fortunately, Apple thinks different. (See what I did there?) If you’re already an Apple Music subscriber, you can get three months for free by cancelling your subscription and resubscribing.

To do this, load up your Settings and navigate to Subscriptions. Then tap on Apple Music and Cancel Subscription. Next, open the Shazam app, go to the Library page and Settings Then tap on Disconnect next to Apple Music. With Apple Music disconnected, you should be able to see the offer as described above.

Competing with Spotify

On the surface, giving away its subscription services for free doesn’t make sense right now. Apple’s using services as a way to offset declining iPhone sales. However, Apple’s also competing with Spotify — which continues to storm ahead in the streaming subscriber wars.

Apple is being similarly generous with Apple TV+. While customers can sign up for $4.99 per month, people who buy a new iPhone, iPad or Mac get one year’s free subscription thrown in for free. For Apple, it’s all about the long game. If it doesn’t make a cent from you for six months, it probably figures that, once that time has elapsed, you’ll be hooked on the service Apple Music offers.

Source: MacWorld

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.