What you need to know

  • Apple Music has hit 60 million paying subscribers confirmed Apple Services VP Eddie Cue.
  • That signifies an increase of 10 million subscribers since January when Apple Music had 50 million paying subscribers.
  • Eddie Cue also opened up about the demise of iTunes.

Apple Music has continued to grow a strong pace, confirmed Apple Services VP Eddy Cue during an interview with French site Numerama. The streaming service now boasts over 60 million paying subscribers worldwide confirmed Cue.

In one of the company's new meeting rooms in France, the one who works directly with Tim Cook [Eddie Cue] did not hide his pride: in just 4 years, Apple's music streaming service attracted 60 million paying subscribers.

The number is a new milestone for Apple Music which continues to grow at a steady number keeping pace with archrival Spotify which announced in April that it had 100 million subscribers. Back in January, Apple confirmed Apple Music had over 50 million paying subscribers. That number has now increased by 10 million.

Cue was beaming during the interview, truly proud of how far Apple Music has come since it launched four years ago. When talking about the service, he couldn't help but throw a jab at Google.

"I very much appreciate Music in its current state and its next version proves that the service can still be perfected," says Eddy Cue, who mentions before us some features of the iOS 13 version of Music: the karaoke mode with the lyrics displayed in big at the screen is one of his favorites. "And we've entered them for the most part," he says, a non-premeditated reminder of the case against Google Genius site, the second accusing the first of stealing its lyrics.

As for what it means to see the end of iTunes, Cue, who has worked on iTunes over the past decade, couldn't help but feel sentimental over its demise. However, he is looking forward to the next phase with Apple Music taking up the heavy lifting as the main music player on the Mac.

"I worked so much on iTunes and Apple Music, I'm biased! Of course I'm fond of iTunes, but I think Apple Music is absolutely better in every way. We have something better now and there is no point in looking back."

With Apple Music close on the heels of Spotify, only time will tell if it'll ever overcome the gap between the two streaming services. But judging from the growth Apple's streaming service experience in the first half of 2019, that could very well be possible.

Everything you need to know about Apple Music