5 Essentials That You Need To Develop An App Like Apple Music

The first thing that comes to the mind when someone thinks about music is a streaming app this day and there is no doubt to the fact that streaming apps are leading the market!

On the global front, There are two leaders in the streaming market- Spotify and Apple Music. One has 36% and the other 18% market share and that makes them worth the inspiration right?

But, then the question you would ask is why Apple music and not Spotify?

Well! For starters,

Apple music is developed by one of the giants in platform and app developments - Apple.inc.

if you can even ignore that one then there are these stats to make you wonder why not go for it! As far as the United States is concerned, the market share of Apple music stands at more than 50%.

Yeah! That’s the kind of feeling you get!

So, now that we have come to a decision on the streaming music app you want to inspire from. Let us explore some essentials you will need to develop an app like Apple Music. 

1. The Basics:  

You will need specific music API and a cloud service to ensure the storage of user’s data, preferences, musical data collected from different resources. You will need a web service to access all this information.

You will need a dedicated cloud server for storage, retrieval, and processing of musical data. Then you need a dedicated repository for processing all the necessary requests, but, we will get to these essentials in the later part.

First basic essential is a cataloged musical data that you can offer to the users, all the musical data related to the artists, bands, music playlists, albums, songs, etc. need to be categorized.

2. Music API:

Now, as we move on to the development essentials,  you can think of using the Apple Musickit, which is now available for Android and iOS platforms. Let us boil down the necessary steps to use this music kit for your music app.

Developer Tokens:  As you signup for the Apple musickit as a developer, you need to create one or maybe more, developer tokens. You need to register your app into the app identifier to use Apple music API for your own music app.

JWT:
Once you get the key identifier (kid), you need to get a JSON Web Token. So, when you need to add a statement and metadata, popularly known as claims in the Apple Music API, you will need JSON Web Specifications.

Further, you need to create your developer token as a JSON object. Further, Encrypt your token through the encryption algorithm (alg). Obtain  (iss) registered claim key from your registered developer account for your ten-character team ID.

Once you create your token and sign it with your Musickit key, encrypt the token with  Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) algorithm.

You can follow the below format of a JSON Web Token creation:

3. Licensing:

For licensing, you can follow different licensing-Master Recording License, Master license for compilation and Musical Composition License Agreement.

Master Recording License:
A master license is an agreement between the app developer and the record labels on the usage of the recorded piece of music. There are certain agencies that mediate these negotiations and in some cases, you can directly contact the record label for the aforesaid song or album recording label.

Master License for Compilation:
You can acquire songs from different labels and create a compilation through this license agreement signed with the record label or studio.  

Music Composition License Agreement:
This license agreement is specifically for your organization to produce and create their own soundtracks and albums as is the trend with famous music streaming apps.

4. The App Infrastructure:  

Well. you have all that you need to create a great music app, but to develop an app that can leverage these essentials, you need the right app infrastructure.

While there are many architectures and frameworks to be considered, there are few things that can certainly help. Like if you want to develop native apps, you should think of separate frameworks for iOS development and Android development respectively.  

AndroidOS app development frameworks-
Android SDK, Kotlin, React Native, Unity, Flutter, etc.

iOS app development frameworks:
iOS SDK, Swift(Programming Langauge), Objective-c,etc

You can also go for cross-platform apps as they are quite relevant these days, with the capabilities of native apps and the compatibility of cross-platform, they can be developed using cross-platform frameworks like Appaccelerator, Corona, Adobe Phonegap, Xamarin, etc.

5. Revenue Model:

Image Source: Flipsnack

It is the revenue model that will help you earn back the efforts you put in for your music app. So, deciding the right revenue model is necessary and there are many options to choose from:

1. Subscription Model:
The most popular revenue model is a subscription-based model, many apps follow this model and Apple Music being the front-runner in the subscription model, where users can subscribe to music streaming service on a paid membership.

2. Premium Model:
Here the song streaming is free based on your internet connection and network bandwidth. But, you can’t download the songs to your device or block the intermediate advertisements without a premium account. This revenue model has worked well for Spotify.

3. Freemium Model:
You can choose a revenue model where you provide free streaming and download of musical content for a certain period or with particular restrictions and beyond that, you charge the users.

4. Audio and Video ads:
Many apps earn their revenues purely based on advertisements and podcasts on their apps and provide music streaming and even downloading of songs free. This revenue model is more accurate for new apps and apps with limited song libraries.

And then there are certain other revenue models too where a bouquet of streaming services are offered by a single subscription like Amazon Prime.

Tuning Out:

We explored some essentials and yes there are few may be left, but, then as you can figure out the development structure and ideation of a musical app like Apple Music, on the whole, you will configure other essentials too.

There are many advantages of a music streaming app these days as a startup, as smartphone users increase, there will be a soaring number of digital music listeners and you will never run out of consumers.