What Apple can't do on iOS (create a home screen widget), it's now doing on Android for its Apple Music app.
Apple launched Apple Music for Android last November. Today, via an update, users who have downloaded the Apple Music app now have the ability to control it via a homescreen widget on their Android phones or tablets.
It's nothing breathtaking, however. It's all about the added (or, rather, more convenient) functionality of the app that matters, not its design. Instead of having to perform an extra tap to open the app and control one's music, we can just go straight for the widget.
In fact, the widget is quite basic.
Place the Apple Music widget next to, say, the Spotify widget and they'll look nearly the same. The album cover is to the far left. Located to the right and on the top is the title track with a ticker scrolling the album and artist. Beneath that is the previous, play/pause and forward buttons.
The only real difference between the two widgets is Apple Music's heart button so users can let Apple know what music they like, which will help the app suggest future tracks better suited to a user's tastes.
According to the Google Play Store description for the update, other additions (besides the widget) include:
Now you can add songs from the Apple Music catalog to playlists without having to add it to your library. You can also:
- Control playback with a widget you can add to your home screen
- Redeem gift cards in Settings to renew your membership using iTunes credit
- See what's playing on Beats 1 directly from the Radio tab - without having to tune in
- Tap the name of the currently playing song in Now Playing to go to the album
- See which songs are most popular on albums in the Apple Music catalog
As with all updates, a few bugs have been corrected as well. The annoying requirement where Apple Music forced users to add music to their library before actually including the same tracks to a custom playlist is now gone.
At the moment, the app has 3.3 star rating out of a little under 55,000 reviews. In the previous update before this, Apple added SD storage support. Still missing, however, is Chromecast support. Hopefully, that feature will get added in the next update.
