TECH: FREE TRIAL AT APPLE
Apple Music is reducing its free trial from three months to just one month.

Since going live in 2015, Apple Music has offered one of the most gen­er­ous free tri­al peri­ods in the stream­ing indus­try. As a first-time sub­scriber, you can use the plat­form to lis­ten to music for free for up to three months before the com­pa­ny asks you to start pay­ing. This is no longer the case.

In a change spot­ted by Japan­ese blog Mac Otakara and lat­er report­ed by MacRu­mors, Apple is now offer­ing a short­er one-month free tri­al in many coun­tries where the ser­vice is avail­able, includ­ing the US, Aus­tralia, Cana­da, the Unit­ed King­dom and Japan. You can already see the change reflect­ed on the Apple Music web­site. “One month free, then $9.99 per month,” the US por­tal says when you visit.

For now, Apple Music pric­ing remains the same, with the $5 per month voice plan being the most afford­able way to access the plat­for­m’s library of tracks. The change broad­ly aligns Apple with rivals like Spo­ti­fy, which, aside from pro­mo­tions, typ­i­cal­ly offer one-month free tri­als to new subscribers.

While we’ll prob­a­bly nev­er know Apple’s offi­cial rea­son for short­en­ing the tri­al, chances are the deci­sion comes down to sim­ple eco­nom­ic considerations.

When the com­pa­ny first launched Apple Music, it did­n’t pay roy­al­ties for tracks users streamed dur­ing their free tri­al peri­od. Apple lat­er changed this pol­i­cy after Tay­lor Swift pub­lished a let­ter crit­i­ciz­ing the com­pa­ny. By short­en­ing the tri­al peri­od, the busi­ness can more quick­ly recoup the costs of attract­ing new sub­scribers to the platform.