Apple has quietly rolled out its playlist transfer feature to seven new markets including the United States, allowing users to switch from rival streaming services quickly
The tool, which launched in Australia and New Zealand in May, now works in the US, UK, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany and Mexico, according to Apple’s updated support page, which was first spotted by Mac Rumors.
The transfer feature lets users import their saved songs, albums, and playlists from other music services such as Spotify to Apple Music.
However, Apple says “what you can transfer varies and is determined by the service.”
Apple explained: “You can still access all of your saved content in the other service. Transferring music to Apple Music is provided by a third-party.”
Mac Rumors noted that the process relies on a partnership with SongShift, a third-party service that lets users migrate their playlists to another music streaming service.
Users can do the transfers through the Apple Music app on their iPhone, iPad, Android device, or via the platform’s web version. The system attempts to find matches for the music from the source app. When matches can’t be found, users get 30 days to review alternative versions before they’re excluded from the transfer.
The timing of Apple Music’s new feature coincides with Spotify’s recent price hikes. Earlier this month, Spotify said Premium subscribers will soon receive an email explaining the price change, which applies to “multiple markets across South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.”
“To continue to innovate on our product offerings and features and bring users the best experience, we occasionally update our prices,” Spotify explained.
In the US, the price of Spotify Premium has been increased to $11.99 in 2024 from $9.99 in 2022. Meanwhile, Apple Music hasn’t seen a price hike in the US since 2022, when it raised the monthly subscription price to $10.99 from $9.99.
Just last week, Apple hiked the price of its TV streaming service, Apple TV+, in the US by 30% to $12.99. With the price hike on the TV side, Apple Music is now $2 per month cheaper than Apple TV+.
Apple Music’s new transfer tool arrives amid increasing competition with Spotify. Last week, Spotify rolled out a custom transitions feature that allows Premium subscribers to create seamless transitions between tracks in their playlists. This new tool is seen as a challenger to Apple Music’s upcoming AutoMix tool, currently in iOS 26 developer beta testing.
Announced in June, Apple Music’s AutoMix tool creates continuous playlists based on previously played songs. Apple explained at the time: “AutoMix uses intelligence to transition from one song to the next like a DJ, using time stretching and beat matching to seamlessly move from one song to the next.”
Music Business Worldwide
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