Yesterday, Apple quietly updated Apple Music’s lyrics support for seven new countries across the globe.
France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Spain now offer both song lyrics and lyric search.
Song lyrics appear onscreen in the Apple Music app any time a song is playing. Lyric search allows users to search for songs based on a popular lyric. That’s useful if you can’t quite remember the name of the song, but you have the catchy hook stuck in your head.
Before the change on Monday, lyric support was only available to Apple Music listeners in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
The wider global rollout of lyrics support for Apple Music is nice, but Apple is a bit late to the game here.
Spotify has had lyric support since 2016. The company partnered with Genius to make that possible. Apple appears to be doing the same, as previously the company was relying on a more limited lyrics database.
Now, Genius’ official web-based music player recommends Apple Music to listeners.
While Spotify still offers lyrics support in more countries, today’s rollout brings Apple one step closer to feature parity. Expect Apple Music to continue rolling out support for other languages in 2019.
The battle for continued dominance in the music streaming industry is moving beyond saturated markets like the United States and the U.K.
Emerging markets in Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia are the new targets for growth. Spotify and smaller streaming competitors like Deezer and TIDAL are tailoring services exclusively for these markets.
Apple’s formerly hardware-exclusive attitude may be softening, too. Apple is prepping to launch Apple TV for Samsung devices. The previously Apple-only interface becoming cross-device compatible could suggest Apple Music may get the same treatment.