There was a time when we had to rely upon tape recorders, mp3 players, walkman, iPods and many other music storage devices to listen to our favourite songs. However, as technology changed and got more advanced, our ways of listening to music also got changed. Now we can easily listen to the music of almost every genre through hundreds of music streaming mobile applications. Some of the famous one music streaming mobile applications are Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music, SoundCloud, Shazam etc.
As music is part of our regular daily life, it not only connects with human emotions but sometimes guides us to achieve a better path. It is no surprise why these music streaming mobile apps are mushrooming all over the app stores. These apps are easily available on app stores and come with a free and paid version. Mostly on free version apps, you can listen to the music but can’t download it to make it offline. In this article, we are going to talk about the different aspects involved in developing music streaming applications.
Common Features of a Music Streaming Mobile Application
Sign Up or Registration: The user needs to create an account to login and start with an app.
Profile or Account: The user will have a page with all personal details like name, gender, date of birth, music preference, etc.
Music Search: This is the foremost feature for users. The users should be able to find their favourite songs easily on the app.
Playlists: The users would be able to create playlists of their preferred songs. Apart from the manual creation of playlists by users, you can also offer direct access to already built playlists such as “Top Trending Songs”, “Your Workout mix” etc.
Push Notifications: Push Notifications have become a necessary feature for almost every mobile application. The push notifications remind the users about new trending songs, any update, subscription or offers. In simple words, it will advertise your app in a very sophisticated manner.
Social Sharing: Today’s generation is highly inclined towards social media. They want to even share what they are listening to. With the sharing feature, the user can share the songs they are listening to as status on social media.
Cloud Storage: The cloud service will enable the user to download their music for offline access.
Offline Availability: The user should be able to download the songs to listen to them without an internet connection.
Read more:
Step By Step Guide To Create A Music Streaming App
Validate the App Idea
There are already a lot of music streaming apps in the market. Hence, you need to figure out how you are different from others. You have to pen down the scope of your business and detailed manner of the music streaming mobile application development for the desired outcome. Find the right target audience of your app and underline the interest and features to be incorporated into the application. It aids to identify the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
Finding Target Audience
Whatever mobile application you are developing, you need to find the right target audience. Without users, you are going to face a lot of obstacles to generate money through your app.
Initially, you may be thinking that there is no need to find a target audience as everybody listens to music. But not everyone listens to the same music streaming application. For e.g. streaming apps like Soundcloud are more used by the tech-savvy gamers as their audience. On the other hand, Pandora users are more financially balanced, with a huge number of women as their user base. Each music streaming app has its own user base. Hence, determining the right target audience will help you in determining the right monetization strategy.
Have Permissions of Playing Songs
You can’t just play any song on your app without permission. You must have license and permission to legitimately play the music on your app. The rights of music are different as per the country. For e.g. in the US you can get the license from American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), or Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI), while in Europe you require a license from European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC).
If you don’t acquire a license of the song and still play on your app, then you may pay a fine of $700-$150,000 per song, every time it is played.
What should be the type of streaming: Online Radio or On-Demand?
This point may initially baffle you in the beginning. Well, there are two different types of music streaming mobile applications.
Online Radio: It works as an alternative to the radio. Here you can stream the music online, but can’t choose what you want to listen to. It will work as per your mentioned preferences.
On-Demand: At this app, the user can play whenever and whatever music is required. You just need a good internet connection. There would be all the above-mentioned features in the app.
Create an MVP
An MVP is a procedure in which initially the mobile app comes with essential features which are required to go live, and find out whether the user wants an updated and more sophisticated version of this app with additional features.
There can be instances when the users find security issues, bugs, and crashes, and finally uninstall the app. They also expect that the app will work in all conditions such as low network, low RAM, or other operational environments. MVP helps the companies improve the features and UX of app, performance and security, as per real-user preferences. Detecting bugs early can help the developers to repair the flaws quickly.
Include the trending features
What makes an app different from the others is its set of features. You must include all the essential as well as the advanced trending features. The onboarding of the users on the app should be streamlined while the search should be smart enough to guess the songs, the user wants to listen.
Searching plays a vital role in the success of a music streaming app. While writing song names it is possible that the user will spell them incorrectly, and just write a random line of a song. But a smart search should be able to identify the songs by every relevant input.
The performance of the app is also a crucial metric. Apart from UI and UX, if your app is too slow to search or play the songs, the users aren’t going to love it. And the most important issue is the internet. Even in today’s world, there are many such places where you can’t find reliable high-speed internet. So the app should have a tendency to stream songs in low networking without compromising the quality. You can also allow offline downloads so that the users can listen to songs even without the internet. Mostly, the offline feature is a paid feature.
Top Music Streaming Mobile Apps:
Spotify
You must have heard of this music streaming application. Spotify is the best music streaming app. It gives you access to millions of songs, podcasts and also videos from artists all over the world. It is appealing to the users as they can access the content by just simply signing up through their email or by Facebook. Spotify is available for both free and premium versions. You can search for music and add them to your playlist and save the songs.
There may be ads sometimes after your song but you have to purchase Spotify Premium to be able to listen to music without the ads. You are not able to listen to any song (even if you “Save” the song) offline unless you purchase Spotify Premium. Spotify Premium costs $10 per month. The user also has the option to choose music streaming quality. At normal quality one hour of playback will consume 50Mb of data. The data consumption will increase with better qualities.
Amazon Prime Music
Amazon Prime Music is a part of the service you get with the subscription of Amazon Prime. You get access to two million songs at no additional cost. Like Spotify it gives you ad-free listening, unlimited plays, and offline access to the content. There are thousands of curated playlists and personalized streaming stations. It is a great perk for the prime members. But if you’re not a prime member then this, unfortunately, isn’t a service you can opt into. Amazon Prime Music isn’t a total wasteland. You can stream music from popular and not-so-popular artists, such as Bruno Mars and The Dirtbombs, respectively. Still, there are enough holes that you can tell that Prime Music is a limited version of Amazon Music Unlimited.
Apple Music
One may be surprised at how the great name of Apple is 3rd on the list. Apple Music comes with a clear and uncluttered design that a user can easily navigate. Although Spotify ranks top on music streaming, Apple Music has taken the United States music-loving audience by storm. Unlike Spotify, Apple Music only offers a limited free trial, and there’s no free tier. It gives you access to over 50 million songs and is packed with features like offline listening. The best thing is that it can combine all your music at one place-even songs ripped from a CD.
Read more: How Much Does it Cost to Develop an App
How much does it cost to develop a music streaming app?
Now you must be intrigued by the features and market of the music streaming, you must be wondering how much does it cost to build a music streaming mobile application. Well, there is not a clear cut cost. The costs, in fact, depending on the features you want to include, what is your target audience, and many other factors.
We at Amplework Software, the best mobile application development company will give you the proper consultation, and quotes for your requirements. Discuss your requirements with us and we will come up with the best app at affordable rates.
