In order to access the student tier of the Apple Music, one needs to be enrolled in educational institutions. In U.S the Student tier costs just $4.99 while in India the deal is much better at just $0.90, yes, the Apple Music for students in India costs less than a dollar while the regular subscription is priced almost double at $1.75. What this also means is that the Apple Music for students is way cheaper than its Indian competitors including Gaana and Saavn. Recently, Google had also started the Play Music service in India with singles starting from Rs 15. Apple Music is also available for Android users and they can download the app from here. Before availing the services students have to verify their association with an educational university via a third party service called UNiDAYS. The same service is also avialable as an app that helps students get discounts after they are verified by UNiDAYS. So this service ensures that a student is enrolled in that particular university before they are allowed to make use of the Student tier subscription. One caveat though is that the students are required to punch in their college email ids and I am pretty much sure that not all colleges allocate a dedicated email ID to their students. Furthermore, in the US students can register for the Apple Music via college Wi-Fi and get the benefits but once again it’s doubtful if the same can be done in Indian Universities. The Student pricing doesn’t come as a surprise move since it was speculated that Apple was going to announce the same a couple of weeks ago. Now that the prices are announced it only makes it much harder for Apple Music competitors to beat the Value for Money proposition and might compel some of them to amend their pricing structures as well. Spotify already offers a $4.99 Student plan in the U.S but they don’t have the global reach that Apple Music currently has. On a related note, Apple Music had 17 million paying customers as of September and the numbers only seems to be increasing.
