Concert-finding app Bandsintown has officially launched native Apple Music streaming, made possible through the use of Apple's MusicKit framework.
After connecting Bandsintown to an Apple Music account, a "play" button will appear when browsing an artist's profile page. Tapping it will start a playlist of the artist's songs, which can continue while browsing upcoming events.
Apple Music is the first service with this kind of streaming in Bandsintown. The app can be connected to other services like Spotify, but only for the sake of finding bands to follow.
MusicKit was introduced alongside iOS 11 in September, and lets developers build in access to Apple Music and/or users' local music libraries. In addition to playing music, compatible apps can create playlists or add tracks to a person's library.
For Apple, crucially, MusicKit apps can prompt people to sign up for an Apple Music trial -- another way of gathering new subscribers.
The Bandsintown app for consumers has more than 38 million registered concert-goers as of October 2017, is available in over 210 countries. The companion to the consumer-facing app, Bandsintown Manager allows performers to list performing dates and venues, and is used by more than 430,000 artists according to the company. Big artists known to use the service include Steve Aoki, Wiz Khalifa, Lorde, Maroon 5, and Paramore.
Apple Music recently topped 40 million subscribers, and Apple is trying to further entrench it in the music world with its planned takeover of recognition app Shazam. That purchase is being investigated by the European Commission however, which is concerned about the potential negative impact on competition, including access to data about the customers of rival streaming platforms.