Apple Music web player discovered ahead of WWDC

By Mike Wuerthele

Apple briefly updated its suite of Apple Music tools, allowing signed-in users to play more than just a sample of a track without using the Music app on iOS or iTunes on Mac and Windows.

Previously, a shared Apple Music track would play about 45 seconds, or launch iTunes to play a whole track.

First spotted by a Reddit user on Sunday, and confirmed by AppleInsider very early on Monday morning, if a user signs in to Apple Music with a new login button, the web player will now play the entire track, and give controls to the user in a web interface.

Users can also listen to full albums and already saved playlists through the web player. However, the functionality does not extend to creating new playlists, or browsing through the user's Apple Music library

However, Apple may have caught wind that users have discovered the new feature. Logins started failing during additional testing after 7 a.m. eastern time on Monday morning.

The rollout appears to be part of a web-based client rollout for wider acceptance of Apple Music without using an app. Such a move would further cut back on friction for adoption of Apple Music, as main competitor Spotify has one already.

At launch, Apple Music was only available on iTunes on Mac and PC and the Music app on iOS. Since that launch, Apple has released an app for Android as well. Apple's rollout over the weekend is the first in the direction of a full-featured web-based player.

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