Haven’t Tried Apple Music Yet? You Can Get Six Months Free With This Holiday Promo

Last month, Apple quietly offered a Black Friday deal on Apple Music, and now it looks like Apple is providing the same extended free trial again just in time for Christmas.

As pointed out by Macworld UK, which first reported on the original Black Friday deal, the holiday season promotion is identical to the original, offering a free six-month trial of Apple Music for those who haven’t ever subscribed before, or a three-month trial for former subscribers as an incentive to hopefully draw them back to the service.

As before, Apple is using its music-recognition platform, Shazam, as the gateway to unlocking the free trial. Apple acquired Shazam two years ago, and has mostly been using the technology behind the scenes to help build smarter playlists, but it’s obviously to Apple’s advantage to get as many people using Shazam as possible, even if those people don’t end up being paying Apple Music subscribers, as it gives the company access to more listening data.

How to Get It

To take advantage of Apple’s holiday offer for Apple Music, you simply need to “Shazam” a song within the Shazam iPhone app.

1. Open the App Store on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
2. Search for “Shazam” and download it (or use this link)
3. Open the Shazam app
4. Play a song from another source, such as your stereo or another device
5. Tap the big Shazam icon to identify the song that’s currently playing
6. Tap the Library button to see the list of identified songs
7. If you see a promotion for the “Limited Time offer” in the column of recent Shazams, tap Try Now and follow the instructions from there.
8. If the promotion doesn’t appear, select a song from the “Recent Shazams” list and tap the Open in Apple Music button, which should take you to a page offering you the free trial via an automatic promo code.
   

If you’ve never subscribed to Apple Music before, this should give you a six-month free trial of the service, after which you’ll start paying $9.99/month unless you cancel before the end of the trial period.

If you have subscribed to Apple Music previously, but since cancelled, you’ll get a new three-month free trial instead, since you already got the standard three-month trial the first time around.

How to Get Three Free Months of Apple Music For Existing Subscribers

It looks like even if you’re already an Apple Music subscriber you may still be able to take advantage of this offer by cancelling your Apple Music subscription first and then re-subscribing through Shazam. Unlike deals being offered by rival streaming service Spotify, Apple doesn’t appear to have a cut-off date for when your previous subscription had to be cancelled, so you could be able to cancel and then re-up through Shazam as soon as your existing subscription ends.

The simplest way to do this is via the Music app on your iOS device:

1. Open the Music app
2. Tap For You from the buttons at the bottom
3. Tap your profile picture in the top-right corner
4. Tap Manage Subscription
5. Tap Cancel Subscription at the bottom
   

Once your subscription has been cancelled, install Shazam and follow the steps above. Note that if you’re already a Shazam user, you may need to first tap the “Disconnect Apple Music” option from within the app’s settings in order to get the offer to appear.

However, note that because Apple won’t actually cancel your Apple Music subscription until its renewal date, taking advantage of this promo may be a bit trickier, however Macworld UK notes that you will get a “Redeem Code” from Shazam that you can manually add to your account balance.

The promotion is apparently running from now until New Year’s Eve.