Amazon Music is inching closer to Apple Music in terms of total subscribers.
The online retailer revealed today that its music service has surpassed 55 million customers but it still has a long road to go if it wants to catch up to Spotify’s numbers.
Apple is deepening its partnership with the NBA by teaming up to launch a global playlist on Apple Music to highlight independent hip-hop artists.
The new playlist, dubbed “BASE:LINE” (get it? Cause there’s a baseline in rap songs and on the basketball court), will be curated by Apple Music’s director of hip-hop and R&B Ebro Darden. New artists and songs will be added to the playlist every Thursday with the first edition being made available today.
Apple today marked the close of an historic 2019 for its Services businesses following its biggest ever year so far.
The introduction of Apple Arcade, Apple Card, News +, and TV+ helped ensure Services continued to reach new heights. They also mean Apple goes into 2020 with “incredible momentum.”
Streaming music services such as Apple Music have completely taken over the music market, a new report from the Recording Industry Association of America makes clear.
The organization notes that streaming now accounts for a massive 80% of the music market in the United States. That’s up from a minuscule 7% a decade ago in 2010. In the first half of 2019, 61 million people in the US had streaming subscriptions.
What were you listening to most this year? Was it Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road, one of the catchiest songs of the whole year? Or were you — like Cult of Mac writer Luke Dormehl — only listening to music made before 1997, after which he claims everything got unlistenable? Or perhaps you were hooked on the inexplicably popular Coldplay?
If you did all your listening on Apple Music, then you can easily check your top 100 songs of 2019, and also other years past. You just need to check your Apple Music Replay playlists. Only it’s not quite as easy as you might have thought…
In macOS Catalina, iTunes has disappeared. It’s been replaced by the new Music app, which is a version of the iOS Music app. You could never call iTunes “beloved,” but it did its job, and had plenty of power hidden inside its confusing and bloated interface. The Apple Music app, on the other hand, is rather basic. But it still lets you do one thing that remains impossible on iOS: You can add your own music to your library. And yes, it will then sync that music to your iDevices. Let’s see how.
Apple stands accusing of breaking the US Copyright Act by streaming copyrighted songs through Apple Music without the right permissions.
The company Pro Music Rights (PRM) filed its complaint in New York on Wednesday. It describes unpaid royalties and ongoing infringement relating to a number of songs. PMR licenses a couple of million tracks, including works from artists such as A$AP Rocky, Wiz Khalifa, Pharrell, Gucci Mane, and others.
Spotify is gearing up to add a new social feature to its apps that could give it another edge over Apple Music.
Prototype screenshots of an upcoming feature called “Tastebuds” were unearthed on Twitter this week. From the looks of it, Tastebuds will build off Spotify’s underlaying social networking features, giving users a new way to discover music through what their friends are listening to.
Apple Music’s standard free trial offer is a generous 90 days. But, for the holidays, someone in Cupertino has decided to double this.
By using the Shazam app, would-be Apple Music subscribers can get a total of 6 months Apple Music for free. And you can even get some free months it if you’re currently, or have previously been, an Apple Music subscriber.
Some Apple customers have stopped receiving email receipts for their App Store and iTunes transactions.
The issue appears to have arisen in late October, and it affects all purchases made through Apple’s digital storefronts — including subscriptions. But there is a way you can request receipts manually.
Tidal today one-upped Apple Music with an even better student deal. Its 50% discount now extends to high-schoolers — not just college attendees.
Qualifying members will pay just $4.99 a month for Premium access, or $9.99 a month for the Hi-Fi plan. The discount is available to new and existing subscribers who verify their student status.
Billie Eilish kicked off the Apple Music Awards Wednesday night with a live performance. The show streamed live from the Steve Jobs Theater.
Eilish is Apple’s Global Artist of the Year, along with Songwriter of the Year, shared with brother Finneas. And that’s not all Apple’s Billie Eilish news, either.
Apple Music’s exclusive playlist deal with popular music label and nightclub owner Ministry of Sound has expired. A new report notes that the full set of Ministry of Sound playlists are now available on rival streaming music services like Spotify.
Apple Music’s deal with Ministry of Sound was announced a little over a year ago. Apple debuted its first Ministry of Sound exclusive playlist on October 4, 2018.
New details are starting to emerge regarding one of Oprah’s first projects for Apple TV+ that will put a bright focus on the music industry Apple is hosting an awards show for this week.
The former TV talk show host partnered with filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering to produce a documentary covering sexual assault in the music industry. Set to premiere next year, the documentary will follow allegations made against a notable executive in the music world.
Cupertino will celebrate the first Apple Music Awards with a special performance by Billie Eilish this week at the Steve Jobs Theater inside Apple Park.
Eilish takes the top honor as Global Artist of the Year, while Breakthrough Artist of the Year goes to Lizzo. Song of the Year goes to Lil Nas X for genre-blurring viral sensation “Old Town Road.”
You’ll be able to watch Eilish’s performance live at 6:30 p.m. PST on December 4.
A California judge this week dismissed a class-action lawsuit filed against Apple over claims it “sold and otherwise exposed” the listening data of Apple Music and iTunes users.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup found that the evidence presented by plaintiffs was inadequate. They are now blocked from bringing amended claims against Apple in the future.
One of Apple’s biggest publishing partners for Apple News+ is still waiting to be impressed by the fledgling subscription service.
Speaking at Recode’s Code Media conference this week, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch said the “jury is out” on the service. His less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of Apple News+ comes a week after a report claimed Apple is struggling to significantly increase the number of paid subscribers for Apple News+.
Start blasting those holiday tunes with free Amazon Music on iOS.
The streaming service can now be enjoyed without a paid subscription for the first time on iPhone and iPad, giving it a big advantage over Apple Music.
But just like other free music plans, it does come with ads … and some restrictions.
A new Apple Music feature called Apple Music Replay lets subscribers take a trip down memory lane with a look back at their favorite music from 2019 so far.
The feature is similar in concept to Spotify’s Wrapped feature — but with an important difference.
Apple Music Replay is a new feature that automatically collects into one playlist the songs you listened to the most this year.
It’s also available for previous years, for when you want a bit of nostalgia.
Apple is ready to unveil its last earnings report of 2019 this week, and investors are anxiously waiting to hear some good news on iPhone sales.
All early indications point to sales of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro performing even better than expected. But because the new devices were only on sale for the very tail end of the quarter, they might not have given Apple the growth Wall Street is desperate to see.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri are set to divulge all the details for Apple’s fiscal Q4 2019 earnings on Wednesday, October 30, at 2 p.m. PDT. Per usual, Cult of Mac will be analyzing all the data right when it drops and there are a couple of areas and metrics that are key to keeping Apple’s stock price soaring.
Apple’s launched its first bundle deal for Apple TV+ — but you’ll have to be a student to take advantage of it.
On Dickinson star Hailee Steinfeld’s Instagram page, the singer/actress noted that Apple Music subscribers on Apple’s $4.99 Student plan will receive Apple TV+ in addition to Apple’s streaming music service.
Spotify’s third fiscal quarter figures show that it is growing considerably faster than Apple Music.
“We continue to feel very good about our competitive position in the market,” the streaming giant noted in a statement. “Relative to Apple, the publicly available data shows that we are adding roughly twice as many subscribers per month as they are. Additionally, we believe that our monthly engagement is roughly 2x as high and our churn is at half the rate.”
This week on The CultCast: Apple’s AR glasses are about to be announced! At least according to one very reliable analyst…. we discuss. Plus: Mac OS Catalina is out, but you probably shouldn’t install it—we’ll tell you why. And Final Cut Pro just got massively faster thanks to a new update, and a long awaited iOS 13 feature finally goes live.
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Apple employs a team of people “listening to music and transcribing the lyrics,” says Oliver Schusser, head of Apple Music.
“We don’t get [lyrics] from the usual sites,” Schusser says, explaining that Apple doesn’t trust crowdsourcing to give it the right answers for its new synced lyrics feature.