Apple Music - page 2

With hip-hop icon Kendrick Lamar taking center stage at the Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show on February 9 at New Orleans, Apple kicked off the artist’s Road to Halftime festivities Monday.

“Throughout his career, Kendrick Lamar hasn’t met the cultural moment so much as he’s defined it,” said Rachel Newman, Apple Music’s global head of content and editorial. “He is an artist’s artist — authentic to his core. We couldn’t be more thrilled to watch him headline the third Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, in what’s sure to be another moment we’ll all be talking about for decades.”

Apple TV and Apple Music will stream the upcoming FireAid benefit concert to help victims of the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles, a new report Thursday. The concert lineup so far includes Billie Eilish, John Mayer, Lady Gaga, Sting and many others.

The concert will rock out in two Los Angeles performance venues near each other, but most people will get to see and hear it via streaming services.

To help expedite recovery in response to deadly Los Angeles wildfires, Apple gives users simple ways to help LA wildfire victims by linking donation pages in popular apps directly to the American Red Cross, CEO Tim Cook said in an X.com post Wednesday. This follows the iPhone giant’s own donation of an undisclosed amount as well as considerations extended to wildfire victims regarding their Apple Card payments.

In a big shake-up at smart speaker maker Sonos — whose high-end audio products are popular with Apple users — CEO Patrick Spence resigned effective immediately and a board member will step in as interim CEO, the company said Monday. Spence’s departure comes after a turbulent 2024 that saw the company struggle with a controversial app redesign, disappointing product launches and declining customer satisfaction.

iOS 18.2 will make searching on Apple Music and Apple TV much easier with natural language support. This means you can use natural language to describe and search for TV shows or music you are looking for.

The revamped Photos app gained support for similar search capabilities with the iOS 18.1 update.

Apple Music has a karaoke mode for people who love to sing along as they listen. Apple Music Sing lets you turn down the lyrics so you can karaoke to your favorite hits with just one tap.

In fact, I’m using it right now to listen to some of my favorite music without the lyrics distracting me from reading and writing. Let me show you how it works!

Apple Music named Billie Eilish Artist of the Year for 2024 on Thursday. That makes her the first artist to receive the honor twice. The 22-year-old singer-songwriter previously won the inaugural award in 2019.

“Since day one, Apple Music has supported my music and artistry, and I am both honored and humbled to receive this recognition as Artist of the Year this many years into my career,” Eilish said.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: So … many … M4 Mac reviews! Griffin tells us why the new Mac mini and the updated iMac make him go gaga. And the faster MacBook Pros are no slouches, either.

Also on The CultCast:

• The “updated” Apple accessories — Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse — pack exactly one new feature. It’s not exactly magical.
• Apple reportedly plans to launch an inexpensive touchscreen device for managing smart home gear. But what purpose would it serve, really?
• Apple Music turns its ridiculous 100 Best Albums list into an even more ridiculous $450 coffee-table tome.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

Back when Apple Music put out its 100 Best Albums of all time list, some people expressed shock at the No. 1 pick — 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. And now they might be shocked they’re being asked to pay a whopping $450 for a fancy-schmancy, limited-edition coffee-table book version of the whole list. That seems like an Apple move, doesn’t it? But if you’re into it, act fast — only 1,500 copies exist.

However, before you do … you know you could buy an M1 or maybe an M2 Mac mini with that $450, right? Just sayin’.

Songs disappear from Apple Music all the time due to licensing problems or artists doing controversial things. Spotify found itself caught up in similar situation in 2022, losing Neil Young’s discography in a protest of the streaming service’s association with podcaster Joe Rogan. Luckily, there’s a way you can find out if any songs in your library have been removed from Apple Music behind your back.

If you own a Mac, you can quickly find out by building a special Smart Playlist. I’ll show you how.

A hot feature of Apple Music playlist collaboration. In advance of a party, road trip or any kind of themed event, you and others organizing the music can build a playlist together.

This isn’t to be confused with a similar feature, SharePlay, which lets people in the same room add songs to a live queue. SharePlay is more ephemeral; it lets others nearby play songs in the car or to a Bluetooth speaker without passing around your unlocked phone.

A shared Apple Music playlist is saved and can be replayed at any time. To find out everything you need to know about Apple Music playlist collaboration, keep reading or watch our quick how-to video. 

iOS 18 is getting a bunch of cool new accessibility features this year, including bringing eye tracking to the iPhone for the first time. You also can feel haptic music, control your phone with custom voice commands, use your phone in the car without suffering from motion sickness, and improve the accuracy of Siri and dictation.

Check out our video to see it in action or keep reading below.

The Apple Music Classical streaming service now includes over 50,000 album booklets featuring in-depth liner notes, translations and more.

These provide music aficionados with the in-depth information they want.

In a surprising move, Apple is making it easier to transfer your playlists from Apple Music to YouTube Music. This is the first time the Cupertino company is offering a tool like this for Apple Music users.

If you are an Apple Music subscriber, the tool makes transferring your playlists to YouTube Music easy.

You can find new music on the Apple Music Discovery Station, which gives you a tailored playlist to suggest new artists and jams you’ve never heard before but should like based on your personal musical tastes.

Personalized recommendations have long been a reason people cite for sticking with Spotify over Apple Music. But you can add the Discovery Station to my list of eight reasons you should make the switch. Apple Music offers personalized music picks, too, and the system works great.

I’ll show you where to find Apple Music’s Discovery Station and how to make the most of it.

iPhone users could use AI to create their own artwork for playlists in Apple Music, according to code reportedly found in the latest iOS 18 beta. The feature would use Apple Intelligence’s ability to generate images based on simple instructions.

If true, this is be one of multiple new artificial intelligence capabilities coming to iPhone.

The recent return of the iconic Beats Pill portable Bluetooth speaker wasn’t just a typical product update, but a complete overhaul to help cement Beats’ identity as a premium-products subsidiary of the iPhone giant, according to a new interview with Apple executives.

“We wanted to do something special with the Pill and completely re-architect and reimagine it,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple VP of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Sports and Beats. “It wasn’t a case [of] let’s swap out one or two things. We really wanted a complete refresh. This is a completely new product inside, and outside as well.”

Dozens of students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) participated in a two-week creative arts program funded by Apple’s Racial Equality and Justice Initiative, the iPhone giant said Thursday.

Apple’s Propel Center and Apple Music’s Nashville office worked with two universities on the program. It aims to help students pursue creative and executive careers in the arts, particularly music.

Following a price hike in the US earlier this month, Spotify has unveiled a cheaper streaming music plan for its users. The new “Basic” streaming tier costs $10.99/month, $1 cheaper than the Premium plan.

Spotify charged the same price for its Premium plan before increasing it in early June. That was the company’s second price hike in less than a year.

The streaming music service Spotify just increased its prices for new U.S. subscribers. The costs of most subscription options are now above those of its arch rival, Apple Music.

The new prices go into effect for current subscribers in July.

With Apple’s massive annual software confab known as WWDC24 coming up fast on June 10, the iPhone giant decided it’s time to rock out with a special WWDC24 Apple Music playlist. The WWDC24 Hello list of tunes features music by Billie Eilish, Good Neighbours, Glass Animals and other artists.

Check it out below! This probably won’t be as controversial as the streamer’s top 100 albums list and its surprising No. 1 pick.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: First we get into what makes the M4 iPad Pro so fabulous. Then we discuss the latest rumors about iPhone 16 and beyond. And then we ponder the unthinkable: A Siri that’s actually smart!

Also on The CultCast:

• A preview of the AI features coming soon to iPhone, Mac and iPad. Some of them sound pretty useful, actually. Maybe Tim Cook is onto something. But if Siri really does get a brain boost this year, will we be paying extra for Siri+?
• Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list comes to a surprising end. Really, though, it was an impossible task. No way Apple was gonna please everyone. Or, frankly, anyone.
• Finally, Erfon and Griffin showcase a couple things they’re testing in a new edition of Under Review.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

You might be shocked to find out the No. 1 album of all time according to Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list.

After releasing 10 albums a day in an agonizingly slow bleed, Apple Music finally unveiled its top 10 Wednesday. The final installment is sure to get people talking, especially the No. 1 pick: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Apple Music took care to justify every selection, though. DJs Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden spoke with guest artists Nile Rodgers and Maggie Rogers about the top 10.

Monday marked the first day in Apple Music’s 10-day countdown revealing its picks for the 100 best albums of all time.

Apple invites you to follow along as it “journeys through the albums that shaped, inspired and fundamentally changed music.”

We’ll add to the list below as Apple continues the countdown. (Update: All albums, 1 through 100, now added as of Wednesday.)

Tuesday is the first day Apple Music users can see their Apple Music Replay 24 favorites so far for the new year — but that’s not all. There’s a fresh new feature to help you obsess over past listening.

Apple Music Replay now gives you monthly stats, including month-by-month lists of your top artists, albums and songs going back to through your history with Replay. So now you have even more proof of your listening habits (good or bad).