Apple is today celebrating one year of Apple Music and Beats 1 radio. The company has put out a new video that showcases some of the station’s highlights, like big interviews with stars like Drake, Adele, Taylor Swift, Will Smith, and Alecia Keys.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren took shots at Apple, Google and Amazon during a speech in Washington today, claiming Silicon Valley’s big fish are making it impossible for the small fry to compete.
“The opportunity to compete must remain open for new entrants and smaller competitors,” said Warren. During her rant against Apple, the senator specifically mentioned the unfair advantages Apple Music enjoys against its competitors.
After the speech, Spotify rallied behind Warren with some Apple bashing of its own.
Cold hard cash, and a surprising amount of creative input from top Apple executives, are key to Cupertino’s plan for making Apple Music a hit, according to a new behind-the-scenes report about the streaming service.
This week’s Cult of Mac Magazine has loads in store for your weekend wind-down. Following our coverage of WWDC 2016 the previous week, we’ve got more iPhone 7 rumors for you including the possibility of a dual-lense camera.
And, discover the news changes and design overhauls iOS 10 brings to the Apple Music and Apple News apps. Plus, screaming terrific deals on the G-BOOM Bluetooth speaker, and the opportunity to get five years of unlimited cloud storage for just $29 per month.
Finally, the CultCast expounds on all those iPhone 7 leaks!
All this, and much much more, in Cult of Mac Magazine, free for you right now.
Here are this week’s top stories.
After making its debut in November 2015, Adele’s third studio album 25 is now available for listening on Apple Music — in addition to Spotify, Amazon Prime, and Tidal.
WhatsApp could soon give users the ability to share their favorite music tracks with friends, according to leaked screenshots. The popular chat platform is also expected to support larger emoji characters, public groups, and more.
iOS 10 brings much-needed design overhauls for the Apple Music and Apple News apps.
The big iOS update, which is currently in beta but should hit iPhones and iPads this fall, brings huge changes to the Apple Music UI as well as minor improvements to navigation in the music app. To see all the changes in action, watch the Cult of Mac video below.
Spotify now has more active users than any other music streaming service on the planet, but when it comes to paid subscribers, it looks like growth has stalled.
The Swedish music streaming service revealed today that it now has 100 million active users — up from the 75 million it had last year — however its paid subscribers total hasn’t budged since March.
With a host of new features, many of which go more than just skin deep, iOS 10 will bring loads of new functionality to iPhones and iPads.
We got the developer beta up and running to get a look at all the new iOS 10 features in action, and caught it all on video to share with you. Get a glimpse of the iPhone’s future in our iOS hands-on video.
Apple Music will receive a much-needed makeover as one of the big new features in iOS 10, but according to Apple’s music guru Jimmy Iovine, it’s going to take some time before the streaming service reaches its full potential.
The Beats co-founder sat down for a post-WWDC interview with Apple execs Eddy Cue and Robert Kondrk to talk about the progress of Apple Music. Nine Inch Nails frontman and Apple employee, Trent Reznor, was also in the interview and took some shots at rivals, saying any free-tiered service is not fair to artists.
Forget iMessage apps, the Siri SDK, QuickType AI suggestions and the Apple Music redesign.
There is one iOS 10 feature that I’m looking forward to more than any other: The ability to take pictures while listening to music.
With absolutely no new hardware to show off, Apple focused on software — the glue that binds together its increasingly powerful and interconnected platforms — during the Worldwide Developers Conference kick-off event Monday.
“Our North Star has always been about improving people’s lives by creating great products that change the world,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook, addressing thousands of developers in San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. “Today for the very first time, we are going to talk to you about four Apple platforms. Each of these platforms is category-defining and world-changing.”
The next big iOS update for iPhones and iPads was unveiled by Apple today at WWDC and it comes with some gigantic new features to go along with an even bigger Siri upgrade.
iOS 10 is the “mother of all releases” according to Tim Cook. It comes with 10 big new features that make Siri more powerful than ever, plus some much needed changes to the way you interact with the lock screen and homescreen thanks to interactive notifications, widgets, and deeper 3D Touch integration.
Apple’s keynote to kick off this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference is going to be huge. So huge, in fact, that Apple already revealed some stuff early because Tim Cook and his Cupertino cronies won’t have time to cover everything during the jam-packed, two-hour event.
While WWDC might seem like a bit of a snoozefest for Apple fans who don’t know anything about Xcode and Swift, the 2016 edition of the annual developer conference should bring lots of new stuff even normals can get hyped about. The WWDC keynote will give us a peek inside the ever-evolving Apple ecosystem — and thus our clearest picture of the future of all Apple products.
This year, all of Apple’s platforms are set to get major updates, as are some of the company’s most popular services, like Siri and Apple Music. Here’s what to watch for during Apple’s keynote, which will kick off WWDC 2016 next Monday morning in San Francisco.
With a major Apple Music refresh likely to be arriving at WWDC, there’s no doubting that Apple sees subscription-based streaming music as the way of the future. But where does this leave iTunes music downloads?
Despite Apple’s denials, according to “sources with close knowledge of the company’s plans,” the company continues to plan to “phase out” music downloads in a “just a few years” — depending on how this whole streaming music thing does, of course!
The battle between Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music for exclusive content from artists is about to get fiercer, thanks to a new hire from Spotify that has connections to some of the hottest musicians around.
Troy Carter, the guy who helped turn Lady Gaga and Meghan Trainor into pop superstars, is reportedly joining Spotify to help it scores more exclusive music deals to draw in subscribers.
Snapchat philosopher and hip-hop producer DJ Khaled is the latest celebrity to endorse Apple Music in a new series of ads that show Khaled living the life while introducing Naomi Campbell and Ray Liotta to Apple Music.
Along with dropping some major keys in the new ad, Khaled also dropped a fresh new song featuring Drake called “For Free” that’s available for free on Apple Music. The song is so hot it’s already the top song on iTunes.
Check out the funny new ads below:
Apple has begun inviting members of the press to its WWDC 2016 keynote on June 13.
The event kicks off at 10 a.m. PT in the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco, and it should deliver our first sneak peeks at iOS 10 and Apple’s next major upgrades for watchOS, tvOS, and OS X.
Apple just added another bunch of playlists to Apple Music that will help you discover new music from your favorite genres. They’re called “Breaking,” and they’re filled with over two hours of the hottest tracks.
Concerns about the effect Apple’s massive Irish data center will have on badger and bat populations may have momentarily suspended the company’s plans, but Apple representatives have assured locals the $950 million project will be largely invisible.
Robert Sharpe, Apple’s senior director of global data center services appeared at a hearing in Galway County this week to address concerns about the 500 acre data center and revealed why it’s so important to Apple’s expansion plans in Europe.
Spotify has finally matched Apple Music’s awesome family plan, giving up to six users unlimited access for just $14.99 a month. Each user gets their own account with their own playlists and recommendations, and there are no restrictions or ads.
Never let it be said that Apple doesn’t go above and beyond the call of duty in troubleshooting problems for its users in the name of achieving customer satisfaction.
After James Pinkstone, director of design service Vellum, posted a terrifying story on his company blog claiming that iTunes Match stole his files, Apple sprang into action — sending two engineers to his house to troubleshoot the problem.
The power of bad publicity, eh?
iTunes music downloads still rake in millions of dollars every quarter for Apple, but they’re falling fast.
According to sources who claim to be actively working with the company, it is already mulling the idea of chopping music sales completely in as little as two years, and instead placing an even greater focus on Apple Music.
Is it a good idea for Apple to boot such a popular service in the same way it massacred floppy discs and FireWire, forcing users to stream all their music? Or should it keep iTunes alive until downloads die out naturally?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we battle it out over the future of the world’s most popular music store.
Taylor Swift is quickly becoming the face of Apple Music. The pop sensation has appeared in yet another ad for Apple’s streaming service in which she goes crazy for “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by British rock band The Darkness.
Update: Apple is denying a report that it plans to stop selling downloads within the next few years. “Not true,” Apple rep Tom Neumayr told Re/code Wednesday afternoon without elaborating.
Apple is planning to give iTunes music downloads the boot in as little as two years, according to sources currently working with the company.
With sales already falling, Apple will instead focus its efforts on persuading fans to stream tracks and albums through Apple Music.