SAN FRANCISCO — A slick new feature coming to Ultimate Ears’ Bluetooth speakers will let you stream your friends’ music from the palm of your hand.
Called Block Party, it lets up to three friends connect to the same UE speaker. Then the self-appointed DJ can pick and choose from each person’s tunes, pulled from streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify. The DJ can skip songs and jump from playlist to playlist, and it’s all shockingly smooth and simple.
Apple Music has 6.5 million paying customers, according to no less an authority than Tim Cook, speaking at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference.
Given that Apple claimed it had 11 million people using its free trial back in August, that’s an impressive free-to-paid conversion rate of almost 60 percent. It’s also around one-third of the paid subscriber base of Spotify, which has 20 million subs.
Good work, Apple. Good work.
Older people are more likely to subscribe to Apple Music than their younger counterparts, claims a new survey by Jackdaw Research.
According to Jackdaw’s findings, 62 percent of survey respondents under the age of 35 have already canceled Apple’s streaming music service. However, an impressive 67 percent of respondents aged 35 and up have transitioned to paying subscribers after the three-month trial period.
Beats 1 DJ Anna Lunoe revealed some details about how she got picked for her weekly gig before Apple Music had even been announced. Zane Lowe was apparently so impressed with her earlier work that he gave her complete freedom over what she wanted to do for the show.
Known for her house and electronic mixes, Lunoe aptly plays an eclectic collection of dance music during her slot every Friday night at 9 p.m. Pacific time or 12 a.m. Saturday Eastern time.
Now that Apple Music’s three-month free trial is over and done with, Apple is stepping up its efforts to make sure (paying) customers are happy with the service they are receiving.
One way it is doing this is with a newly-launched Twitter account @AppleMusicHelp which, you guessed it, offers Apple Music help to anyone with a query.
Jimmy Iovine used his appearance at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco to take swipes at Spotify and, in particular, to underline his hatred of free music streaming.
“Free is a real issue,” he said. “This whole thing about freemium, maybe at one time we needed it. But now it’s a shell game … These companies [offering a free music tier] are building an audience on the back of the artist.”
Eddy Cue has given an interview to U.K. newspaper the Evening Standard, in which he describes the company’s long-term approach to making Apple Music work, as well as hinting at Apple’s plans to help customers avoid roaming charges when they take their iPhone abroad.
Apple today launched Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks in China.
As with the U.S., Chinese customers are being treated to a three-month free trial for Apple Music. After this, the subscription service will cost a very reasonable 10 yuan ($1.57) per month — just one-sixth of what customers in the U.S. pay for the service.
Beats 1 launched triumphantly with Apple Music, but in a new interview with Beats DJ Zane Lowe, the radio presenter admits he’s “not sure” whether Beats 1 is a crucial part of the Apple Music package — although he hopes “there’s a place for it.”
It’s almost the end of September, which not only means the evenings are starting to draw in for most of us, but also that Apple Music’s three-month free trial is about to come to an end — with the $9.99 per month premium service kicking in from October.
After its Apple Music Emmys ad, Apple is making one more big push to sell users on its streaming music service. If you want to throw in the towel before getting charged, however, now’s the time to do it.
Read on if you need a quick “how to” reminder.
With just days to go before free Apple Music trials start to expire, Cupertino is finally getting serious about explaining exactly how its streaming music service works.
A new wave of “guided tour” videos demystifies Apple Music’s functionality and features — but will this marketing and educational push be too little, too late to stop a wave of defectors from leaving the fledgeling service at a critical time?
We’ve heard very little about the official Apple Music app for Android since the service was announced back in June, but now a third-party company claims to be running a new beta program on Apple’s behalf.
Betabound is giving Android users the opportunity to register their interest in Apple Music for a chance to get early access — but we’re not totally sure it can be trusted.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The embargoes have lifted and the iPhone 6s reviews are in. We’ll tell you what folks love — and don’t –about Apple’s newest iPhone. Plus: Apple car coming in 2019; why we love the new watchOS 2 update; and, with our three-month Apple Music trials running out, we ponder — is the service worth paying for?
Our thanks to Lynda for supporting this episode. Lynda is like the Apple Music of online education, with more than 3,000 expert-taught video courses you can stream straight to computer or mobile device. Learn how to use Logic’s new super-powerful Alchemy synth, or develop Mac apps for OS X — learn all you want for free for 10 days at lynda.com/cultcast.
Apple debuted a new star-studded ad for Apple Music during last night’s 2015 Emmy Awards, featuring singer Mary J. Blige, Scandal actress Kerry Washington, and Hustle & Flow actress Taraji P. Henson.
The ad focuses on the curated playlists of Apple Music, which is a feature Apple has been focusing on to differentiate itself from rival music services.
You can check it out below:
Fashion brand Burberry is coming to Apple Music with its own channel, and it plans on bringing a lot of luxury with it.
The company will curate its own channel on Apple Music starting Tuesday, offering listeners a taste of performances, songs and films that have come out of Burberry’s work with British artists.
Apple Music has done a pretty decent job of suggesting content to users over its first couple of months. Between its auto-generated playlists based on your preference bubbles and curation straight from famous acts and DJs, you should have little trouble finding something you might not mind sticking in your earholes. And a new batch of ads for the streaming service has even more suggestions.
You can check out what Apple Music wants you to discover in the videos below.
Surprise, surprise! Former Google CEO and current Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt has a bone to pick with Apple Music.
In an article published over the weekend, Schmidt takes what appears to be a shot at Apple over its choice to embrace human curation for its streaming service.
40-year-old Cameroonian musician Blick Bassy has revealed how his life was transformed when Apple chose one of his songs, “Kiki,” for part of its iPhone 6 ad campaign.
Although the ad only includes a 15-second excerpt of the song, Bassy says the resulting exposure has been greater than anything he has experienced in his 20 year musical career.
Check out the ad below:
Apple’s getting ready to sink its teeth into original programming, according to recent reports, and there are suggestions it will launch a new video streaming service for Apple TV. The Cupertino company has already taken the fight to Spotify with Apple Music, so why not Netflix next?
The big question is, does Apple have what it takes to produce shows as good as House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt all by itself? And would it really want to?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over Apple’s supposed invasion on Netlix’ turf.
There have been mixed reports about the success of Apple Music — with the project’s senior director leaving Apple, reports of declining listenership, and Apple acknowledging that the platform still needs a lot of work.
However, according to a new ComScore report, Apple Music is certainly catching the attention of users. The digital analytics company claims that Apple’s Music service was listened to by 44 million users in the U.S. during the month of July — putting it in the top 15 smartphone apps in the U.S.
In a rare showing, Apple has acknowledged that there is still “a bit of homework to be done” when it comes to improving one of its products — in this case, Apple Music.
The company’s streaming music service has seen mixed success since its launch back in June, with reports of falling listenership and even a public slating from a well-known pro-Apple pundit.
Recently Apple Music’s senior director upped and left the company, with no word on whether it was his or Apple’s decision to step down.
Given Netflix’s success in the area, it would be fair to say that most people are excited about the possibility that Apple may be entering the original programming arena.
However, according to a new report citing industry insiders, Apple could wait quite a while before launching into its latest venture.
Departed Apple Music senior director Ian Rogers will join French luxury company LVMH — the company which owns iconic luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Bulgari — as its new chief digital officer.
In a new interview, Beats President Luke Wood — the man in charge of hardware for the Apple-owned brand — talks life after the Apple acquisition, and answers long-standing criticisms about the bass-heavy quality of Beats headphones.
The Weeknd’s performance of “I Can’t Feel My Face” at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards was so hot, even Kanye got up to dance to the song of summer. The singer didn’t go home with a moon man last night but Apple Music debuted a two-part ad that features John Travolta and a trippy club scene.
Watch both ads below: