Coming soon to an Apple Music show near you. Photo: Lady Gaga/Apple Music
The song “Radio Ga-Ga” gave Lady Gaga her stage name, and now, years later, she has her own radio show. And it’s debuting this week on Apple Music.
Gaga Radio will premiere at 11 a.m. Pacific on Friday, and run every Friday for the whole of August. In a tweet announcing the new show, Gaga invited listeners to hear her and her Chromatica collaborators “talk about the inspirations, making the record & more!”
Spotify’s Q2 earnings showed largely positive growth, although the streaming music giant suffered a 21% decline in ad revenue and a 48% rise in operating costs due to deals like its $100 million licensing deal for The Joe Rogan Experience.
Total monthly active users on the platform grew to 299 million, while paid subscribers increased to 138 million. Apple Music, which does not operate a free listening tier (outside of Beats 1 radio), last reported 60 million paid subscribers in June 2019 when it had passed 60 million.
Easily transfer unlimited music playlists from one streaming platform to another: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer and more. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
In the internet age, we get our music from all kinds of places. A song might be on YouTube but not on Spotify, or maybe you can’t remember whether you bought it on Apple Music or Tidal.
Luckily, there’s a way to cut through the digital musical chaos. This app connects all your streaming services, so you can get the music you want anywhere, any time.
The SN double-O P is coming to Apple Music. Photo: Gcardinal/Wiki CC
Music battle series Verzuz, in which two artists or producers take each other on by playing their hits, is coming to Apple Music and Beats 1.
The first session, pitting hip-hop legends Snoop Dogg against DMX, will air Wednesday, July 22 at 5pm PT/8pm ET. Considering how popular the series has been on Instagram Live, this could be a major coup for Apple.
Bozoma Saint John on stage at an Apple event in 2016. Photo: Apple
Bozoma Saint John, the former head of global consumer marketing for Apple Music, is joining Netflix as its new Chief Marketing Officer, Deadline reports.
Saint John joined Apple with the Beats acquisition in 2014. She left Apple in 2017 to join Uber as its Chief Brand Officer, before jumping to Endeavor to become its CMO.
You can get up to $20 free. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Apple is running another awesome promotion that offers shoppers free money when they top up their Apple ID. Simply add funds to your account before July 10 and you’ll get 10% extra. Here’s how.
Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and Apple News+ could all be part of 'Apple Prime.' Photo: Cult of Mac
Apple seemingly hasn’t abandoned its possible plans for an “Apple Prime” service that combines all its subscriptions into one single package. In a report published late Wednesday, 9to5Mac discovered references in the iOS 13.5.5 beta code to a “bundle offer” and “bundle subscription” that didn’t previously exist.
The idea could be to offer a services bundle combination of Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple TV+ and, potentially, Apple Arcade, at a lower price than buying each individually. Whether it happens, of course, is another matter entirely.
Apple Music has joined Blackout Tuesday, a music-industry-wide initiative seeking to raise support for Black Lives Matter following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death, captured on camera by onlookers, sparked protests and riots across the United States.
Doing its part for the day, Apple Music canceled its Beats 1 radio service on June 2. The service also changed its “For You” tab. Both redirect to a “For Us, By Us” stream playing music by black artists. A regular voiceover says that it is designed to “stand in solidarity with black communities everywhere.”
Amazon is helping us all say entertained during COVID-19 lockdowns with generous savings on its own Fire TV devices. You can pick up a Fire TV Stick for as little as $29.99, and Fire Edition TV sets from just $139.99.
All Fire TV devices now support Apple TV+ — as well as a host of other streaming services, including Netflix and Disney+. These are limited-time savings, so enjoy them before they disappear.
American singer and songwriter Billie Eilish is continuing her connection with Apple Music listeners with the release of a new radio show featuring she and her father, Patrick O’Connell.
Her new show, me & dad radio, will debut Friday on Apple Music at noon Pacific time with six episodes planned.
Spotify still has a commanding lead in the streaming music wars. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
Spotify has 163 million free, ad-supported users, and an impressive 130 million paid subscribers, the streaming music giant announced Wednesday in its financial earnings for Q1 2020. These premium subscribers are up 6 million from the end of the previous quarter, and 30 million year-on-year.
While Apple hasn’t released updated Apple Music subscriber figures for a while now, it last announced 60 million paying customers last summer. Although Apple Music has reportedly experienced a nice bump while people are stuck home during lockdown, that suggests that Spotify is still enjoying a comfortable lead in the streaming war.
And you don't have long to wait, either. Photo: Lil Wayne/Apple Music
Hip hop luminary Lil Wayne, one of the most well-known and respected rappers of the 21st century, is headed to Apple Music!
No, Lil Wayne (or Weezy F. Baby as the kids call him) isn’t debuting an exclusive new album on Apple’s streaming music service. Instead, he’ll be playing host on Young Money Radio, a new show debuting on Beats 1 Friday, April 24 at 7pm EST/4pm PT.
Make the right donation to charity and you can take a meeting with Larry Jackson, Global Creative Director of Apple Music. Photo: Larry Jackson/Instagram
If your music career or business would be boosted by meeting with someone high up at Apple Music, then this is your lucky day. Three high-level executives at Apple’s music streaming service are auctioning off private meetings.
Proceeds from these auctions go to the Pablove Foundation, which invests in pediatric cancer research.
Apple's focusing on growing its services business more than ever. Photo: Apple
Apple announced Tuesday that it is launching a whole host of its services in dozens more countries around the world.
Starting today, the App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Podcasts, and iCloud are available in 20 additional countries. Apple Music, meanwhile, has picked up an additional 52 (!) international markets.
There’s a new boss of Beats, an Apple product line of top-tier headphones, some aimed at runners. Photo: Apple
The head of Apple Music is apparently assuming an additional role. Oliver Schusser is reportedly going to take charge of the company’s Beats line of high-end headphones, while also remaining at the helm of Apple’s music-streaming service.
Apple also took the opportunity to refute a recent unconfirmed report that it’s phasing out Beats.
The web app, found at music.apple.com site (no longer with the “beta” prefix), lets users listen to Apple Music content without using the dedicated app.
Looks like Apple picked the right time to pivot to focus on Services. Photo: Apple
The coronavirus-induced lockdown is affecting huge parts of the service economy. However, one area it doesn’t seem to be negatively impacting in the U.S. is the streaming music market.
According to a report from Music Business Weekly, published Monday, streaming music service subscriptions are not only not slowing down right now; in some cases they’re actually increasing.
TikTok has been keeping us entertained while stuck at home. Photo: Aaron Yoo/Flickr CC
TikTok is chipping into the global fight against COVID-19 with one of the largest financial contributions we’ve seen yet from a major tech company. The video-sharing platform has been one of the biggest bright spots of joy and inspiration during this quarantine age, and now it’s ready to pay it back.
On Thursday, the company revealed it is pledging $375 million in relief that will be distributed in various ways to individuals, hospitals, companies and other organizations.
Apple is ready to help its indie music partners hurt by COVID-19 shutdowns. Photo: Apple
Apple has created a $50 million advance fund to help independent music labels and distributors pay their artists and keep operations afloat.
The global lockdown in an effort to slow the COVID-19 outbreak has been particularly brutal to independent labels. Music stores, in-person venues and TV/movie productions are all closed, killing sales, licensing income and anticipated revenues from shows now canceled.
Never miss new releases from your favorite artists again. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
You may have seen a notification from Apple Music at some point. It popped up, told you about a new album from a favorite artist, and you thought, “Thanks Apple Music! That’s great news.” Finally, you thought to yourself, this is a machine doing what machines are supposed to do. Then maybe you clicked on that notification, and the Music app launched, but didn’t go to the artist or album. Or perhaps you dismissed the alert, and when you opened the Music app later, you were confused because you couldn’t find the notification anywhere.
Now, Apple has (maybe) fixed this problem. Instead of just plain old lock-screen notifications, the Music app will now show you new music alerts inside the app itself. Here’s how to switch them on.
Apple realizes that music is more important than ever right now. Photo: Apple
To help people adapting to life in coronavirus lockdown, Apple Music has debuted a series of playlists under the title “Come Together.”
Covering a range of genres, and including some fun tongue-in-cheek titles like the “Social Distancing Social Club,” the hand-picked (hopefully wearing the necessary sanitary gloves) playlists are sure to entertain those locked in-doors. Which is seemingly everyone right now!
Music lovers can make sure they never miss a new song or album from their favorite bands and artists with a new notification feature that is slowly rolling out to Apple Music users starting today.
Zane Lowe will interview musicians over FaceTime for the foreseeable future. Photo: Apple
Beats 1 DJs on Apple Music are being forced to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic and while they’re stuck inside, they’re turning to FaceTime to get the job done.
Apple revealed Monday that its radio show hosts will record interviews with musicians and other artists from their homes by using FaceTime on iPhone.
Apple is giving away free money to use on the App Store. Photo: Apple
Planning to buy a lot of apps, movies and iBooks while stuck at home for the rest of the month? You might want to consider adding money to your Apple ID account to get more bang for your buck.