Apple Music - page 9

Having been in beta since September, Apple Music’s web app is finally fully up and running for all users.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apple is doing its part to help positive messaging regarding the coronavirus pandemic by sharing a White House video emphasizing the importance of social distancing.

The public service announcement features three core members of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force. It’s visible in the video carousel on Apple Music and iTunes. You do not need an active Apple Music subscription to view it.

Apple employees at the company’s Culver City offices may have been exposed to COVID-19 after an employee tested positive for the virus. Culver City is Apple’s entertainment hub where much of the work on Apple TV+ and Apple Music is done.

Apple reportedly signed the contracts it needs to keep streaming songs from the biggest labels. However, there supposedly was no mention in the agreements of an “Apple Prime” that would bundle this company’s music and video streaming services.

A music licensing company accuses Apple, Spotify, Google, SoundCloud, and other streaming services of entering into a price-fixing “conspiracy” to keep streaming music prices at anticompetitive levels.

Pro Music Rights (PMR) filed the complaint Monday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. PMR previously filed a lawsuit against Apple in December for allegedly streaming copyrighted music without the necessary permissions.

Spotify is making it a lot faster to find your favorite music or new things to listen to with a big update for its iOS app today.

The music streaming service revealed it overhauled the Home screen on its iPhone and iPad app, packing it with more content you love and better discovery and recommendation features that change throughout the day.

Spotify is reportedly making a big push to get record labels to pay to promote artists’ music in its service as a new way to generate revenue.

Despite having nearly double the number of paid subscribers as Apple Music, Spotify still isn’t a profitable company and is looking to the music industry to help it create new revenue streams. Although the talks are still ongoing, you could soon see sponsored songs in your playlists and other areas of the app.

Shazam is finally offering Apple Music integration on Android, almost two years after the music identification service was acquired by Apple.

Users have the ability to identify songs and enjoy full versions of them using their Apple Music subscription. The feature comes with a beta tag for now, but works just as you would expect.

Music streaming subscription services grew 13% in the United States in 2019, while iTunes-style downloads continued to decline.

According to a new report by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), streaming accounted for 79% of the overall music industry in the U.S. Physical sales, such as CDs and vinyl accounted for 10%, while downloads experienced the biggest decline — making up just 8% of revenue.

Like almost all of Apple’s built-in iOS apps, the Music app is capable but hard to use. Apple’s habit of hiding key functions behind multiple button-taps is in full force here, and it’s getting worse. Want to “heart” a track? You used to be able to do it from the lock screen player. Now you have to access the Music app’s share menu, and find it there.

And what if you want to view your recently added items as a list, or your list of songs as a grid? Tough. On the other hand, if you use features like the For You… playlists, and Apple Music’s excellent More by… recommendations, many alternative music apps don’t support them.

The answer to this digital music conundrum is Marvis Pro, a 1-year-old music app that offers everything you need — and nothing you don’t.

Apple is finally “considering” giving users the ability to set third-party web browsers and email clients as defaults on iOS, according to a new Bloomberg report. It could also open up HomePod to rival music streaming services.

iPhone and iPad owners can already install third-party alternatives, but iOS currently does not allow them to override Apple’s built-in services. That could change as Apple faces increasing pressure over the tight control it imposes over its mobile devices.

Apple Music’s lyric visualizer has arrived on Mac with the second beta release of macOS 10.15.4 Wednesday.

The feature, which gives users scrolling, karaoke-style song lyrics, was introduced as a much-lauded feature with iOS 13. Now Apple is porting it bringing it to macOS users as well.

You can now sing along to your favorite tracks on Spotify without messing up the words. The world’s biggest streaming service has finally caught up with Apple Music by adding time-synced song lyrics, courtesy of Musixmatch.

Apple Music now has the ability to intelligently sort alternate album versions. The new feature, brought back from Beats Music, presents you with other versions of the same album in a new section beneath the track list.

Apple Music and Spotify pushed their paid subscriber numbers to new heights in 2019, but the number of people that share their account passwords is also increasing.

Nearly $1 billion in possible revenue maybe have been lost in 2019 thanks to stream “mooching”, according to a new study that estimates there are 95 million people in the U.S. using a major streaming service.

Apple Music has added another media industry veteran to its roster of top executives.

Former Warner Music Group head of innovation, Jeff Bronkikowski, revealed that he has accepted a job with the iPhone-maker to become the new global head of strategic music initiatives for Apple Music.

Spotify enjoys strong growth, with the number of paid subscribers to this streaming music service up 29% year over year. At last report, rival Apple Music wasn’t growing so strongly.