As news of Prince’s unexpected death spread today, shocked fans hoping to stream his tunes on Apple Music came up empty.
In the streaming era, the incredibly prolific musician — best known for his string of hits and Grammy Awards in the 1980s — is practically a ghost.
Kanye West tricked fans into subscribing to Tidal, claims a new class-action lawsuit against the rapper for backtracking on his commitment to make ‘The Life of Pablo’ a Tidal exclusive.
Yeezus originally proclaimed that his highly anticipated new album would be available exclusively on Tidal and would never go on sale. In a Twitter rant a few days after the album’s release, West told fans the album would “never ever be on Apple,” only to turn around a month later and put it on Apple Music and Spotify.
It looks like it’s about to all fall down on Kanye, Jay Z and Tidal, now that some gold diggers are claiming it was all just a ploy to boost Tidal’s subscribers.
Apple Music’s competition in the music streaming battle just got a little fiercer today with the introduction of a new subscription service by SoundCloud.
The new SoundCloud Go service costs $10 per month, giving you unlimited access to the YouTube of Audio’s vast trove of indie content without ads. You can also save files to listen to offline, but that might not be enough to take on Apple Music and Spotify.
I recently expressed my frustrations with Apple Music and why I didn’t plan to continue using the service. I want to love Apple Music. Siri integration and the ability to have a singular place to listen to all my music, both streamed and purchased, would be a dream come true.
Unfortunately, Apple Music currently has far too many shortcomings and quirks for me to take it seriously. However, with the help of these third-party apps, I’ve found using Apple Music to be far less painful — and, in some cases, even enjoyable.
Apple’s been getting a lot of flack for its refusal to create a “GovtOS” from the FBI and Department of Justice. Tim Cook and company have also garnered plenty of support for their forceful stance from other tech companies as well as the rank and file Apple consumer.
Check out this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine to figure out why Apple refuses to create GovtOS, how to get its latest and greatest software, find the best iPhone and iPad password managers around, check out a virtual tour of Tim Cook’s office, and see how the beloved iPod shuffle has been reborn for the age of Spotify.
Here are the week’s top stories.
Today, the iPod shuffle you’ve been hoping for is getting a shot at life — no thanks to Apple. Mighty Audio is launching its Kickstarter campaign for the new Mighty streaming music player, a small clip-on device that can stream Spotify wherever you go without having to use your smartphone. A portable, affordable music player with streaming capabilities? Yes please.
The latest update to the Amazon Echo adds a host of new news sources to the smart speaker’s Flash Briefing feature — and also gives it some mad rhyming skills.
If you haven’t already grabbed a free trial of Spotify, you’re in luck – this deal makes joining the streaming music service even more enticing.
Today through February 28, when you buy three months of Spotify Premium for $29.97, you’ll get a free Chromecast.
One of Apple Music’s biggest competitors is looking to sellout.
Pandora, the music streaming service with more users than Spotify and Apple Music, has reportedly been meeting with private parties regarding a possible sale of the company after experiencing its slowest amount of growth ever last year.
Apple Music becomes an official part of the Sonos ecosystem Wednesday after months of beta testing on the wireless speakers.
“The feedback from Apple Music members on Sonos during the beta period has been great,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, in a press release. “Sonos plus Apple Music provides an amazing listening experience at home — and we’re excited to offer it to all Sonos customers starting tomorrow.”
Amazon’s Echo smart speaker just upped its music game, adding Spotify streaming to its ever-growing list of skills. Now playing your favorite artists and playlists is just a voice command away — at least if you’re a Spotify Premium subscriber.
Understanding what your favorite rapper is saying is finally going to get a lot easer, if you’re a Spotify user.
Spotify revealed a new feature going out to users, starting today, that allows you to look a song’s lyrics, as well as the meaning behind them. Songs will be compiled into a weekly ‘Behind the Lyris’ playlist that utilizes Genius’ collection of rhyme translations.
David Bowie’s uncanny vision of the future didn’t stop with songs about holographic TVs or astronauts adrift in space.
More than a decade ago, the dynamic entertainer — who died Sunday at age 69 after an 18-month battle with cancer — predicted the music biz would look a lot like it does in the time of Apple Music.
Now available in more than 100 countries, Apple Music has reportedly hit 10 million paid monthly subscribers.
Provided these numbers are accurate, Apple Music now has a little under half of Spotify’s 25 million paid subscribers.
Forget The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles are coming to Apple Music, Google Play, and a variety of other online streaming music services — and just in time for Christmas, too.
Starting Christmas Eve, the Fab Four will be available for your listening pleasure on Apple Music, Spotify, Slacker, Tidal, Microsoft’s Groove, Rhapsody, Deezer, Google Play, and Amazon Prime.
As an Apple fan, there’s a great gift you can bestow upon your friends and family this holiday season. The amazing part is, it’s free.
I’m not talking about the free tech support you’ll inevitably dole out to befuddled relatives (Cult of Mac’s how-to section can help with that, BTW). I’m talking about evangelizing for two of Apple’s least-loved products — and this gracious act will also goose the greater good.
Rdio made the date of its demise official this morning. The streaming music service as we know it will cease to exist on December 22 — just six days from today — at 5 p.m. Pacific time. Rdio sent around an email to its users to let them know the specifics of the shutdown.
“Rdio is being acquired, and the service is shutting down worldwide on December 22,” the company wrote on its Goodbye page. “We’re excited to bring great music experiences to even more listeners in the future as part of the Pandora team.”
The latest quarterly report from antivirus company AVG has outed the battery-killingest, storage-hoggingest apps currently available.
Some of the culprits are unsurprising, but a few might be murdering your phone’s performance without you knowing, like some kind of ninjas that have somehow taken app form. All of this and more happens in “Appsassins,” the screenplay I’m pitching to SyFy.
But here are the biggest offenders, because that’s really the more important information here.
Spotify and Apple Music subscribers won’t be able to stream Adele’s highly anticipated album “25” when it is publicly released tomorrow.
The album is sure to be one of the biggest sellers of the year, but according to a report from the New York Times, Adele’s people have informed companies that “25” will not be made available for streaming.
Apple Music may be gaining an edge over rival companies like Spotify thanks to its remuneration of artists — but in a new interview, the artist currently known as Prince inexplicably blames Cupertino for musicians making no money on the Internet.
“Tell me a musician who’s got rich off digital sales,” Prince told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper, adding that, “Apple’s doing pretty good though, right?”
Because, as everyone knows, all of Apple’s money comes from withholding royalty payments for “Purple Rain,” right?
Facebook is dipping its toes into the music biz this week with a brand new feature that makes it easier than ever to share your favorite tunes with all your social network friends.
The new Music Stories feature rolls out to iPhone users today and allows you to share 30-second song samples from Apple Music and Spotify by simply copy and pasting a link into your status update.
Here’s a preview of how it works:
Google revealed that it’s getting into the subscription video streaming game today with the introduction of YouTube Red.
The new $9.99-per-month service will give customers ad-free access to all of YouTube’s content, but the company plans to charge customers extra if they sign up through iOS.
Tim Cook may like the “runway” for Apple Music’s take off, but Spotify is currently soaring.
Apple’s competitor in the music streaming business found itself in the No. 1 position on the iPhone App Store’s Top Grossing charts for the first time in the United States. This is on the same day that the Apple CEO Cook told the audience at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference that Apple Music has 6.5 million paying customers.
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 cranked up the volume on music streaming, turning an insider topic into water-cooler fodder as musicians, industry bigwigs and tech analysts weighed in with questions about the future of the music industry.
Seemingly everybody is suddenly talking about Apple Music subscription numbers and the chances of competitors like Spotify and Pandora. But in all the media buzz about who’s winning and who’s losing, almost everyone is disregarding another major player — Rhapsody, the streaming music service that just happened to spark the streaming revolution.