Some of the streaming numbers on Apple Music’s biggest tracks — particularly on newer hip-hop songs — are said to be rivalling the number of listens on Spotify, according to a new report.
Apple Music has only been around for a month, but music label insiders claim it has already surprised people by attracting more than 10 million subscribers.
Spotify doesn’t want to go down without a fight. The service is debuting Discover Weekly, a new playlist for every user that updates every Monday with unique recommendations for each person. One of Apple Music’s advantages over Spotify is its personalized playlists for users’ tastes, and now Spotify is matching it.
Canadian singer-songwriter and musician turned high-fidelity music spokesman, Neil Young, announced that he’s fed up with music streaming service. Sure, there’s a lot less money in streaming than selling albums, but Young revealed to fans that he’s pulling his albums from Apple Music and other services today because the music just sounds too horrible for him to tolerate.
The Pono Player creator told fans this morning that the sound quality was dramatically reduced by ‘bad deals’ made without his consent so he has no choice but to pull his entire catalog from Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal so that you, the fan, aren’t harmed by hearing his music in the worst quality in the history of broadcasting — which is probably the way you’ve been listening to his music the past five years.
Here is Young’s full explanation:
Spotify and Apple Music are now the two major players in the battle for music streaming supremacy, but if Facebook has its way the world’s most popular social network may also become the best place to discover and listen to tunes.
Facebook is in early talks with record labels to develop a music streaming service of its own, according to a new report that claims the social network has some bold plans for the future of music.
A new e-mail campaign from music streaming app Spotify is aiming to hit Apple right where it hurts — its service fees.
Spotify is notifying its iOS customers to let them know about the 30 percent extra Apple tacks onto its Premium service when listeners pay $12.99 a month through iTunes. It directs them instead to Spotify’s own website, where the same option with the same features only costs $9.99. You can see the image accompanying the e-mail below.
The best feature about Apple Music has to be the incredible playlists the app builds for you based on your music tastes. But if you’ve been using Spotify for the past few years, you’ve probably got a lot of carefully curated playlists of your own.
You could rebuild you Spotify playlists manually when you switch to Apple Music but no one’s got time for that, so some clever developers have created a brilliant set of tools that will let you export Spotify playlists and add them to Apple Music. The process is a little tricky, but it makes the move to Apple Music so much better.
Here’s how to import your Spotify playlists to Apple Music:
If you were hoping to listen to Prince on Apple Music, thinking that the purple-clad passionate one’s music would be on the service like many other exclusives on Apple’s new streaming service, you’re out of luck.
The artist currently known as Prince has pulled all of his music from streaming services, except for one: Jay Z’s Tidal, which reputedly has the best terms for mega artists like the Purple Rain lead.
Turns out that doves will cry after all, since they can’t listen to Prince on Apple Music or Spotify.
No one has shut up about this album since it came out in October 2014. Taylor Swift’s “1989” sold over a million copies in the first week alone and continues to sell well even today, largely due to the fact that it was previously nowhere to be found on streaming services. That is until Apple Music launched and Swift suddenly had a change of heart.
Still, since everyone I know buzzed about this album and the media certainly buzzed about it given the Spotify melodrama, I had to give it a listen. I didn’t want to buy it because I truly didn’t care that much, but I cared enough to listen if I was already paying for a streaming subscription. Now that I’m officially an Apple Music member, I got to stream “1989” in its entirety while I was cooking my lunch.
Two minutes after Apple Music launched Tuesday, Hans Metzke was listening to it on his device. He hit pause on his excitement to send out this Tweet: “And we’re live! Awesome! Bye Spotify.”
Apple Music users immediately took to social media to sing the praises of Apple’s new music streaming service. At the same time, many were saying farewell to music streaming’s current king, Spotify.
Whether Apple Music, which is currently free for the three months, will usurp Spotify or the other big player, Pandora, remains to be seen.
Apple Music’s launch is just days away, and Spotify is already running to catch up to the free trial Apple thinks will convince you to become a paying customer.
In an attempt to match Apple’s controversial three-month free trial period, Spotify announced that it will extend its Premium free trials from 30 days to 60 its days, but only if you’re outside the U.S.
After waging a war against Apple Music in the name of indie artists, Taylor Swift has finally decided that she will let fans stream her newest album, 1989, on Apple Music when the service launches last week.
Swift announced her decision to make the album available on Twitter this morning, saying it’s the first time she’s felt right in her gut that now is the time to embrace streaming.
The Taylor Swift/Apple Music controversy has reignited discussion about what exactly the trend toward music streaming is going to do to artists.
If you’re concerned that your favorite singer isn’t getting enough dough, you may be interested to check out Eternify, a brand new website which lets users play any song they want from Spotify’s catalog in loops lasting 30 seconds — gradually racking up pay-per-stream royalties for the artist or band in question.
“Music streaming’s virtually worthless for artists,” the website reads. “But we can change that.”
Google is hoping to distract you from Apple Music’s impending launch with a new streaming plan that won’t cost you a penny. Available on desktop and mobile platforms, the service lets you enjoy a whole host of curated playlists supported by ads.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has had some issues with music platforms in the past, but when it comes to Apple Music, he’s completely on board.
The outspoken musician spoke at creativity festival Cannes Lions and declared his complete approval of how Apple is handling its upcoming streaming service.
Spotify’s software engineers have cooked up a new feature that lets you rewind your music tastes to see what they would have been like if you were born in a different generation.
When Apple Music launches at the end of June you won’t have to pay a cent to listen to all the music your ears can hear for the first three months. If you want to keep using Apple Music after the three month trial period though you’ll have to fork over $10 a month, and according to a new report it’s paying out more to the record labels than Spotify.
Apple Music may come with a long list of advantages over rivals like Spotify — such as real radio and a super-affordable family plan — but there’s one thing it’s lagging behind on, and that’s music quality… or so it seems.
The highest bitrate Apple Music will offer is 256 kbps, which is lower than the 320 kbps offered by Spotify, Rdio, Tidal, and Apple’s own Beats Music service.
Apple Music may be a streaming service, but you won’t always need an Internet connection to enjoy it. Apple has confirmed that you’ll also be able to download songs for offline listening, so you can enjoy albums and playlists when you’re on the road without data.
Once again, Apple has shown its desire to be your go-to for everything you do in your life.
During its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote this morning, the iPhone maker talked up software updates, services and new functionalities aimed at making several of its competitors’ offerings redundant.
Here are the things Apple’s trying to take out with new stuff at WWDC 2015.
Apple is expected to announce its long-awaited music streaming service during the WWDC keynote later today, and despite tough competition from the likes of Spotify, the company has incredibly ambitious plans to sign up 100 million subscribers.
When Apple unveils its revamped music service Monday, it will mark a “tipping point” for mass acceptance of streaming over downloads, predicts Sony Music CEO Doug Morris.
The new streaming service, which Morris says will be unveiled tomorrow at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, will challenge on-demand streaming services like Spotify and Rdio thanks to a very particular set of skills Cupertino has acquired over the years.
Apple is planning to use WWDC to spotlight the new streaming music service its been working on for year. It could be Apple’s biggest play in the music industry since the launch of iTunes, but according to a new report, Apple is still struggling to ink its deal with record labels.
The redesign and relaunch of Beats Music is one of the most anticipated announcements Apple fans are expecting to hear about next week at WWDC. Apple spent $3 billion on Beats in an effort to take on the likes of Spotify and Pandora, but according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, all that effort won’t make Apple a ton of money.
Beats currently has about 300,000 paid subscribers while Spotify has 15 million. According to Munster’s math, even if Apple matched Spotify’s subscriber base the profits will be weak.
The rumor mill continues to churn about what the hell Apple is going to do with Beats Music. It’s been a year since Apple paid $3 billion to acquire the upstart music service and headphone maker, but we are no closer to understanding why Cupertino laid out the cash.
When Apple purchased Beats Music and Beats Electronics, it did so with a splash it generally reserves for the unveiling of a game-changing product like the Apple Watch. Since then, it’s basically been crickets.
It is clear Apple has a way to go to compete in the streaming music game against Spotify, Pandora and the other services scrambling to get a piece of the music industry pie. But what form will Apple’s next music play take?