Amazon Music

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Amazon Music:

Indie record labels say Apple’s Spatial Audio payment plan will hurt them

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Spatial Audio
Spatial Audio from Dolby Atmos technology creates surround-sound.
Photo: Apple

Independent record labels say Apple’s recent promise to pay 10% more for Dolby Atmos tracks in Spatial Audio will take money away from them and give it to major labels and their stars, according to a new report Friday.

“It’s literally going to take the money out of independent labels and their artists, to benefit the biggest companies in the marketplace,” said a senior executive at one of the bigger independent record companies.

Save tunes you hear on TikTok straight to Apple Music

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TikTok Add to Music App
If you come across a cool tune, you can add it to your library with a click.
Photo: TikTok

Even if you only hear a snippet of a tune on TikTok, now you can add the whole song directly to Apple Music or another music-streaming service.

TikTok’s new Add to Music App launched Tuesday in the United States and the United Kingdom. It works with Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music and other music streamers.

Apple Music is the world’s second-biggest music streaming service

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Apple Music
But Spotify is still way out in front.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

With a 15% share of the market, Apple Music is now the second-biggest music streaming service in the world, according to the latest data. It remains significantly bigger than rivals like YouTube Music and Deezer.

However, Apple Music will have to fight to stay ahead of Amazon Music, while catching up with Spotify will be an incredibly difficult task.

Why TikTok could become Apple Music’s scariest rival

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2020 is the year everyone wants to be TikTok famous.
Peace of mind for parents.
Photo: Aaron Yoo/Flickr CC

It’s the year 2020 and absolutely everyone is making a streaming service, including TikTok.

The budding social network is hard at work inking licensing deals for its upcoming music streaming service, Resso, that will compete against Spotify and Apple Music. TikTok owner ByteDance reportedly struck a deal with the agency Merlin, which represents tens of thousands of artists, paving the way for the company to launch its music app globally.

Shifting focus from being a video-sharing app to creating a music platform may seem like an odd move for TikTok. But after months of binging on TikTok videos, I’m convinced it could become the biggest threat to Apple Music and Spotify.

Amazon one-ups Apple with free music on iOS

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Amazon-Music
Start enjoying it today.
Photo: Amazon

Start blasting those holiday tunes with free Amazon Music on iOS.

The streaming service can now be enjoyed without a paid subscription for the first time on iPhone and iPad, giving it a big advantage over Apple Music.

But just like other free music plans, it does come with ads … and some restrictions.

Apple Music faces fresh competition from Amazon’s new free option

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The Amazon Echo.
Your Amazon Echo can serenade you without a subscription, if you’re willing to endure ads.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Amazon just launched a free streaming music service for its smart speakers. This is further competition for Apple Music and Spotify, who are battling it out in the paid music subscription business.

This service could bring additional pressure for a free Apple Music option.

Spotify is first music streamer to reach 100 million users

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Spotify
Spotify is the largest music streamer in the world.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Spotify now has more active users than any other music streaming service on the planet, but when it comes to paid subscribers, it looks like growth has stalled.

The Swedish music streaming service revealed today that it now has 100 million active users — up from the 75 million it had last year — however its paid subscribers total hasn’t budged since March.

iTunes Match users: It might be time to switch to Google Play Music

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It might be time to switch to Google Play Music. Photo: Cult of Mac
It might be time to switch to Google Play Music. Photo: Cult of Mac

It’s not often that Google incontrovertibly one-ups Apple on anything but search, but the company just scored a small but sizable advantage over Cupertino in at least one regard: music storage space.

Google expanded its Google Play Music service Wednesday to match, store and stream 50,000 tracks, twice what Apple allows iTunes Match paid users. Even better for listeners with large libraries? Google Play Music is free.

Amazon Snubs The App Store, Makes MP3 Store Available Through Mobile Safari

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Amazon has today launched a new web app for the iPhone and iPod touch that allows users to purchase more than 22 million tracks directly from the retail giant’s MP3 store. Amazon says the HTML5 app has been optimized to work seamlessly inside Apple’s mobile Safari browser, and any music you purchase will be transferred instantly to your Cloud Player library.