Spotify - page 15

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?

Apple is expected to unveil its huge overhaul of Beats Music in just a few weeks at WWDC but Spotify is firing shots first in the battle for music streaming dominance with a huge update for its iPhone app.

Spotify took the wraps off its new music experience at a keynote this morning, revealing a new Now start page for music discovery to go along with additions such as podcasts, video clips, original content, and an awesome new feature for joggers that matches songs to your running tempo.

Here’s a rundown of the new features:

Tidal CEO and former Samsung sellout Jay Z may have wiped himself off the list of celebrities set to receive a complimentary Apple Watch, thanks to a vicious freestyle rap aimed at Apple, Spotify and YouTube.

Spotify’s not happy about the way that Apple charges a 30 percent fee toward sales thorough its App Store, including subscription services.

The tax structure means that in order for Spotify to make $9.99 per month for its premium service it has had to raise the app subscription price to $12.99 — which prices it out of the market compared to the lower-cost Apple-owned Beats Music service, set to launch this summer.

Apple will supposedly unveil a big redesign of Beats Music in June, but if you are hoping it will come with a free, ad-supported tier, you’re going to be out of luck.

Apple wants to help music labels kill free music streaming by inking deals that will give subscribers exclusive access to albums before they hit rival players like Spotify, Rdio and Pandora.

Apple plans to launch a new streaming music service this spring, but music industry insiders say Apple isn’t trying to just compete with Spotify, it wants to become the music business.

Tim Cook and Jimmy Iovine were two of the most in-demand people at this year’s Grammys. Eddy Cue and iTunes VP Robert Kondrk were also in attendance according to a new report from Billboard, which claims artists and labels execs alike were lined up at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala to get a meeting with the biggest names in tech that are now poised to take on music, again.

Jimmy Iovine has devoted recent weeks to meeting senior execs at major and indie labels to talk about the new music service that will launch by summer at the latest and come alongside a major redesign of the iTunes Store as the company struggles to adapt to decline music sales.

Spotify now has a whopping 60 million active listeners, 15 million of which are paying for a Spotify Premium subscription, the European company confirmed today. Spotify has added around 2.5 million paying subscribers in just two months — and that’s despite being given the boot by Taylor Swift.

Google today announced a new Apple AirPlay competitor called Google Cast, which lets you stream audio from a whole bunch of popular apps to Cast-compatible speakers. The search giant has teamed up with a number of popular services for its launch, including Pandora, Rdio, and NPR One.

Merry CultCast, boys and girls! This week: Santa gets a little “grabby”; Apple wins a major lawsuit; our iPhones deserve “rollover” data plans; the incredibly low payouts artists get from Spotify; and the high-end gifts we really want but will never get on an all-new Get To Know Your Cultist.

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The battle for your eardrums is about to heat up in 2015, as a new report suggests Bose is planning to take on Beats with its own music streaming service next year.

Bose is quickly trying to transition into a media company, according to Hypebot which reports the company is readying its own “next generation streaming music platform” to take on Apple, Pandora, and Spotify. Details of Bose’s music streamer have been kept secret, but it isn’t being shy about its ambitions to poach some of Apple’s top designers.

Thinking about finally signing up for Spotify Premium? There couldn’t be a better time to do it. For a limited time only, Spotify is offering new customers three months of access for just $0.99 a month — that’s $9 off its normal price.

You might think college students are tricky to shop for, but in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth. Since they’re constantly swamped with homework and simultaneously managing a busy social life, all they want is stuff that makes their lives easier and more fun.

If you’re stressing about what to get the student in your life this holiday season, never fear. We’ve collected some great gift ideas, handpicked by college students for college students:

Update: Uber and Spotify have confirmed a partnership that will let Spotify Premium subscribers become backseat DJs in Uber cars in 10 cities. The service starts Friday in London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney and Toronto.

“The integration couldn’t be easier,” the companies said in a press release. “Simply connect your Spotify account via the Uber app, request a ride, and when you get matched up with a Spotify-enabled Uber, select music that suits your mood. Your tunes will be playing when your Uber arrives, and you can change it up at any time.”

In a much-requested feature, paying Spotify users can now use their iPhone or iPad to control the songs playing on their desktop computer.

Thanks to the update, you can now easily switch between desktop and mobile — perhaps using your iPad to skip and change tracks at a party, or shutting down your laptop, and then picking up listening on your iPhone from exactly where you left off on your phone.

If you’re searching for further evidence that music streaming is overtaking downloads, look no further than a new report claiming that over the last quarter European revenue from Spotify streams were 13% higher than revenues from iTunes downloads.

The report comes from Kobalt, a company that helps collect music royalties on behalf of thousands of big-name artist. Currently it only collects earnings from Spotify streams in Europe — which means it’s unknown if similar figures are true in the U.S.

This time last year, iTunes’ earnings were 32% higher than that of Spotify in Europe, although streaming revenues have tripled over the past two years.

For the last year or two, Spotify’s iPad app has been sadly, pathetically ignored. Like Twitter for Mac and Tweetbot for iPad, the app has lagged behind the iPhone version so badly that it almost feels like using a different service.

So the use of the word finally is very fitting when describing Spotify’s big update today on the iPad.

Beats Music may have Apple’s support behind it, but it’s still got a long way to go before it tops the crowded online marketplace.

According to new figures from app analytics firm App Annie, Beats is currently trailing industry leaders Pandora and Spotify. In September, both of those services racked up more downloads and earned more revenue than Beats, across both the App Store and Google Play.

Beats was the ninth most downloaded music app in September, with once again Pandora and Spotify taking the lead — but also the likes of Shazam, SoundCloud and even Apple’s own GarageBand receiving more downloads.

This week: the iPad Air 2 reviews are in, and not everyone’s feeling the love; Cult of Mac spends a day with Apple Pay; Yosemite and iOS 8.1 Continuity features delight; a potential cure for the painful #6PlusPinch; some welcome changes rumored for Beats Music; and we wrap with our favorite movie trilogies of all time on an all-new Get To Know Your Cultist.

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Having helped pioneer the concept of the $0.99 music track on iTunes, Apple is now trying to bring down the price of streaming music.

According to a new report published by Re/code, Apple is pushing music labels for extensive price cuts that would bring the cost of a Beats Music subscription from its current $10 price point all the way down to $5.

New figures released by app analytics firm App Annie show that mobile users are more likely than ever to pay for music services by way of in-app purchases.

Looking at figures from August, streaming music offerings from Spotify, Pandora and Beats Music were among the top earning apps in terms of revenue.

Thousands of angry iPhone users have found an album they weren’t looking for: U2’s Songs of Innocence.

Instead of making the band’s mediocre new album an opt-in freebie, Apple jammed it down the throats of a half-billion iTunes Store customers, enraging some of the company’s most loyal fans. Whether they wanted the album or not, it’s now showing up as “purchased” in individuals’ iTunes libraries on their computers and phones.

When Tim Cook trotted out the Irish rockers for a limp finale to Tuesday’s big Apple Watch announcement, he called giving away the band’s new record “the largest album release of all time” — but now it looks like one of the dumbest.

If you’re a free Spotify user, prepare for your experience to get a lot more annoying: video ads are coming to the a la carte music streaming service.

Forget Spotify, Pandora and Beats Music. I’ve tried them all, and for my money, Rdio is the best streaming music subscription service out there. It has the best app design and, for my tastes, the best music selection. But you have to pay.

An update, though, is trying to make Rdio much more palatable to free users, as well as help all users find new music faster. It’s making the service free to everyone, emphasizing ad-supported stations for free users (with up to 15 times as many tracks as competing services), and new, smart social services for paid users.