Spotify - page 3

Spotify updates Home screen with faster access to favorites

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spotify
Spotify is making big changes.
Photo: Spotify

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.

Apple’s shares just rose by more than market cap of Nike and Spotify combined

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money
Apple stock is up a few percentage points just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It’s easy to forget just what a crazily big and successful company Apple actually is. Even a slight dip or swell in the company’s share price equates to tens of billions of dollars in real terms.

Case in point: As AAPL recovered slightly from the battering of coronavirus over the past two trading days, its market cap increased by $180 billion. As Above Avalon analyst Neil Cybart helpfully points out, that’s the equivalent of the entirety of Netflix. Or Nike and Spotify put together.

Shortcutify integrates Spotify, Google Maps, Todoist and more into Shortcuts

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Control your smart lighting, your music, and more with Shortcutify.
Control your smart lighting, your music, and more with Shortcutify.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Shortcutify is a free iOS app that lets you use web-based services in your Shortcuts. For instance, it can connect with Spotify, Todoist, AirTable and more, and provides an easy bridge between these services’ complicated APIs and the Shortcuts app on your iPhone or iPad.

If you use any of the supported services, you’re going to totally love Shortcutify. If not? More app integrations are planned for the future.

Spotify wants labels to pay for playlist promos

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Spotify Premium update October 2018
Labels might start shelling out big bucks for more visibility on Spotify.
Photo: Spotify

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.

Apple Music finally available inside Shazam on Android

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Apple-Music-Shazam-Android
Grab the latest update to get started.
Photo: Android Police

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.

Subscription music services dominate, music downloads fall below $1 billion

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Music licensing company takes aim at Apple Music for illegal streaming
It's all about the music subscription services these days.
Photo: Stas Knop/Pexels CC

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.

Apple ‘discussing’ plans to allow third-party browsers, email apps to be defaults on iOS

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close all tabs
You might not be stuck with Safari for much longer.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

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.

How to use Apple TV app’s new data-saving features

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The Apple TV app gets a raft of new features in iOS 12.3.
The Apple TV app just added new data saving features.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Binge-watching your favorite Apple TV shows on an iPhone is a great way to run through your data plan limits if you’re not careful, so Apple is introducing a way to wrangle in your data slurping habits.

iOS 13.4 beta 2 introduced some new settings to the Apple TV app for iPhone and iPad, giving users the option to control the size of downloads as well as lowering the amount of data used while streaming content. If Apple’s TV app is one of your major entertainment hubs, you’ll want to know how to take advantage of the new features.

Nearly 11 million moochers in US stream music illegally

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Apple Music is the one major streamer without a free tier.
Photo: Apple

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.

Ex-Warner Music Group head of innovation joins Apple Music

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bronikowski
Jeff Bronikowski has worked in the media industry for over 20 years.
Photo: Warner Music Group

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 paid subscribers outgrow Apple Music

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Spotify app now playing screen
Spotify and Apple Music are competitors, but both play on iPhone.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

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.

J. Lo’s Super Bowl halftime show is coming to Apple Music as ‘visual album’

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superbowl
J. Lo and Shakira are sharing the stage for this year's show.
Photo: Pepsi Co.

Music fans won’t even need to tune into Super Bowl LIV to catch a glimpse of Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s joint halftime show.

The NFL revealed today that all musical performances at this year’s big game will be released as a visual album on Apple Music. Along with the J. Lo/Shakira set, you’ll also be able to stream the National Anthem with Demi Lovato and America the Beautiful with Yolanda Adams.

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.

Apple Music and its rivals dominate US music market

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Streaming services like Apple Music dominate the US music market
Apple Music is one of the main players in today's music industry.
Photo: Apple

Streaming music services such as Apple Music have completely taken over the music market, a new report from the Recording Industry Association of America makes clear.

The organization notes that streaming now accounts for a massive 80% of the music market in the United States. That’s up from a minuscule 7% a decade ago in 2010. In the first half of 2019, 61 million people in the US had streaming subscriptions.

Spotify’s Tastebuds feature will show you what friends are listening to

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Spotify Premium update October 2018
Try it out today.
Photo: Spotify

Spotify is gearing up to add a new social feature to its apps that could give it another edge over Apple Music.

Prototype screenshots of an upcoming feature called “Tastebuds” were unearthed on Twitter this week. From the looks of it, Tastebuds will build off Spotify’s underlaying social networking features, giving users a new way to discover music through what their friends are listening to.

Apple Music loses its exclusive on Ministry of Sound playlists

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Apple Music loses its exclusive on Ministry of Sound playlists
Exclusive no more.
Photo: Ministry of Sound/Flickr CC

Apple Music’s exclusive playlist deal with popular music label and nightclub owner Ministry of Sound has expired. A new report notes that the full set of Ministry of Sound playlists are now available on rival streaming music services like Spotify.

Apple Music’s deal with Ministry of Sound was announced a little over a year ago. Apple debuted its first Ministry of Sound exclusive playlist on October 4, 2018.

Apple Music for Business gives stores a legal way to stream tunes

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Apple Music For Business gives stores a legal way to stream Apple Music
Apple Music is entering the business world.
Photo: Apple

Apple is going after the Muzak market with Apple Music for Business, a new service for legally streaming music in public places.

Apple partnered with PlayNetwork, which specializes in providing music for commercial use, for the endeavor. It has been “quietly piloting” the service with multiple businesses for around six months.

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.

Spotify is adding 2x as many monthly subscribers as Apple Music

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Spotify is adding 2x as many monthly subscribers as Apple Music
Spotify reported some great fiscal quarterly earnings.
Photo: Spotify

Spotify’s third fiscal quarter figures show that it is growing considerably faster than Apple Music.

“We continue to feel very good about our competitive position in the market,” the streaming giant noted in a statement. “Relative to Apple, the publicly available data shows that we are adding roughly twice as many subscribers per month as they are. Additionally, we believe that our monthly engagement is roughly 2x as high and our churn is at half the rate.”

Apple’s AR Glasses are almost here! Catch the discussion, on The CultCast

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CultCast 409
A reliable analyst says Apple's AR glasses are right around the corner.
Photo: Apple

This week on The CultCast: Apple’s AR glasses are about to be announced! At least according to one very reliable analyst…. we discuss. Plus: Mac OS Catalina is out, but you probably shouldn’t install it—we’ll tell you why. And Final Cut Pro just got massively faster thanks to a new update, and a long awaited iOS 13 feature finally goes live.

Our thanks to Linked In for supporting this episode. A business is only as strong as its people, and every hire matters… head to LinkedIn.com/cultcast and get a $50 credit toward your first job post.