Tag: Apple Music

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Apple Music celebrates 100 million songs available on the service

Apple has announced that its Apple Music streaming service has reached 100 million songs.

Apple Music officially launched on June 30th, 2015. Since then, Apple has continuously added new tracks by artists from around the world. Seven years later, Apple Music subscribers have a virtually endless supply of music to listen to. To celebrate, Apple is looking back at the evolution of its musical ambitions.

21 years ago, Apple launched iTunes, largely supported by the company’s iPod. At the time, it was novel to store 1,000 tracks on the device. Whether it was an assortment of albums, playlists, or beloved songs, Apple redefined how to interact with our favourite tracks and listen to them while on the go.

As Apple points out, Apple Music is available in 167 countries and regions worldwide. In Canada, a subscription is available for as little as $4.99/month. Apple Music is now home to established artists as well as up-and-comers. Each day, Apple claims more than 20,000 artists are delivering songs to the platform.

As part of its 100 million song celebration, Apple Music notes the importance of discoverability. “At Apple Music, human curation has always been the core to everything we do, both in ways you can see, like our editorial playlists; and ways you can’t, like the human touch that drives our recommendation algorithms,” writes the tech giant.

Apple is not only providing curation with the help of algorithms but also through its ‘Apple Music Today’ series. To assist with discoverability, each day Apple Music selects a new song to highlight and dives into its history.

In recent news, Apple Music is replacing Pepsi as the official Super Bowl Halftime Show sponsor. Super Bowl LVII is set to host Rihanna as the headlining performer in February.

Image credit: Apple

Source: Apple

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Apple Music replaces Pepsi as Super Bowl Halftime Show sponsor

To further the streaming music battle, Apple has bought the rights to sponsor the Super Bowl Halftime Show in February.

This will be the first time Pepsi hasn’t sponsored the show in ten years since the drink brand took over the sponsorship from Bridgestone tires, which held the rights for five years before that.

Pepsi backed out of the Halftime Show race in May of 2022, claiming that the cost of sponsoring the show had grown to be too expensive, according to Variety.

There’s little currently known about the Apple Music Half-time Show, but Apple’s ambitions in the streaming landscape extend beyond Music, so this could be a play to cozy up to the NFL network in order to purchase the rights to select games.

Apple recently scored baseball from the MLB on Apple TV+, so adding the NFL to its roster could be a clever long-term play for the fledgling streaming network. Beyond that, the massive viewership the Halftime show garners is a solid advertising opportunity for Apple Music.

The entertainment edge Apple Music holds theoretically makes the platform a more seamless partner for the halftime show, but only time will tell if Apple can put on a more entertaining concert than Pepsi.

Source: Apple, Variety

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Elden Ring soundtrack hits Spotify, Apple Music and more

Elden Ring’s fantastic music soundtrack is now available to stream online.

FromSoftware’s title now has an album that includes the 67 tracks that were composed for the game. You can find them all on YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify and more. 

The news of the Elden Ring soundtrack was shared on a PlayStation Blog. The blog was written by Tsukasa Saito, the lead sound designer and composer from FromSoftware.

Saito explains that the track Song of Honor that plays at Redmane Castle sounds like a group of choir members; however, the team thought that they didn’t want a group of skillful singers, so they made the decision to ask the brass section of the orchestra to sing for them instead. This is pretty interesting.

Source: PlayStation Blog 

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Kendrick Lamar’s new album tops 2022’s Apple Music first-day streams

Pulitzer prize winner and the 2014 Grammy snub Kendrick Lamar released his fifth studio album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers on Friday, May 13th, and in pure Kendrick fashion, his music is already setting records.

Apple announced via Twitter that Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers broke the streaming service’s worldwide record for the most first-day streams for a record released in 2022.

Apple didn’t reveal  the album’s complete streaming numbers:

“When Kendrick Lamar popped up on two tracks from Baby Keem’s The Melodic Blue (“range brothers” and “family ties”), it felt like one of hip-hop’s prophets had descended a mountain to deliver scripture. His verses were stellar, to be sure, but it also just felt like way too much time had passed since we’d heard his voice. He’d helmed 2018’s Black Panther compilation/soundtrack, but his last proper release was 2017’s DAMN. That kind of scarcity in hip-hop can only serve to deify an artist as beloved as Lamar. But if the Compton MC is broadcasting anything across his fifth proper album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, it’s that he’s only human.”

Check out the new album here.

Source: @AppleMusic

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Apple Music replacing some apps iPhone’s Dock when installed from App Store

It looks like Apple Music is replacing some apps (even third-party ones) on the iPhone’s Dock after it’s installed.

As first reported by MacRumors, several reports of the issue have appeared on Twitter and Reddit. In one instance, Twitter user Kevin Archer says that Apple Music is only replacing non-Apple apps. Still, TechCrunch says that’s not the case and that Apple Music takes over Apple’s own camera app and Safari in the dock.

Other reports state that Apple Music is automatically being set as the iPhone’s default music streaming platform when it’s installed, even if another app has already been set. The issue seems to affect iOS devices running 15.4.1 and earlier versions of iOS 15.

Though it would make sense to assume that this isn’t a bug and is an intentional move on Apple’s part, likely, that isn’t the case given the microscope the company is currently under regarding favouring its own apps.

That said, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney claims that when he installed Apple Music, Spotify was removed from the dock, stating that Apple has “rigged” iOS to favour its own apps in the Dock despite the random nature of the glitch.

Apple will likely solve this issue relatively quickly.

Source: @TimSweeneyEpic Via: MacRumors, TechCrunch

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Apple Music becomes available on Roku TVs

Apple Music has finally made its way to RokuOS, making the company’s little streaming devices even better. I’ve been saying for over a year now that Roku makes the best low-cost Apple TVs, and this update helps solidify that point even more.

Roku owners could only AirPlay Apple Music content to their televisions, but now with the app, you don’t need to have an Apple device within reach to initiate your tunes. The new app also allows users to browse Apple Music and even sing along with lyrics. At the time of writing, the Roku Store doesn’t appear to list the new app, but TechCrunch reports that it will release today.

This means that Roku users now have access to Apple TV/iTunes content and Apple Music baked directly into its TVs. If Apple decides to roll out the Fitness+ app more broadly, then all three of the Apple TV-based apps would be on Roku (and likely FireTV).

I’d be remiss not to mention that regardless of all this streaming to Roku TVs, using AirPlay is still viable option.

It appears that Apple is also allowing users to sign up for Apple Music through the Roku Store, which likely means that Apple is offering a cut of these transactions to the company.

I’d expect this to be marginal to Apple, but there’s a strong chance the two tech giants worked out some sort of deal. That said, this is notable since Apple generally rules its own App Store with an iron fist.

Via: TechCrunch

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Apple Music and the App Store are experiencing issues

If you’re unable to access Apple Music or the App Store, you’re not alone.

Apple’s status page currently notes that both platforms are experiencing issues with both services. For Apple Music, the status page says that “users may be experiencing intermittent issues with this service, while the App Store says, “users may be experiencing a problem with this service.”

Down Detector currently cites several reports of issues across both Apple Music and the App Store starting at roughly 10am ET this morning.

This story will be updated when the services are fully restored.

Are you running into issues with Apple Music and the App Store? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Apple 

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Kanye West launching Donda 2 as Stem Player exclusive album

Kanye West, or Ye as he’s referred to now, has announced his plans to release Donda 2 as a Stem Player exclusive. For the uninitiated, Stem Player is Ye’s proprietary music player.

On Instagram, Ye revealed that Donda 2 will only be available to listen to via the Stem Player. Ye went on to explain the decision to not make the album available on Spotify, Apple Music, or even YouTube.

In the post, Ye writes: “Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system.” The musician believes that moving the release of his album to the Stem Player will allow him to “take control”.

 

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The Stem Player launched last year and had the first Donda album pre-installed. The Stem Player also touts that it allows users to “customize any song” with controls for vocals, instruments, effects, etc. It’s currently available for $200 USD (roughly $252 CAD). It also features four touch-sensitive light sensors, a haptics engine, a 97DB built-in speaker, a 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth, and 8GB of storage.

Ye partnered with Kano Computing and claims that production is ramping up. The musician says 67,000 Stem Player units are available. 3,000 units are manufactured each day.

Donda 2 will February 22, 2022. However, given the tumultuous release of the first Donda album, we may see a delay or two from Ye.

Source: Instagram

Image Credit: Stem Player

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More than half of Apple Music subscribers have tried Spatial Audio

Apple claims that over 50 percent of Apple Music users are ‘Spatial Audio’ listeners.

While this sounds great, the quote from Apple Music vice president Oliver Schusser doesn’t offer a lot of context. Does this mean that subscribers have listened to one Spatial Audio track, or are users regular Spatial Audio listeners?

Billboard’s report says that there are now four times as many songs mastered in Spatial Audio on Apple Music compared to last September.

These stats shine a light on Spatial Audio, but none of them are specific, and only point toward the fact that the new music format is growing.

One statistic to come out of the report that interests me is that popular artists like Post Malone and Taylor Swift experienced 40 and 50 percent gains in listeners respectively when they remasted their back catalogues in Spatial Audio. The statistic is a bit murky since those artists already have large fan bases and Apple pushes their Spatial Audio content in popular Spatial Audio playlists.

In the future, it would be great to see how many people are listening to Spatial Audio with AirPods, how many are listening with head-tracking and how many people are actively seeking out and enabling the feature in Apple Music’s settings.

That said, I’m a pretty big fan of Spatial Audio, so I am glad that it at least appears to be gaining some traction, especially since it can add a lot of depth to audio played over Bluetooth. However, Apple still needs to work out some of the audio format’s issues. For instance, when I’m using AirPods and watching YouTube on Mac or iPhone, an awful-sounding fake Spatial Audio head tracking effect will often be added to videos mastered in stereo.

As more Atmos-enabled speakers hit the market, it seems likely that Atmos-enabled content will become increasingly common. However, when I peer outside of my tech bubble, I don’t see a lot of regular consumers clamouring for new Atmos soundbars and headphones.

Source: Billboard, iMore, 9t05Mac

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Apple Music is already showing users their top music of 2022

Apple Music is already showing users their most listened-to tracks of 2022.

In an effort to capture some Spotify Wrapped’s magic, Apple launched an algorithmically generated top songs playlist called ‘Replay’ in 2019. Unlike Wrapped, the Replay playlist is available nearly all year long, and as long as you’ve used Apple Music during that year, you’ll have a corresponding playlist. For instance, my Replay playlists go back to 2015.

Like the other Apple Music Replay lists, the new version consists of your top 100 songs. You can find it at the bottom of the ‘Listen Now’ page on mobile and desktop versions of the app. If you want to get a more detailed breakdown that’s a little more in line with Spotify Wrapped, you can visit music.apple.com/ca/replay to see how many hours you’ve listened for and other stats.

Overall, though this isn’t the zeitgeist grabbing force that Spotify Wrapped is,  it’s… still something. That said, I expected a little more out of Apple. Apple Music’s Replay section only shows your top songs, top artists, amount of artists and total listening hours. By contrast, Spotify Wrapped makes an event out of its stats with fun little anecdotes, more stats (some meaningful, some not), and it’s all packaged in a cool-looking shareable interface.

The music streaming landscape has shifted significantly lately, with users shifting from Spotify to try out platforms like YouTube Music, Apple Music and more.

Via: 9to5Mac