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LATEST ARTICLES - PAGE 4

Apple Music Introduces Replay, a Playlist of Your Top Songs of the Year

Jason Tate

Sarah Perez, writing at TechCrunch:

With Apple Music Replay, subscribers will get a playlist of their top songs from 2019, plus playlists for every year you’ve subscribed to Apple Music, retroactively. These can be added to your Apple Music Library, so you can stream them at any time, even when offline. Like any playlist, your Apple Music Replay can also be shared with others, allowing you to compare top songs with friends, for example, or post to social media.

Here’s mine for 2019. Looks about right.

New Releases with MusicHarbor

Jason Tate

Federico Viticci, writing at MacStories:

For people who want to stay on top of every new music release from their favorite artists, the tools available in Apple Music alone aren’t enough. And I understand why Apple doesn’t want to invest in this aspect of the service: not everyone runs a music-focused publication or needs to know about every single release for hundreds of artists every week. Since the unfortunate demise of Record Bird – the app that encapsulated my ideal new music release discovery tool – I’ve been building a new system to stay on top of music releases, and I’d like to explain how.

It’s a blogception! I, obviously, agree with everything here and plan to take a look at this MusicHarbor app later today.

Apple Music Student Subscription Bundles Apple TV+ for Free

Jason Tate

Benjamin Mayo, writing at 9to5Mac:

In a surprise announcement, Apple has announced its first bundle deal for Apple TV+. For subscribers to Apple Music on the student plan, $4.99 per month, Apple will giveaway Apple TV+ at no additional charge.

The news was announced on Hailee Steinfeld’s Instagram page, who stars in Dickinson. Apple TV+ launches this Friday.

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The Future of Apple Music

Jason Tate

Zane Lowe talked with Wired about the future of Apple Music:

There’s also the matter of how livestreams fit into the picture. After events with Shawn Mendes, French rap group PNL and Tyler the Creator, who did a live performance of his album IGOR, streamed on Apple Music the night before it came out, Lowe says “live music is definitely on the horizon” for the service. It’s all part of the team’s bid to “eventise” – his word – album launches. In the case of Tyler the Creator, “fans can tune in, then after watching it maybe you go to the album.”

When it comes to someone like Billie Eilish, who now has her own Beats 1 show, the Apple Music team realised that their pre-adds, which allow users to register their interest in an album before it’s out, had made people more invested in her March 2019 album When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

More Information About New Music App on macOS 10.15

Jason Tate

Some more information has been uncovered about the upcoming iTunes changes answering some of the questions people had.

Jason Snell:

The Music app is basically iTunes—but with a design update that puts Apple Music at the fore. You can still see your entire music library, of course, and even buy music on the iTunes Store if you want to. As someone who uses iTunes with Apple Music every day, I’m okay with this change. And if you click on the Songs view in the Library section of the sidebar, you will get your classic iTunes song list back, like it never left.

Juli Clover:

Apple told Ars Technica that on Windows, there will be no changes. Those who use iTunes on a PC to manage their devices, listen to music, and make iTunes purchases will be able to continue to do so.

Adam Engst:

What about the syncing features of iTunes? macOS Catalina builds them into the Finder. Attach an iOS device to a Mac and it appears in a Finder window’s sidebar. Select it and what looks like the standard iTunes sync settings screen appears in the window. You won’t get syncing or management of iOS apps, but you’ll be able to back up, update, and restore devices from the Mac.

iTunes Being Split Up Into Three Apps

Jason Tate

Today was Apple’s WWDC keynote, and it was jam packed with stuff, but the most relevant to this website is probably the breakup of iTunes into new separate Podcasts, TV, and Music apps. The Verge has a good rundown:

The update will come with macOS 10.15. The shift makes sense, and has already taken place on iOS. Apple Podcasts, for example, has been on iPhones and iPads for years, but never made its way over to macOS devices. iTunes itself is a relic of a different era in which people bought all their music and movies in one place, and it’s felt neglected and outdated for quite some time.

It’s been a long time coming; I’m looking forward to the new Apple Music app.

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Apple Music’s U.S. Subscriber Count Overtakes Spotify

Jason Tate

Reuters is reporting that Apple Music has surpassed Spotify in paid monthly U.S. subscribers:

Apple Inc’s streaming music service overtook rival Spotify Technology SA in terms of paid subscribers in the United States, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

Apple’s service had 28 million subscribers as of the end of February compared with Spotify’s 26 million paid subscribers, the person said.

Zane Lowe on Why Apple Music Is ‘In the Storytelling Business’

Jason Tate

Zane Lowe sat down with Music Business Worldwide to talk about Apple Music and various other topics:

Well the artist, first and foremost, has to create an environment which offers a 360 degree creative experience for fans before we even think about how to collaborate with that [and] help them build their story.

An artist like Billie Eilish thinks in sounds, she thinks in colors, she thinks in visuals, she thinks in collaborations, she thinks in all kinds of different forms of creativity. When you’re dealing with an artist like that, it opens all these other areas that you can help build things around.

Spotify Files Complaint With European Commission Against Apple

Jason Tate

Spotify has filed an anti-trust complaint with EU regulators against Apple:

Spotify is filing a complaint against Apple with the European Commission, accusing the latter company of anticompetitive behaviour in the way it manages its App Store, and thus gives its own Apple Music streaming service an advantage over rivals.

I found this thread on Twitter did a pretty good job summing up my thoughts:

We’re not debating anything that that has anything to do with what’s good in the long run for customers.

We’re fighting over who gets to have a larger monopoly on fucking artists.

I think Apple has long had anti-competitive behavior in the app store, specifically in regard to rent seeking, and Spotify has its own issues that I think are anti-artist.

Apple Music Commissions New Playlist Art

Jason Tate

Apple Music is commissioning new custom playlist artwork:

The artwork is meant to “connect more directly with the communities and the culture for which they were intended,” says Rachel Newman, Apple’s global director of editorial. Before now, Apple’s playlists had a uniform presentation that didn’t necessarily speak to the music. “In many ways, it’s a visual representation of the music that you will find inside that playlist,” said Newman. That includes Hip Hop Hits, Dale Reggaetón, and The Riff, which are all immensely popular.

Soor: A Third-Party Apple Music Client for iPhone

Jason Tate

Federico Viticci, writing at MacStories:

With the exception of For You (more on this below), all these sections can be turned off in the app’s settings and rearranged so that, for instance, your playlists and recently played albums are at the top of the screen, with Apple Music sections following down in the middle. Soor’s key proposition is this drastic departure from the organization of the Music app: rather than splitting the Library and For You into two separate tabs, Soor lets you mix and match both types of content in the same screen, enabling you to choose the order they’re displayed for faster access.

This looks like something I’ll need to check out this weekend.

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Classical Music on Apple Music: What’s Wrong and How Apple Can Fix It

Jason Tate

MacStories:

“…We’re treating around 300 years of music from various countries, forms, philosophies, and so on as one genre. As far as modern commercial music, we don’t group the past 50 years together: can you imagine how strange it would be to group LL Cool J, Metallica, and The Spice Girls together? These are all artists that were popular in the 90s; beyond that, they have virtually nothing in common. Grouping together Mozart, Ravel, and Cage makes even less sense.”

A lot of really great points here.

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