Jimmy Iovine Said to Be Transitioning Roles at Apple

Jimmy Iovine

Jimmy Iovine will reportedly be moving into a reduced role at Apple Music:

The latest update to Iovine’s reported on-again-off-again relationship with Apple Music comes by way of The Wall Street Journal, which positions the move not as a full exit, so much as a reduced role. According to the report, Iovine will be swapping his current oversight role in August for something more of the consulting variety.

Not Everything Is an Album

Benjamin Mayo writes about one of the bigger issues I have with Apple Music’s categorization of albums:

What a human would think of as an artist’s albums, and what Apple Music lists, are completely different. EPs, singles, specials, deluxe, originals are all shoehorned under one name ‘Albums’. There is no way to filter these out. This really makes finding what you want hard. When you know what you want to find, all this backwardly organised catalogue gets in your way.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard of a new artist, gone to their page to listen to their latest album, clicked the first “album” artwork I saw, and then had to click back once I realize it’s just a single release. This seems like a really simple fix in the interface.

Shazam Gets an Updated Design

Apple

MacStories:

As it turns out, Shazam has continued to be updated and support Spotify since Apple’s acquisition. In fact, there have been at least four updates to Shazam since the acquisition including one today that adds synchronized lyrics and a design refresh of the app’s results screen.

The new UI looks great. The results screen is dominated by a background image of the artist. In the foreground is a big play button, the name of the song the app recognized, and the name of the artist. If you tap on the artwork, you get an image of the artist and album in some cases, plus more details on the artist, album, song, and release date.

It looks pretty good.

Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

The Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc.’s streaming-music service, introduced in June 2015, has been adding subscribers in the U.S. more rapidly than its older Swedish rival—a monthly growth rate of 5% versus 2%—according to people in the music business familiar with figures reported by the two services. Assuming that pace continues, Apple will overtake Spotify in the world’s biggest music market this summer.

Interesting.

Music Videos Coming to iOS 11.3

iOS 11.3 is bringing music videos to Apple Music:

Apple Music will soon be the home for music videos. Users can stream all the music videos they want without being interrupted by ads. They can also watch the hottest new videos, the classics or ones from their favorite artists back-to-back in new music video playlists.

Analytics Come to Apple Music for Artists

Melinda Newman, writing for Billboard:

Today Apple launches Apple Music for Artists, a dashboard designed to provide acts with hundreds of data points giving deep analytical insight into their fans’ listening and buying habits. […]

The easily navigable dashboard’s home page provides artists with their current number of plays, spins, song purchases and album purchases. The user can specify the time period ranging from the past 24 hours to the 2015 launch of Apple Music.

An Insights panel showcases key milestones via bullet points that highlight such information as all-time number of plays and purchases for specific songs or cumulatively.

Beats 1 Brings Matt Wilkinson Into Its Primetime Lineup

Serenity Caldwell, reporting at iMore:

Apple’s Beats 1 radio service (part of Apple Music) is shaking up its weekday primetime programming starting January 8, bringing a new DJ to its daily lineup and moving around its primetime shows.

Matt Wilkinson, who formerly hosted Beats 1’s weekly Saturday alternative music show, will now join Zane Lowe, Julie Adenuga, and Ebro Darden as a weekdaily presence on the network — he’ll be broadcasting live from London from 6AM-8AM ET Monday through Friday, and will have Mike D of the Beastie Boys on to celebrate his new show on January 15.

iTunes Gets a Little Streamlined

iTunes has seen a slight revamp. MacStories reports:

The update to iTunes also adds the Friends feature first seen in the iOS 11 beta. Apple Music subscribers can set up a profile and follow friends to see the music and playlists they are listening to. I’ve been using the Friends feature all summer and it’s been a great way to find and try new music.

You can follow me if you want.

Apple Music Debuting New Personalized Playlist

TechCrunch:

This week Apple is beginning to roll out the first new personalized playlist under Apple Music’s ‘For You’ section. The playlist, entitled ‘Chill’ is muxed based on editorial curation and algorithmic interpretation of your musical tastes.

A small number of test users got the new playlist yesterday evening. An updated Chill playlist will be delivered every Sunday to users who join the test group, which will roll out through the summer.

Apple and Record Labels Working on New Deals

Bloomberg:

The record labels’ deals with Apple expire at the end of June, though they are likely to be extended if the parties can’t agree on new terms by then, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

The negotiations would bring Apple closer to the rate Spotify Ltd. pays labels, and allow both sides to adjust to the new realities of the music industry.

And:

Apple initially overpaid to placate the labels, who were concerned Apple Music would cripple or cannibalize iTunes, a major source of revenue.

The growth of Apple Music hasn’t been as detrimental to iTunes as labels had feared. But record labels are still asking for precautions.

Apple Music Adds $99 Annual Plan

Apple Music now offers a $99 a year plan:

This setting is quite buried as Apple doesn’t want you to know that you can pay less than what you’re actually paying. We tried different scenarios, and it was quite hard to find the new annual plan — but it’s real.

If you’re not a current Apple Music subscriber, the Music app only lets you subscribe to a normal monthly plan as pictured above. But if you’re an existing subscriber, you can go to your membership settings and switch to an annual plan. So new users will have to buy a monthly subscription first and then switch.

Quick way to save $20 bucks a year.

How Drake and Apple Music Broke Streaming Records

Drake

The Verge:

Drake’s latest project More Life was streamed 300 million times worldwide in its first week on Apple Music, Republic Records tells The Verge, surpassing the 250 million streams the label said Views, an Apple Music exclusive, did in its first week last year. The biggest first week for any album on a single service is Ed Sheeran’s Divide, which was streamed 375 million times on Spotify. The label also says early calculations for More Life have it at around 600 million streams worldwide, which would be a record for an album.

Those are big numbers.

An Interview With Zane Lowe, Bozoma Saint John, and Larry Jackson

Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Bozoma Saint John, and Larry Jackson sat down for an interview with Complex:

Zane Lowe: Larry was the first person who ever called me and asked if I wanted to be involved in Apple Music. For the most part, it remains how he and I talked about it in that first conversation, which was a place for music to live, and for artists to call home, and for an audience to feel like this is where the conversation is happening. I want it to go deeper than just availability.

Apple Music: Platform? Promoter? Both.

Joe Coscarelli interviewed Jimmy Iovine and Larry Jackson of Apple Music for The New York Times:

We wanted to work with Frank Ocean. We had a deal—we were working with Frank Ocean, and he controlled where his music came out. Why would it be in our interest to be part of a fast one, a slow one or any one? We were getting the record no matter what. Whatever happened with him and Universal is really between him and Universal. It has nothing to do with us. Nothing.