Popular R&B artist Frank Ocean is set to release his highly anticipated album "Boys Don't Cry," and it's going to be exclusive to Apple's streaming music service. The New York Times is reporting that the singer has reached a deal with the iPhone-maker to keep the album Apple Music-only for at least two weeks, and that includes a major video and printed publication as well.
Apple has purchased the rights to turn Carpool Karaoke—the viral segment that broke out on the Late Late Show With James Corden—into its own series, reports The Hollywood Reporter. It plans to develop 16 episodes, that will stream weekly on Apple Music.
"We love music, and Carpool Karaoke celebrates it in a fun way that is a hit with audiences of all ages," said Eddy Cue. "It's a perfect fit for Apple Music — bringing subscribers exclusive access to their favorite artists and celebrities who come along for the ride."
T-Mobile customers can now stream any video content available on Apple Music through the carrier's cellular network without using up any data available in their monthly data bucket. The carrier announced today that Binge On now supports video content from Apple Music and fifteen other streaming video providers, including the sign language channel D-PAN.TV, Dish Anywhere, NAT GEO TV, various ABC, Disney and FOX apps and other providers. Binge On streamed 765 million hours of video data-free since its inception 8 months ago.
When it debuted more than a year ago, Apple Music originally lacked support for iTunes Match, instead relying on a less accurate metadata matching system. That feature, however, has been inconveniencing many Apple Music subscribers who couldn't properly match songs they already had in their iTunes libraries.
As first reported by The Loop, iTunes Match with audio fingerprinting is now being rolled out to all Apple Music subscribers and it works like a charm.
Following the release of the OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 software update with bug fixes and security enhancements earlier this morning, Apple also released a minor update to iTunes. Now available through the Mac App Store's Updates tab, iTunes 12.4.2 for Mac and Windows fixes an issue which caused an annoying issue with Apple Music tracks shorter than 60 seconds.
Apple Music, which celebrated its first anniversary last month, now lets subscribers listen to Katy Perry's first new single in two years, “Rise”. The song, which Perry wrote herself, is described by The Entertainment Weekly as “an uplifting track with a dash of electronic influence,” with the music video containing scenes from the NBC Olympics.
NBC will play the song as the anthem of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.
Listen to “Rise” on Apple Music and iTunes.
The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday claiming that Apple was in “exploratory talks” to acquire music service Tidal, which rap mogul Jay-Z bought in March 2015 for a reported $56 million.
Ostensibly, Apple's interest in Tidal revolves around its strong ties to artists: since the Jay-Z deal, Tidal has given 19 famous artists small stakes in the firm.
The Journal article cautioned that the current discussions might not result in a deal and now Ben Sisario, a music reporter at The New York Times, cited “two highly placed sources” as saying that Apple won't be buying Tidal anytime soon.
Spotify's letter sent earlier this week to Apple’s legal counsel Bruce Sewell and some Congressional staff in Washington, D.C. didn't sit well with Apple's legal team and its top lawyer.
Today, the Cupertino firm issued a response to address claims that it's been using the power of its ecosystem and the app review process as a “weapon” to stifle competition by rejecting the latest Spotify for iOS update, which “caused grave harm to Spotify and its customers”.
Firing back at Spotify in a three-page letter obtained by BuzzFeed News, Apple accused the Swedish streaming-music startup of “resorting to rumors and half-truths”, slammed it for asking for “preferential treatment” and set the record straight on the app rejection.
Apple is leveraging the power of its ecosystem to harm competition, as well as the fact that it writes the rules governing third-party development and screens apps submitted to App Store editors, said Spotify.
Re/code is reporting that Apple won’t approve a new version of Spotify's music-streaming iOS client because it doesn’t want competition for Apple Music, its own $9.99 per month subscription music service.
“We cannot stand by as Apple uses the App Store approval process as a weapon,” wrote the Swedish startup in a letter sent this week to Apple’s top lawyer Bruce Sewell.
Although Apple had previously attempted to roll out its subscription-based music-streaming service in Korea, the Cupertino firm ultimately failed to reach a consensus with local music copyright associations. But as of recently, Tim Cook & Co. have apparently managed to cut deals with local right holders and copyright associations.
As a result, the service could launch in South Korea, a 50 million people market, sooner than later, according to a news report today by The Korea Herald. No firm date for the launch was given at post time.
There seems to be a bug in iTunes 12.4 which causes playback issues with Apple Music tracks shorter than 60 seconds, MacRumors reported today.
The problem allegedly stems from a buffering bug that apparently causes iTunes to never begin downloading the next song in the queue if it's shorter than 60 seconds. Basically, iTunes is left waiting for a download to finish that has in fact never started. The bug has been reported to Apple and we expect it to be fixed in a future iTunes update.
Apple Music is a great service, but the confusing and bloated user interface of the application has been criticized since the app was first released about a year ago. So when rumors started popping up that Apple had been working on simplifying the app, many got really excited, myself included.
Yet, when Apple showed off the new Music app on stage at WWDC a little over a week ago, I didn’t see anything simpler or more streamlined about the app. It’s only when I started using iOS 10 beta and the new Music app that my fears were confirmed.
Now that I’ve been playing with the Music app for a few days, I feel I have enough feedback to share a few quick thoughts with you. Don’t worry, it’s not all bad.