Music

Watch Jimmy Fallon introducing Billy Joel to iPad beatboxing app Loopy HD

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Jimmy Fallon, the host of NBC's Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, gave Apple's iPad and a beatboxing thirdy-party app called Loopy HD a cool exposure during last night's show. Loopy HD costs eight bucks in the App Store and with it anyone can create music by layering looped recordings of singing, beatboxing or playing an instrument.

Loopy HD is rather sophisticated: it can receive live audio directly from other Audiobus-compatible apps like Apple's free GarageBand and more.

Jimmy and Billy Joel have used the app on air to loop their voices and form a two-man doo-wop group singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' by The Tokens in four-part harmony.

The video is a nice reminder that one can create quite remarkable music on the iPad. Even Apple's boss Tim Cook enthused over their "magical" performance...

GarageBand for Mac gains three new Drummers, can now export to MP3 and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 20, 2014

If you're an aspiring musician and a user of Apple's free music-making software for the Mac, you should know there's a new GarageBand update sitting in the Mac App Store.

The free GarageBand version 10.0.2 edition contains multiple enhancements to Accessibility and adds the option to export a song as an MP3 file.

The latter is much welcomed as you were previously required to export songs as QuickTime or some other format and then use iTunes or a similar app to manually convert the digital file into the commonly used MP3 format. There are also some new Drummers, but more on that after the break...

Pandora upping monthly ‘One’ fee, dropping annual subscriptions

Cody Lee ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

Pandora announced this week that it is going to making some significant changes to its Pandora One subscription service over the next couple of months. Most notably, it's going to be raising the monthly subscription cost and eliminating the annual option.

Citing rising licensing costs, Pandora says that it's raising its 'One' fee from $3.99 per month to $4.99 per month, and taking away the discounted annual plan altogether. The company says that royalty rates it pays to artists have increased 53% since it began...

Eddy Cue talks iTunes Festival in SXSW interview

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Apple's iTunes Festival kicked off last night at the Moody Theater in Austin, TX. The 5-day concert is the company's first in the United States, and is headlining South by Southwest—a set of film, tech and music festivals—this week.

As we noted this morning, Apple's SVP of Internet software and services Eddy Cue was on hand for last night's show, and reporter Jim Dalrymple was able to sit down with him. The two talked about iTunes Festival, SXSW and more...

Apple reportedly testing iTunes Radio as a standalone iOS 8 app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 9, 2016

According to a new report by the well-connected Apple blogger Mark Gurman, the iPhone maker is testing iTunes Radio as a standalone iOS 8 app.

iTunes Radio is currently part of the stock Music app in iOS 7 and moving it to a standalone app is said to be a way of boosting usage, according to sources briefed on the plans. This should allow users to more quickly access iTunes Radio and, which will come pre-installed in iOS 8.

The UI of the standalone iTunes Radio app is said to be "nearly identical" to its iOS Music counterpart, with the Home screen icon resembling a terrestrial radio graphic atop a red background...

Eddy Cue and Phil Schiller on hand for Apple’s SXSW iTunes Festival

Cody Lee ∙ March 12, 2014

Apple's SXSW iTunes Festival kicked off last night at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. The 5-day concert is the first that the company has hosted in the United States, and will feature performances by a number of high-profile musicians.

London Grammar kicked off the Festival last night, followed by the Imagine Dragons and Coldplay. And a couple of Apple execs were on hand for the show, including SVP of Internet Software Eddy Cue and SVP of marketing Philip Schiller...

Apple lets Vevo live-stream SXSW iTunes Festival

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Apple's iTunes Festival at SXSW in Austin, Texas is kicking off at 8pm Pacific / 11pm Eastern and the music video service Vevo just announced on its blog that it will live stream all of the performances through through its Apple TV channel and its free mobile apps for the iPhone and iPad.

Select performances will be available following each show, Vevo has noted. The five-day event runs from March 11 through March 15 at ACL Live at the Moody Theater.

In addition to Vevo, Apple itself will provide a free live and on-demand stream via the iTunes Store on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC devices, as well as in high-definition through the newly-refreshed iTunes Festival app, available free of charge for iOS devices and as a channel on the Apple TV media-streaming box...

Samsung launches ad-free streaming radio service ‘Milk Music’

Cody Lee ∙ Updated December 2, 2016

In a somewhat surprising move, Samsung announced today a new streaming radio service dubbed 'Milk Music.' The service is a lot like Apple's iTunes Radio in that music is chosen based on a user's preferences, and it's platform-specific—it's only available to Galaxy device owners.

The service is powered by Slacker Radio, which would explain the absence of rumors that Samsung was working on such a project, and there are no ads. As for the app, it offers the usual features including the ability to save songs for offline listening and create custom radio stations...

Beats Music opens up its API to developers

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

Beats Music has entered the crowded music-streaming space less than two months ago and already the startup is making moves with the aim of becoming a music platform of sorts.

Akin to Rdio, Spotify and other subscription-based music services, Beats Music offers unlimited streaming for ten bucks a month through the web and via their awesome iPhone app.

CNET is now reporting that the company has now officially opened up its application programming interface (API) to all third-part developers as it seeks to foster the creation of mobile apps with Beats Music integration...

Upcoming SXSW festival to use Apple’s iBeacons

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

SXSW, the annual music, film and interactive conference and festival held in Austin, Texas, will use Apple's indoor positioning and microlocation technology dubbed iBeacons to improve the experience by enabling attendees to pick up badges faster using the official SXSW Go app, a free download in the App Store. Additionally, audience members will be able to use the app and nearby iBeacons to interact in real-time during sessions...

Apple Store app is giving away free music

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 6, 2014

As an incentive meant to drive customers to buy their iPhones straight from one of Apple's retail stores in the United States rather than from carriers and other retailers, Apple last August started offering free digital content through its Apple Store shopping app, a free download for the iPhone and iPad.

After offering Electronic Arts’ excellent take on the classic Tetris game last month, the iPhone maker has now updated its free content promo by replacing the block-dropping game with a few “exciting new tracks helping to define this year’s musical landscape".

Here's how to claim your free music now...

Spotify snaps up music intelligence provider The Echo Nest

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

The popular Swedish music-streaming startup, Spotify, has just purchased The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company in the business of synthesizing billions of data points and transforming them "into musical understanding to power smarter music applications for our customers".

And just who those customers might be? Well, the startup powers a myriad of music services, among them Spotify rivals like Rdio, iHeartRadio, Nokia MixRadio, Twitter Music and others so this is clearly a well played move on Spotify's part.

While The Echo Nest will meet all contractual obligations to all customers, Spotify's Graham James made it clear his company will scrutinize these relationships and "determine the next business steps"...