Music

The new Music app in iOS 10: a big bold confusing mess

Sébastien Page ∙ June 23, 2016

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.

WhatsApp is about to get a whole lot better

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 22, 2016

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has some notable improvements in the pipeline, including support for large emoji characters, all-new public groups, the ability to share locally stored tracks and Apple Music songs with friends and family, deeper Facebook integration, profile codes, stickers and multi-account support, to name a few.

But we're just getting started.

Spotify surpasses 100 million users, 30 million paid users

Cody Lee ∙ June 20, 2016

Spotify on Monday told The Telegraph that it now has more than 100 million monthly active users worldwide. But of that 100 million, only roughly 30 million or so are paid subscribers—so the ones that dole out ~$10 a month.

For comparison, SVP Eddy Cue announced during last week's WWDC keynote that Apple Music now has 15 million paid subscribers. Now that's just half of Spotify's count, but still very impressive for a service less than 1 year old.

iOS 10 tidbit: apps now must seek permission before accessing your music library

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 15, 2016

Apple has made some changes to how iOS handles apps that wish to access users' music libraries, with iOS 10 now requiring your explicit permission before any app is allowed to interact with your music.

This new safeguard increases your privacy while ensuring that no app can silently analyze what's in your music library without you knowing it. Additionally, it makes it more difficult, if not downright impossible, for apps to potentially upload your music library to the cloud in order build a profile of your musical tastes for advertising purposes.

Here’s all-new Apple Music redesign from the ground up

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 3, 2017

The beautiful new design language in a revamped Apple Music is now a reality. According to Apple, the first tab within the app is now Library that gives you quick access to your songs as well as your downloaded music. A new Recently Added section makes it easy to pinpoint new songs and albums you've added to your library.

Amazon to take on Apple and Spotify with new streaming music service

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 17, 2018

Amazon is preparing to launch a new standalone streaming music subscription service, reports Reuters. The tech giant is currently finalizing licenses with labels for the service, and it's aiming for a late summer or early fall launch.

Of course, Amazon already offers a limited music service for free to Prime subscribers. But this new service will cost $9.99 per month and offer a much more competitive catalog, putting it squarely up against Apple Music and Spotify.

Rearchitected iTunes said to permit Apple to “more easily drop music downloads”

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 8, 2016

After learning last month that Apple could terminate iTunes music downloads for good by 2018, Digital Music News is back with some new tidbits of information. Insiders say Apple is “keeping their options open” regarding the rise of Apple Music subscriptions and the streaming service potentially replacing music downloads altogether.

Shazam brings back offline mode

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Music and media identification service Shazam pushed a new update to its mobile application in the App Store which enables offline mode. The feature used to be present in Shazam from day one before it was temporarily removed in the overhauled app.

With it, you can still Shazam while offline and the app will name any songs you captured in offline mode when you're back online. Shazam is a free app. The paid $6.99 Shazam Encore app is available to those who want to get rid of ads and use advanced features.

New Apple Music ads now airing, featuring DJ Khaled, Naomi Campbell and Ray Liotta

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 6, 2016

Apple last evening posted on the official Beats 1 channel on YouTube a pair of new commercials which strive to explain in layman's terms the allure of Apple Music's $9.99 per month subscription tier. Both ads feature Atlanta rapper DJ Khaled and one of them has Khaled cruising through Malibu in a Rolls-Royce Phantom with the international super model Naomi Campbell behind the wheel.

Mars is a levitating Bluetooth speaker that’s jam-packed with features

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated June 13, 2018

Picking the right Bluetooth speaker for your needs can be hard, especially with all the options out there.

On the more premium shelf of options out there is Mars by Crazybaby, which is a levitating Bluetooth speaker with a long list of features that we think makes it well worth the price.

In this review, we'll talk about what the Mars is capable of and show off its features.

Proton is another take on a system-wide mini music player [jailbreak]

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated June 13, 2016

The jailbreak community is one place where we can almost always count on developers to create new ways to interact with music throughout the system-wide iOS experience. New tweaks are released all the time that let you control your music without even being in the Music app itself, and each tries to be better than the last.

A relatively new tweak release, Proton, is available in Cydia and offers some unique functionality of its own. We'll show you what it's all about inside this review.

Confessions of a big iTunes spender

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 26, 2016

I have a confession to make...

It's become painfully obvious to me, glancing at my purchase history, that I've reached a point in my computing life where I'm now a big iTunes spender. To my astonishment, in the past year or so I've been burning money on apps, media and services at a clip of a hundred bucks each month. That's actually a conservative estimate. Realistically, my iTunes spending is somewhere in the ballpark of $150-$200 per month.

To look at it another way, that's $1,200-$2,400 in annualized services revenue for Apple from this particular customer, excluding my hardware purchases. When this much cash is getting sucked out of my pocket by Apple, I can't help but admit the company must be doing something right when it comes to digital media and services.

I realize $100 per month is a lot of money to burn on digital entertainment. I'm not going to preach on issues of morality here nor will I suggest that everyone should spend that much, or spend anything at all in the iTunes and App Stores.

What I'm getting at is this: despite dropping significant cash on apps, media and services, I've never felt buyer's remorse. Why? Because I'm getting value for my money and, after all, Apple is just a middleman. To put it bluntly, I'd rather spend my hard earned cash to support those who create content for a living than blatantly steal their hard work.

Here's what a $100 spent in Apple's content stores buys me, why I don't think I'm being ripped off and how the sense of satisfaction I get in return makes it all worthwhile for me.