Music

Spotify’s iPhone app gaining video content from BBC, Maker Studios and ESPN next week

A Spotify-branded video-streaming service that should augment its music platform has been in the works since May 2015 and now the Swedish startup is poised to launch the new product, The Wall Street Journal said yesterday.

An update to Spotify's iPhone and iPad application with support for ad-free video content for all users in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden is expected by the end of next week.

Logic Pro X 10.2.1 brings tons of new features to Apple’s flagship music production app

Alongside the release of Music Memos and a significant update to GarageBand, Apple dropped a major new update to its flagship music production suite for OS X. Logic Pro X 10.2.2 brings tons of new features to the table, and a changelog that's long enough to qualify as a light novel.

I've seen the idea that "Apple no longer cares about professionals" tossed around more often than it should. All you need to do is look at the Logic Pro X changelog to see that this couldn't be further from the truth.

Apple releases Music Memos for iPhone, an app that lets musicians capture songs ideas

Apple today announced the release of a brand new iPhone and iPod touch application aimed at musicians and songwriters: Music Memos. As its name suggests, Music Memos was designed to “make it easy for people to tap into their musical potential and create incredible music no matter where they are.”

With Music Memos, musicians and songwriters can capture, organize and develop their musical ideas on their iPhone.

Spotify fans can now discover and save music playing overhead in U.S. Starbucks stores

Spotify and Starbucks on Tuesday announced a new partnership that permits visitors to identify music playing overhead in participating Starbucks stores.

The Sound of Starbucks, as it's called, also lets music lovers save identified songs to a playlist on Spotify.

This functionality and in-store overhead music experience is available starting today at select Starbucks location. The feature requires the latest version of the mobile Starbucks app and permission to use location services.

Spotify links up with Genius to annotate your music

Spotify today announced it is partnering with Genius (not to be confused with iTunes Genius), to annotate your music. Genius is the crowdsourced musical knowledge startup that annotates music lyrics and other online content and Spotify is betting that this new feature will help retain its competitive edge over other music-streaming services.

Available at launch via a limited number of tracks through special playlists—called Behind the Lyrics and curated by Spotify and Genius—this feature adds backstory and commentary which pops up as you play tracks on Spotify.

Apple Music hits important milestone as it reportedly passes 10 million paying subscribers

Newsflash: Apple Music is not the failure that naysayers were rooting for it to become. Citing people familiar with the matter, The Financial Times newspaper reported today that Apple Music has passed ten million paying subscribers after just six months in existence.

If true, the service, which launched in more than a hundred countries in June of 2015, now has half as many paying customers as Spotify, which has been in the streaming-music game for years now.

Controller review: a mini player for Mac that doesn’t get in the way

When you are blasting beats on your Mac, sometimes it is helpful to have easy access to playback features right on your desktop without having to open the root music player. It is also nice to be able to see the name of the song and artist that is currently playing at a glance.

Controller is a mini player for Mac that works with iTunes and Spotify to display the current track and provide playback controls. We've got a hands-on app review of Controller for you below.

Apple files trademark applications for Beats 2, 3, 4 and 5 radio stations

Apple’s streaming music deals include permissions for additional Beats stations and now it's come to light that the Cupertino firm back in November filed trademark applications for Beats 2, Beats 3, Beats 4 and Beats 5 stations with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

As first reported by the French blog Consomac, all four trademark applications are assigned to “Beats Electronics, LLC” and the word marks look just like the existing logo for the Beats 1 radio station.

Apple Music to begin streaming The Beatles catalog on Christmas Eve

It's official: the entire catalog of the famous English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, will be available for streaming on Apple Music, Spotify and a few other services beginning tomorrow, December 24, at 12:01 local time.

In addition to Apple Music and Spotify, The Beatles catalog will also be available for streaming worldwide via Deezer, Google Play, Microsoft Groove, Amazon Prime, Rhapsody, Slacker and Tidal (Pandora is a notable holdout).

Our favorite music and movies to celebrate the holidays

As the holidays approach, we wanted to share with you some of our favorite holiday traditions. In addition to guzzling eggnog and mixing up hot toddies, we like to settle in with our families, watching classic Christmas movies and spinning our top choices for hall-decking tunes.

Hopefully, these recommendations will spark inspiration for you and give you something to fill the cold winter nights with friends and family as you celebrate the holiday season. Feel free to let us know what your favorites are so other iDB readers (and us, too) can add them to our yearly traditions.