Apple has unveiled its Apple Vision Pro, its first mixed-reality headset – although the company is describing it as a ‘spatial computer’. The post Don’t call it a headset: Apple Vision Pro is a ‘spatial computer’ appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

June is Pride Month, and Apple is celebrating with its latest musical partnership. The company has enlisted Madonna. The post Apple celebrates Pride with Madonna Fitness+ workouts appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple is stepping up its efforts to help people discover upcoming music concerts in their locality, through guides and setlists. The post Apple adds more concert discovery features to Music and Maps apps appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

US-based campaigning organisation the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) has published its latest ‘Music Industry Action Report Card’. The post Black Music Action Coalition publishes its latest industry report card appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) – which represents screenwriters – has begun a strike spurred partly by the streaming economy. The post Hollywood screenwriters go on strike in streaming video row appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Earlier this month Apple said that its long-awaited Apple Music Classical app would be launching on 28 March. And lo, it has come to pass. The post Apple Music Classical app goes live in the App Store appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Larry Jackson was a key figure at Apple Music as its global creative director until he left in September 2022. The post Apple backs former exec Larry Jackson’s new firm Gamma appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple’s new Apple Music Classical app will launch on 28 March for iPhone, with an Android version to follow, the company has announced. The post Apple Music Classical is launching on 28 March appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Sonos has unveiled its latest speakers, and spatial audio is a key focus for the company in 2023 as its CEO has made clear. The post Sonos doubles down on spatial audio with its latest speaker appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Earlier this week we reported on the European Commission narrowing its antitrust investigation of Apple. Now it has responded. The post Apple ‘pleased’ at narrowing of EC’s App Store investigation appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The European Commission launched a pair of formal antitrust investigations of Apple in June 2020. Now there’s a development. The post EC narrows its Apple music-streaming investigation to ‘anti-steering’ issues appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

It’s peak financial results season, with Apple and Amazon announcing their latest numbers yesterday, with mixed performances. The post Apple and Amazon publish their financial results for Q4 2022 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Another front has opened up in the pressure on Apple and Google to make changes to the way their mobile app stores work. The post White House’s NTIA says current app store models are ‘harmful’ appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

We may still be in the rumours part of the hype cycle around Apple’s plans for an AR/VR headset, but yesterday the company unveiled a new device. The post Apple unveils a second-generation HomePod smart speaker appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

It’s been a few weeks since the last call from Spotify for a regulatory crackdown on Apple, so it must be time for another one. The post Spotify and Deezer step up their pressure for an Apple crackdown appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Oliver Schusser is one of the longest-serving executives in Apple’s music business, from the iTunes days through to Apple Music now. The post Apple Music boss adds Apple TV+ business to his responsibilities appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple’s annual state-of-services post, this year written by services boss Eddy Cue, revealed new stats focused on its spatial audio feature. The post More than 80% of Apple Music subscribers listen to spatial audio appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Only a small proportion of published books get audiobook versions, due to the costs of recording voice narration professionally. The post Apple deploys AI tech for ‘digital narration’ of audiobooks appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

After a flurry of 2023 predictions at the end of last year, Shazam has published its tips for emerging artists who could break through. The post Shazam offers predictions for breakthrough artists in 2023 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Sound the klaxons! Elon Musk is picking a fight with Apple. Twitter’s new owner blasted the tech giant yesterday in a tweet. The post Elon Musk picks a fight with Apple over ads and the App Store appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple Music is stealing a march on its rivals by announcing that Bad Bunny is its artist of the year for 2022. The post Apple Music names Bad Bunny as its artist of the year for 2022 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Business is still good for Apple: the tech giant posted record quarterly revenues in Q3 this year (its fiscal Q4), up 8% year-on-year to $90.15bn. The post Apple services revenue up 5% as subscribers top 900m appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Spotify launched audiobooks in the US recently, but the process of buying them is far too complicated and confusing – according to Spotify! The post Audiobooks are the latest spark in Spotify-Apple battle appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

If Apple’s move paves the way for its rivals to follow suit, this may be a significant moment. Can we quantify the impact? The post Will Apple Music subscription rise spur rivals to follow? appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple has added more features, including a profile section where musicians can create a customised bio by answering a series of short questions. The post Apple Music for Artists gets new profile and lyrics features appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Bloomberg Intelligence looks into how much money the biggest tech firms are spending on content for their video streaming services. The post Report: Amazon will spend $15bn on video programming in 2022 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple held its latest product launch event last night, with new iPhones, Apple Watches and AirPods Pro earphones. The post Apple Fitness+ users soon won’t need to own an Apple Watch appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple appears to have released a new music-related app this week, although without the fanfare that would usually accompany such a launch. The post Apple has quietly released a Platoon for Artists app appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple has unveiled two new ways for artists to work with Apple Music on exclusive material. The post Apple debuts Apple Music Sessions and Antidote Editions appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Artist Mabel released her new album ‘About Last Night…’ on Friday (15 July) complete with enhanced versions for two of the biggest streaming services. The post Apple and Amazon get enhanced versions of Mabel album appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Remember the speculation – very much encouraged by Spotify – that it was overtaking Apple for podcast listening? The post Report claims YouTube is bigger than Spotify for podcasts appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

No surprise that Apple continues to be in rude health as a business, posting revenues of $92.28bn in the first quarter of 2022. The post Apple’s services are now bigger than Mac and iPad combined appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple made a LOT of money in the final quarter of 2021: $123.9bn, which was a record holiday quarter for the tech giant. The post Apple posts record revenues and grows to 785m paid subscribers appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple will abide by new rules in South Korea that ban app store owners from forcing developers to use their own in-app payment systems. The post Apple set to allow alternative payment systems in South Korea appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The launch of Apple’s iOS 15 software this week has brought with it some new features for Apple Music, including ‘dynamic headtracking’. What’s that? A feature that reorients Apple’s spatial audio around the movements of the listener’s head, if they’re using the company’s AirPods Pro and AirPods Max ‘phones. More than 40 million Apple Music […]

Mention of Tetris and music will set an almighty earworm going for many readers – and if it doesn’t, we can help with that! But yes, the latest Tetris game will have a musical focus, including licensed tracks. It’s called Tetris Beat, and will be exclusive to the Apple Arcade games service when it launches in the […]

Remember when Spotify invested in distributor DistroKid back in October 2018? Now its biggest rival is making a similar move. Yesterday, Apple led a $50m Series B funding round for UnitedMasters, alongside Alphabet (yes, Apple and Google’s parent company investing together) and Andreessen Horowitz. Apple isn’t just opening its wallet: the deal includes a strategic partnership which […]

Thus far, Apple Music’s ‘Up Next’ program has picked emerging artists from across the world for promotion on the streaming service, with a global focus. Now it’s going local too. Apple is expanding the program for individual regions, kicking off with the US, UK, Japan, France, Germany, Mexico, Russia, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa and […]

Apple’s HomePod is dead, long live the HomePod Mini! Except we’re talking more about a retirement: Apple will carry on selling its first smart speaker until stock runs out, and will still be providing software updates for it. However, the company’s smart speakers strategy is pivoting firmly to its smaller, cheaper model. “HomePod mini has […]

Oh, and don’t forget AR contact lenses sometime after 2030. By which time nobody will remember the prediction or the predictor enough to check whether it was right. In fairness, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, is one of the Cupertino-focused crystal-ball gazers who has earned respect with accurate predictions about what Apple […]

When YouTube, SoundCloud and Twitch took part in a DSPs hearing at the UK’s streaming economics inquiry recently – well, Twitch’s rep didn’t get to speak – we knew there’d be another session for the big guns of the audio streaming world. Now it has been confirmed for next week: Tuesday 23 February. Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music […]

Facebook and Apple both announced their latest quarterly financial results yesterday, with strong growth in revenues despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Facebook’s Q4 revenues were up by 33% year-on-year to $28.07bn, helping the social network turn a net profit of $11.22bn. It had 1.84 billion daily active users (up 11% year-on-year); 2.8 billion monthly active users (up […]

There is more to non-music audio than podcasts, as we’ve been pointing out recently. The latest proof comes from Spotify and Apple, with their latest content experiments. Spotify has released nine new audiobooks on its service. Well, we say ‘new’ – they are all classic, public-domain books – ‘Great Expectations’, ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Frankenstein’ etc – but brand new recordings […]

Apple has been doing a lot of work around augmented reality technology with its iPhone and iPad software and ARKit developer tools, but rumours that the company might be working on a full-blown AR headset persist. An interview with the company’s AR team by CNET offers a little more fuel for that fire. “AR has enormous […]

Apple’s latest salvo to fend off anticompetition accusations is a reduction in its App Store Commission. Its 30% cut will now be reduced to 15% for any developer or small business with annual revenues of less than $1m. The new scheme will launch on 1 January, with Apple pitching it as meaning “small developers and aspiring entrepreneurs […]

Earlier this month, we wrote about how online brand LadBible had put Craig David and KSI on people’s desks via an augmented reality music video. Now another part of the LadBible empire, music community Unilad Sound, has announced a big partnership. It’s joining Apple Music as an official curator, initially with four flagship playlists. ‘Certified’ will feature guest […]

Well, it’s not as sudden as the headline sounds: Apple has been opening up its device ecosystem in new ways recently – it’s just we’re starting to see the apps and integrations now as a result. Pandora now works on the HomePod smart speaker, meaning people will be able to ask Siri to play music from […]

Our main feature focuses on TikTok’s eventful 2020 so far, from the deepening of its relationship with artists and the music industry to its tangles with the Trump administration, along with the rise of the short video apps category more generally. Our Second Look section analyses recent stories and data around Hipgnosis Songs Fund; Tencent […]

November this year is New Consoles Month, with Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S plus Sony’s PlayStation 5 making their debuts. While games are the focus, music and video streaming will also be part of the packages. Sony revealed some of its plans yesterday: at launch the PS5 will have apps for Apple TV, Disney+, […]

It’s been a while since we’ve had some big-figure predictions for the smart speakers market, but here’s research firm Canalys hoving into view with its latest forecasts. It reckons that 163m smart speakers will be shipped in 2021, which would be year-on-year growth (from its estimates for 2020) of 21%.  Speakers using Amazon’s Alexa and Google […]

Reputable figures breaking down the global podcasts market are hard to come by, but there’s been a general consensus that Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes) has been the biggest platform by far; that the rest of the market is very fragmented; and that Spotify’s aggressive move into podcasts meant it was growing fast to finally become […]

Live radio is already one of Apple Music’s big differences to its streaming rivals. Now it’s trying out MTV-style music television, although for the most part without the VJs. Instead, Apple Music TV is a 24-hour channel broadcasting music videos via the Apple Music and Apple TV apps, as well as on the web. For now, it’s […]

It’s been a while since we’ve seen public tensions in the west between music rightsholders and Apple over piracy apps – Apple’s involvement being as the owner of the store through which those apps are distributed. According to TorrentFreak, it’s all kicking off in Russia over this issue though, following a new law cracking down on piracy […]

Back in June 2018, Music Ally wrote about a startup called Scout·fm, which was launching a ‘voice-first podcast curation service’. It had an Alexa skill that would ask people questions to understand their interests, then provide a radio-style stream of podcast episodes. The next we heard of it was early this year, when Scout·fm joined a […]

Apple’s ‘Time Flies’ press launch last night focused on Apple Watch and iPad but not iPhones, as predicted. However, there were also some big services announcements, including the long-anticipated Apple One bundle. Well, bundles: there are three of them, which will launch this autumn. The ‘Individual’ tier includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and […]

Music and podcasts are increasingly intertwined on various streaming services, but books – and specifically audiobooks – may also be joining the party. We recently reported on Spotify’s ambitions on that front, but Apple already has an ebooks store with audiobooks options. Now it’s announced its latest related partnership, with Oprah Winfrey and her famous ‘Book Club’. Her latest […]

Investment firm Loup Ventures keeps a close eye on Apple’s business, including its music activity. Now it has put out some estimates for Apple Music’s progress. “Apple Music has room to grow with 82m subs out of 980m active iPhone users (8%) paying for the service,” wrote managing partner Gene Munster in a blog post. […]

The new season of Fortnite goes live today: Chapter 2 – Season 4 is a big tie-up with Marvel, with a bunch of its superheroes and supervillains added to the game, complete with their most famous locations – and an in-game comic explaining how they got there. But one section of Fortnite’s player community won’t be […]

The row between Apple and Epic Games rumbles on, with plenty of commentary from external observers – some of it useful, much of it not. File in the ‘useful’ category this blog post by tech analyst Benedict Evans, which suggests that some of the criticisms of Apple carry weight. “When Apple launched the app store it had […]

Things are getting even spicier in the battle between Fortnite’s publisher Epic Games and Apple over the latter’s App Store rules. Apple booted Fortnite out of the store last week after Epic added a new non-Apple payment option, but now Epic is claiming that Apple has threatened to “terminate all our developer accounts and cut Epic off […]

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, musicians offering livestreams have been exploring the different ways to make money from them. Paid ticketing has tended to be restricted to the smaller livestreaming companies, while on the bigger social/video platforms (Facebook/Instagram, YouTube and Twitch) it’s been more about free streams and revenue from virtual item sales and/or merchandise. So, […]

Apple may be preparing to launch its long-awaited bundles of entertainment services, with music included. Bloomberg reported that the bundles – working title: Apple One – are “planned to launch as early as October alongside the next iPhone line”. It went on to suggest that the basic bundle will include Apple Music and Apple TV+, with more expensive […]

Spotify seemed well prepared when its EC antitrust complaint against Apple last March came with its own spin-off website detailing its issues. Now Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, has taken that up several levels. Yesterday it sued Apple alleging “use of a series of anti-competitive restraints and monopolistic practices”, and that lawsuit came with its own launch trailer: ‘Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite’, […]

Apple is facing antitrust scrutiny over the way it runs its App Store, including the 30% cut of in-app purchases (which drops to 15% for subscriptions after a year of someone paying) that it takes. But look! Here’s a study that has found “Apple’s App Store commission rate is similar in magnitude to the commission rates charged […]

One of the hits of the Covid-19 lockdown has been the Verzuz battles on Instagram, where high-profile artists go head-to-head for… well, they’re less battles and more mutual love-ins, exchanging their hits in an atmosphere of respect. Anyway, they’ve been hugely popular on Instagram Live: Jill Scott and Erykah Badu attracted more than 740,000 viewers […]

Spotify’s ‘audio-first’ strategy – as originally outlined here – is about one audio app to rule them all, currently focused on music and podcasts, with an eye to other kinds of content in the future. All delivered through the same app. Apple’s strategy is markedly different: its audio is split between three different apps. Music in Apple […]

Artist Ashnikko’s breakthrough last year was fuelled by TikTok, when her track ‘Stupid’ went viral. Now, for her new track ‘Daisy’ she is prioritising the platform – this time with Apple’s music hardware brand Beats by Dre on board as a marketing partner. That means a music video with prominent placement for the new PowerbeatsPro headphones, […]

The debate about how Apple runs its App Store continues to rumble, and politics website Politico suggests that there could be a significant development in the US soon. “The Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general are taking the first steps toward launching an antitrust probe of Apple,” it claimed, adding that the probe may […]

With the European Commission’s formal investigations of Apple getting underway, Spotify has seen some people and companies rallying to its antitrust cause this week. For example, the chairman of the US House’s antitrust subcommittee has been (perhaps surprisingly, given that role?) outspoken on the topic, in an interview with The Verge. “Because of the market power that Apple […]

We reported yesterday on the news that the European Commission is launching two formal investigations of Apple, including one sparked by anticompetition complaints from Spotify and an e-books / audiobooks firm (not Amazon, but Rakuten subsidiary Kobo). Yesterday afternoon, Spotify held a Zoom call with journalists to offer its views on the news. You can read our […]

Earlier today, the European Commission launched two formal antitrust investigations of Apple, including one spurred in part by Spotify’s complaint to the EC last year. This afternoon, Spotify held a Zoom call for journalists where its head of global affairs and chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez discussed the investigation, with added comments from external counsel […]

In March 2019, Spotify filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission, accusing the latter company of anticompetitive behaviour in the way it managed its App Store and in-app purchases. 15 months on, the EC has now launched a formal antitrust investigation of Apple. In fact, it has launched two, although they’re not just […]

It’s all gone a bit quiet on the antitrust complaint front regarding Spotify versus Apple. Spotify filed a complaint in Europe against Apple more than a year ago, sparking a sharp rebuttal from the tech giant. We’re still waiting to see what action, if any, the European Commission takes over the complaint. However, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek […]

Apple’s wireless AirPods earphones have been a big hit, but if you don’t like sticking things in your ears, they may not appeal. Never fear: Apple may well be working on some ‘over-ear’ wireless headphones, according to a report from Bloomberg. It claimed that Apple is “working on at least two variations, including a premium version […]

Music Ally has been writing about virtual-reality startup NextVR since 2015, when it raised a $30.5m funding round from investors including the Madison Square Garden Company for technology that would enable music concerts and sports events to be broadcast live to VR headsets. T he company had already streamed a concert by Coldplay. It then signed a deal with […]

We haven’t heard that much about Spotify’s European anti-competition complaint against Apple for a while, despite rumblings last year about a potential investigation. However, there have been some moves by Apple to open up its ecosystem in ways that address some of the complaints that Spotify had. One concerns access to its Siri voice assistant, […]

We’re keeping this going, not least because positive news is keeping us going, personally… British collecting society PRS for Music has launched an Emergency Relief Fund for its members, created with the PRS Members’ Fund and PRS Foundation. To qualify, applicants have to have been members of PRS for at least two years and earned over £500 […]

There are many reasons why Apple is one of the world’s most successful companies, and its ‘walled garden’ of hardware, software and services is one of them. However, it has also proved controversial when companies making services that compete with Apple’s think they’re not getting fair access to its hardware and/or software. Spotify’s anti-competition complaint against […]

Apple reported its latest quarterly financial results yesterday, for the final quarter of 2019 – the company’s fiscal Q1. They were good: “Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever,” according to CEO Tim Cook, who highlighted sales of iPhone 11 smartphones as well as new records for Apple’s services category (which includes Apple Music) and Wearables, Home and Accessories category […]

In December, it was announced that Apple TV+ had bagged the rights to a documentary about sexual misconduct in the music industry, focusing on a then-unnamed executive (since confirmed as Russell Simmons) and presented by Oprah Winfrey. The documentary was being produced by Oscar-nominated filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering. Now the deal has hit the rocks […]

2019 has been a good year for creative music-marketing campaigns, as you’ll know if you read our end-of-year Sandbox report earlier this month. If you haven’t, you can find it here: it’s our pick of the best campaigns of the year. Anyone looking for more inspiration for their music marketing in 2020 would do well […]

The Paris Agreement is the 2016 deal on measures to tackle the climate emergency signed by 195 nations and states. However, US president Donald Trump has made it clear that he intends to withdraw from the agreement, and the earliest date at which he could do that would be November 2020. Now a group of […]

What we need, said almost nobody in the music industry, are a few more awards ceremonies. But now we have two, from the world’s biggest subscription music-streaming services. Spotify’s first awards will take place in Mexico City next March, driven entirely by its data, but Apple Music’s first event took place overnight, chosen purely by the company’s […]

Thanks to its music-driven adverts, Apple’s original iPod earphones became one of the most recognisable tech products back in the day. Its modern equivalents, the wireless AirPods, are increasingly common on the streets today. Bloomberg has put some numbers to that, quoting “people familiar with the Cupertino-based company’s production plans” as claiming that Apple is doubling […]

Pex isn’t a startup we’ve written much about for Music Ally thus far, but it’s one of the more interesting companies in the current music ecosystem – not just because of what it’s doing now, but for how its technology might be used in the future. The company’s business is “independent video and music analytics and […]

This week, Spotify launched an Apple TV app as well as integrating with Apple’s Siri voice assistant on iPhone, which you might think represented a rapprochement of sorts between the two companies, following their longstanding anti-competition disputes. You’d be wrong. Spotify has updated its ‘Time to Play Fair’ lobbying website’s timeline of “Apple’s behaviour” down the years, […]

Shazam reached 478 million annual active users in 2018, which is 78 million more than in the previous year. The company’s revenues fell by 23% to £31.4m last year, but it swung from a loss of £17.7m in 2017 to a profit of just under £124m in 2018.  That’s the benefit of being bought by […]

Big news from Spotify’s drive to be on as many devices as possible: it’s now available on… Armani smartwatches! Okay, that’s not *the* big news from Spotify’s drive. Yesterday saw the company finally integrate with Apple’s Siri voice assistant, meaning that Spotify listeners can now use ‘Hey Siri…’ commands to use the app – if their iPhone […]

Things had gone a bit quiet in Spotify’s anti-competition battle with Apple: we’re still waiting for official word from the European Commission on any plans for a formal investigation into Apple’s stewardship of its App Store and devices, following Spotify’s complaint in March and Apple’s response in June. Now attention is quickly shifting across the Atlantic, to the […]

Lead: Sony Music India artist Badshah claimed to have broken the 24-hour record on YouTube for 75m plays of his track ‘Paagal’ in July. Then people started asking questions. It eventually emerged that the track’s success had been boosted by TrueView ads before and during other YouTube videos, all of which counted toward the opening […]

This time last year, Kanye West was working on a new album project called ‘Yandhi’, although it has since been renamed ‘Jesus is King’. This summer, some of the demos from the project leaked. Now, someone appears to have been putting those leaks to nefarious use, although not through the recently-seen tactic of uploading them to […]

Apple’s new iOS software (iOS 13) launched earlier this month, and one of its features suddenly has an interesting music angle. The feature is called ‘Memories’ – it actually launched three years ago, but was updated within iOS 13 – and automatically edits together photos and videos for particular events in someone’s camera roll. Now […]

Apple’s HomePod smart speaker didn’t get much of a look-in at the company’s press event earlier this week, which focused more on iPhones, iPads, watches and the company’s new video-streaming and games subscription services. But Apple has quietly updated its HomePod product page to remind owners of a pair of new features coming to the device this […]

It’s taken a while, but Apple Music is finally available as a web app, rather than just through iTunes and its native apps for other devices. The new web client went live in beta yesterday, and lets subscribers search for and play music (including from their cloud libraries), and browse Apple Music’s collection of playlists and […]

Apple Music is getting a new weekly chart, driven by data from Shazam, the music-identification app that Apple acquired in September 2018. The chart is called Shazam Discovery Top 50, and is a global chart ranking 50 “up-and-coming songs from breaking artists”, based on what Shazam’s users have been tagging that week. The chart will […]

The Financial Times and Bloomberg have come out with a pair of well-briefed scoops on Apple’s plans for its video-streaming service Apple TV+. The FT reported that Apple has committed $6bn to make original TV shows and films for the service, which will launch later this year – still a long way behind Netflix’s estimated $15bn content […]

The Siri voice assistant is one of the points of contention in Spotify’s anticompetition complaint against Apple: “‘Siri, can you play that awesome Spotify playlist?’ Siri says no,” as Spotify’s ‘Time to Play Fair’ website put it. Yet Apple’s soon-to-launch iOS 13 software *will* allow non-Apple music-streaming services to properly work with Siri, and thus […]

Apple is under scrutiny once more for the way it runs its App Store – and the sensitive question of whether its own apps and services are prioritised above those of other companies. This time it’s the Wall Street Journal with an investigation into the results of searches on the App Store. “Searches for ‘music,’ ‘audiobooks’ and […]

Congratulations are due to independent artist Aaron Smith, whose debut track ‘Unspoken’ has (as MBW noticed on Friday) gone in with a bang at the top of Spotify and Apple Music’s flagship new-music playlists in the UK. ‘Unspoken’ was the very first track in New Music Friday UK on Spotify and Best Of The Week on […]

Hands up if you saw this coming: Apple is preparing to get into the original-podcasts game, challenging Spotify with “plans to fund original podcasts that would be exclusive to its audio service”. That’s according to Bloomberg, which reports that Apple has “reached out to media companies and their representatives to discuss buying exclusive rights to podcasts”. […]

Apple under fire for the way it runs its App Store? But this time, it’s nothing to do with Spotify. A group of Japanese music-industry bodies representing labels, publishers and producers have written to Apple expressing concerns about ‘unauthorised’ (i.e. unlicensed) music-streaming apps that are available through its App Store in Japan. “The recent torrent […]

We’ve been reporting regularly on emerging artists given Apple Music’s ‘Up Next’ seal of approval. Now the company is expanding the program with plans for a series of live performances in Apple Stores in the US and Europe. Up Next Live will see Bad Bunny, Daniel Caesar, Khalid, Ashley McBryde, King Princess, Lewis Capaldi and Jessie […]

“It is the end of an era at Apple,” is how the Financial Times introduced its scoop on the company’s design guru Jony Ive (Sir Jonathan Ive, if we’re being formal) leaving the company. “While I will not be an employee, I will still be very involved — I hope for many, many years to come. This […]

Apple has officially responded to the European Commission, as the latter weighs up whether to launch an investigation based on Spotify’s anti-competition complaint earlier this year. It’s interesting to see the different takes on Apple’s response from different publications. “Spotify boss Daniel Ek might have some explaining to do,” is how MBW introduced its article on the […]

One of the music-related antitrust complaints about Apple concerns how open (or not) its Siri voice-assistant is to streaming services that aren’t Apple Music. “Apple won’t allow us to be on HomePod and they definitely won’t let us connect with Siri to play your jams,” claimed the website Spotify set up to support its European complaint against […]

Apple is killing iTunes! So said dozens of headlines this weekend, which all lead back to a single sentence in a Bloomberg article claiming that “The company is launching a trio of new apps for the Mac – Music, TV, and Podcasts – to replace iTunes”. It follows up with “Without iTunes, customers can manage their Apple […]

It is a dispute that has been brewing for a long time and which went public in recent months. Now, according to the FT, the European Union is preparing to formally investigate Spotify-led anti-trust complaints about Apple and its App Store. In brief, Spotify is arguing that Apple is “tilting the playing field to disadvantage competitors” […]

Philadelphia-based R&B star Pink Sweat$ is the latest artist to get the Apple ‘Up Next’ treatment, following in the footsteps of the likes of Billie Eilish, Juice WRLD, Bad Bunny and H.E.R. The campaign will include a short film (shot on an iPhone XS for some double-branding sparkle) talking about his background and creative process […]

Apple CEO Tim Cook has returned to the theme of stronger regulation of big technology companies, although it’s clear he’s thinking mainly of *other* big technology companies like Google and Facebook. “I think there are some serious issues with tech. I think that even though I’m deeply a free market person in mindset and believe […]

Apple recently announced plans for a subscription-based games service, Apple Arcade, which will offer games across iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple TVs for a single monthly fee – with no advertising or in-app purchases. Due to launch later in the year, the service appears to be getting a significant investment. “Several people involved in the […]

When we wrote about songs by certain Hong Kong artists being removed from Chinese music-streaming services last week, we noted that it appeared to be local services as well as Apple Music, despite initial headlines focusing on the latter. However, back in the US it’s Apple’s involvement in this censorship that’s drawing criticism from politicians. “It’s […]

Apple held its services-focused press launch last night, and as predicted there were announcements of new subscription-based video, news and games products. Apple TV+ will launch later in the year with original shows from the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams, as well as the ability to subscribe to other providers (through […]

Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission over Apple’s stewardship of its App Store earlier this week, but now Apple has hit back with a statement criticising Spotify’s “misleading rhetoric” – including jabs at the streaming service’s recent appeal against new songwriter-royalty rates in the US. “At its core, the App Store is a […]

Apple’s next press event is on 25 March, and it’s expected to focus on services – including the long-rumoured launch of a Netflix-style video-streaming service. Analyst Wedbush has published its thoughts on what this could mean. “If Apple executes with minimal speed bumps and aggressively acquires content given the company’s massive installed base and unmatched brand loyalty […]

Spotify is filing a complaint against Apple with the European Commission, accusing the latter company of anticompetitive behaviour in the way it manages its App Store, and thus gives its own Apple Music streaming service an advantage over rivals. “In recent years, Apple has introduced rules to the App Store that purposely limit choice and […]

It’s been a few months, so it’s time for another rumour about Apple making an augmented-reality headset or goggles or similar face-worn device. This time it’s KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who’s often quoted making predictions about future Apple products, with a decent record of accuracy (or at least: better than Music Ally’s record – […]

Apple may be announcing its long-rumoured video-streaming service next month, and analysts are chewing over the implications. One, Tim O’Shea of Jefferies, has published a report with some big numbers – but also some questions about the impact such a service would really have on Apple’s wider business. O’Shea suggested that Apple will charge $15 a month […]

Here’s an interesting new tactic for music-streaming marketing: Apple Music is encouraging subscribers to get their mates onto the service too. “Give Apple Music to your friends,” explained a promotion that was push-notified to subscribers, according to news site AppleInsider. “Apple Music is better with friends. So give one of yours a free month.” The deal […]

Apple will reportedly hold its next big press event on 25 March at its Steve Jobs Theater venue. BuzzFeed described the event as “subscription-services focused”, which is thought to point towards the launch of a news-subscription service – although perhaps also an announcement about Apple’s video strategy. The news-subscription plans are making headlines though, and not entirely […]

Research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has issued its latest estimates on the smart-speaker market in the US. It claims the number of speakers in use grew from 37m at the end of 2017 to 66m at the end of 2018, including 13m bought in the fourth quarter of the year. The relative market-shares […]

Facebook published its latest financial results yesterday, with quarterly revenues up 30% year-on-year to $16.91bn, leading to a net profit of $6.88bn in the fourth quarter of 2018. Mobile advertisements accounted for around 93.5% of Facebook’s overall revenues last quarter. For the year as a whole, Facebook generated just over $55.8bn in revenues, up 37% […]

Apple has published some new rules for how in-app subscriptions should be advertised to people using iOS apps. Those rules include clearly explaining the terms of a subscription to new customers, including the billing amount. “In the purchase flow, the amount that will be billed must be the most prominent pricing element in the layout. […]

The fallout from Apple’s announcement earlier this week that its quarterly revenues would be lower than predicted continues: the company’s share price tumbled by nearly 10% yesterday as markets reacted to the news. Apple did put out some good news yesterday though: the latest festive figures for its App Store. “App Store spending topped $1.22bn […]