Spotify Hiding Songs From Artists With Apple Music Exclusives

According to Bloomberg, Spotify has been burying songs of artists that have Apple Music exclusives within their search results for the past year. In addition, their songs will not be included in any Spotify featured playlists. This is a particular issue for small artists who debuted exclusively on Beats 1. While Spotify has been leading streaming music technology for sometime now, it seems that Apple Music is quickly becoming a threat, especially with their exclusives, software integration, large library, and better artist support. 

Revamped Apple Music Coming Soon

According to Bloomberg News, Apple will be revamping Apple Music at WWDC. Specifically, it will be easier to use. In addition, there will be minor tweaks for integration of streaming. It should be noted that a major criticism of Apple Music is its interface. Potentially, this could be when Beats 2 will be announced. The Apple Keynote at WWDC will take place June 13th.

Apple Music for Android Supports SD Cards

Apple has made it clear in the past that they will be sure to utilize elements from the Android OS into their Android apps, such as Apple Music and Move to iOS. For example, they will use the Android share icon instead of the iOS share icon in Android apps. Google actually doesn't do this in their iOS apps. If you look at YouTube for iOS for example, you'll find there are Action Bars, Android icons, and Card Views. Apple Music for Android now supports saving songs to SD cards, a feature iOS is unable to do. Although not all Androids can do this, it's interesting to see Apple use something iOS can't do in one of their apps. Now what this means is that Androids could potentially hold more songs offline than iOS. iOS devices don't have SD card readers built-in, so they can only hold about 128 GB of songs. Android devices could potentially have 128 GB of storage plus a 128 GB SD card for Apple Music. Of course, that's a far stretch to have that much music. Let's just hope that Google returns the favor by adding multitasking to YouTube for iOS. Apple Music is available for free from the Google Play Store [Direct Link].

iTunes Radio No Longer Free

A while back, I talked about how Apple will cease playing iTunes Radio for non-Apple Music members. Today, that change is in effect. You must be have an active Apple Music membership (or trial) to be able to listen to iTunes Radio. However, this choice doesn't affect Beats 1, however Beats 1 is not customized radio. An Apple Music membership costs $9.99/month for an individual and $14.99/month for a family.

Apple Ending Ad-Supported Radio

iTunes Radio Stations will cease to use ads, as part of Apple winding down its iAd platform. Unfortunately, that means you will need an Apple Music subscription to listen to iTunes Radio Stations. Beats 1 is the only station that will be free. Apple Music subscriptions cost $9.99/month for individuals and $14.99/month for families. 

Apple Music's First Six Months

Apple has been advertising Apple Music pretty vigorously, and for good reason. When Apple wants to make their product synonymous with the market it's in, that's what they do. It's been about six months (June 30th, 2015) since Apple Music was released to the public. They are expected to have 8 million paying customers by the year's end. In addition, they should have 20 million customers by the end of 2016, according to Mark Mulligan. Apple Music subscriptions are $9.99/month for individual plans and $14.99/month for family plans for up to six people.

Beats 1 Replays Require Paid Subscription

Earlier this year, I talked about how you could listen to a replay of Beats 1. However, it now appears that you need a paid subscription to listen to past shows. Thanks to Adam (@adrow) on Twitter for the tip!

@adrow You are correct. Beats 1 replays do require that you have an active subscription with Apple Music.

— Apple Music Help (@AppleMusicHelp) October 30, 2015

Apple Music Ad Airs During The Emmys

Apple debuted a new ad during the Emmys tonight. It featured Taraji P. Henson and Kerry Washington with Mary J. Blige. Other than the guest cameos, it's nothing new from Apple. With Apple Music quickly becoming the center of attention of Apple, advertising for it is to be expected. However, it's nice to see this kind of stuff during national televised events.

Playlists, the new mixtapes. Go ahead ladies! @maryjblige @kerrywashington @TherealTaraji http://t.co/cctGZAhwuP https://t.co/VTnkmeEr4E

— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) September 21, 2015

Beats 2 Radio?

Apple has licensing terms that it shares with record labels showing Apple's terms for the future, including new features around their music service, Apple Music, according to The Verge. These terms allow Apple to create five more radio stations on Apple Music, like Beats 1. This could be Beats 2, Beats 3, and so on. Apple has already registered domains like beats2.com.cn, and beats4.com.ru. It should be noted that these are international domains and that these stations are for specific regions.

Beats 1: Replay

When Beats 1 was released, I noted that you cannot listen to Beats 1 commentaries and guests as replays, but you could replay songs. This has changed with Beats 1: Replay. This lets you do exactly that, listen to full replays of shows, including commentaries and guests. To do this, tap on the Beats 1 logo in the Music app, tap on a DJ, and tap on the Connect tab. Their previous shows will be listed there.

Image Credit: MacRumors

Apple Music and T-Mobile Music Freedom

T-Mobile's Music Freedom, the service that allows customers to stream music without using any of their data plan, will work with Apple Music. Now, customers of T-Mobile won't have to use any of their data quota while listening to Apple Music and Beats 1. Music Freedom also works with Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, and Sirius XM.

Apple Music and Beats 1 Released

Today, Apple Music was released. Here are some quick impressions. I'm no music critic, and I probably have no credibility for this post, but I do know one thing. This is a unique idea by Apple. It builds on where iTunes Ping failed. I like the idea of a global radio station (Beats 1) with live DJs. I only wish my car had Apple CarPlay so that I could easily listen to this in the car. I can't really critique the music selection for reasons mentioned earlier. I hope anyone curious about it gets the opportunity to try it out. They probably will as Apple is making this as universal as possible with versions for PC and Android.

WWDC 2015: OS X, iOS, and watchOS

In a huge announcement, we got a trio of OS updates and a few updates on other products. Let's take a quick look at what went down at WWDC today...

El Capitan

For OS X, the next update will be called OS X El Capitan. It includes minor improvements on Safari, Mail, and Spotlight. In terms of system architecture, it brings Metal to the Mac, allowing for 40% less processing power needed when rendering graphics.

iOS 9

iOS 9 was made to address four items: intelligence, apps, iPad, and foundation. It brings improvements to Siri, transit for Apple Maps, multitasking for iPad, and more. Wallet will replace Passbook with the addition of rewards cards. News app will also be added that will replace Newsstand. It is much better than Newsstand in the way that it is easier for publishers to use and maintain. Tech Talk 4 Geeks, if approved, will be supported by the News app. Battery life will be increased by about 4 hours with iOS 9 and the update will only take about 1 GB of space. 

watchOS 2

watchOS 2 improves on the things that people don't like about the Apple Watch now. For example, the reliance on iPhone has been reduced with native apps. Third party apps can access Apple Watch's microphone and speaker instead of using that of iPhone's, in addition to the Taptic Engine. Developers can also create custom complications for the watch face. 

There's a lot more to cover, so I'll be sure to go more in depth over the coming days. Until then, feel free to watch the keynote.