The music industry may actually be fine with a reduced cut as long as Apple can keep adding Apple Music subscribers.
Enjoy Your Music Without a Smartphone
The Streamz headphones are getting funding on Kickstarter now to free your music.
Jay Z Ditches Apple Music and Spotify for Exclusive Streaming on Tidal
It looks like Tidal co-owner Jay Z doesn’t think Apple Music and Spotify are cool any more because he pulled his albums from the streaming music services. It looks like just his original content is gone while collaborations with other artists are still available.
Spotify Goes after Apple Music's 'Carpool Karaoke' with 'Traffic Jams'
Spotify must think Apple Music has the right idea with this original video thing because it’s doing the same thing. Variety reported Wednesday that Spotify has purchased a show called Traffic Jams. Clearly borrowing from Apple Music’s Carpool Karaoke, Traffic Jams puts hip-hop producers and artists in a car and asks them to make a song in the back seat. We Apple fans may be inclined to dismiss this show because it’s a blatant ripoff. Ignore that instinct, though—that’s the way the TV industry works. Folks copy ideas, and sometimes they build on them. Instead, Spotify—which is beating Apple on users—is effectively validating Apple Music’s approach of using original video content to boost its steaming music business. That’s very interesting to me.
Drake Crushes Apple Music Record with 89.9 Million Streams, Beating Spotify
Drake set a new record for first-day streams with his new album, More Life, which was streamed 89.9 million times on the first day. That was not only a record-setting debut, it crushed Spotify’s first-day totals for the album of 61.3 million streams. That’s significant, because that was itself a record for the larger streaming service.
Steve Savoca Leaves Spotify for Apple Music
Steve Savoca, Spotify’s former vice president of Content, is now part of the Apple Music team. He joined Apple in January and is serving the in same role for Apple Music.
Prince Coming to Apple Music, Spotify
It looks like Prince may be streaming on Apple Music and other services soon. An industry insider says deals are in place for the iconic artist’s work to stream on more than just Tidal starting on February 12.
Sonos's Future: Opening Up Control to Alexa and Third-Party Apps
On Tuesday, wireless speaker manufacturer Sonos summoned the press to Manhattan to show off some new software features they’ve been working on and, in doing so, painted a picture of a more open Sonos experience. Demonstrating Amazon Alexa voice control and Spotify app integration, Sonos showed a not-too-distant future where customers have the ability to control their Sonos products in a variety of new ways without sacrificing any of the existing benefits of the Sonos platform.