With the boom of streaming services over the past year, more specifically the launch of Jay Z’s Tidal, the world was left in anticipation of how Apple would strike back once they launched their own music streaming service.
The answer was finally announced during Apple’s WWCD 15. In brief, the technology giants have gained the support of popular musicians in the industry (the ones Jay was unable to get on side) such as Drake, The Weeknd and potentially Kanye. They’ve made sick changes to the new iOS software and will also be launching ‘Apple Music’ streaming, as well as a new global online radio service headed up by Zane Lowe. Get the full details below…
https://twitter.com/TheWeekndBible/status/608021359504048128
The above video shows The Weeknd performing an exclusive track called “Can’t Feel My Face” at the conference.
Bigger news came for us Brits as Apple announced their new online global radio service ‘Beats 1’. The DJ’s who are heading up this Apple x Beats collab include Ebro (Hot 97 – New York), former BBC Radio 1 presenter Zane Lowe and our very own Julie Adenuga from Rinse FM (who also happens to be a part of the ultra talented Adenuga siblingship including Skepta and Jme).
JME showing support for his sister via Twitter:
Apple Music will be launched June 30th 2015.
Here are the 10 most important announcements Apple made in a nutshell:
– OS El Captain: With one touch you can mute random music that appears to play when you have various tabs open, without searching for where it is coming from. Split screen feature, so you can have more than one window open at once and the rest you can have listed on the side of your main window, which is open at the time.
– Metal for Mac: Making everything you do faster. 40% greater rendering efficiency, zoom is made flawless, Adobe are happy with the results of the software and want to use it with their programme. Richer 3D worlds are able to be created in games.
– iOS 9: When you plug in your headphones, your music automatically launches. It gives you a location and a suggestion of who it could be if you receive calls from a random number. Popular video searches are supported from the likes of Vimeo, YouTube and can be directly watched from search result.
– Siri is proactive now: If you ask Siri to remind you of a certain message or want to request to view a certain picture it sets a reminder, and shows you straight away. 1 billion requests for Siri on a weekly basis.
– Apple Pay: Say goodbye to bank cards. You will soon by able to pay simply by scanning your iPhone (we think?). Coming to the UK in July and is available on 250,000 merchants, which is more than the US started with.
– Maps: Includes Transit, this means it shows all the train lines and bus lines on your maps and tells you the distance and best route to take to get where you need to go, even walking distance included. This makes the maps more specific and detailed.
-News App: New app to be introduced through the new update soon available. Content created using custom layout. It is fast, fluid and labelled by Apple to be the best mobile reading experience. You swipe to get through each article and are able to bookmark to read later. Photos, videos & animations all included in articles.
– iOS 9 on iPad: New task switcher, full screen preview of all apps that are open. Single finger swipe to bring in another app whilst you are on one already. Split view screen and you can move and use both windows at the same time. You can watch a video, and move it around, whilst using another window, all at the same time.
– CarPlay: This allows you to develop apps to control the features on your car.
– Saving the best for last – Apple Music: Tim Cook mentioned “We’ve had a long relationship with music at Apple and music has had a very rich history of change, some of which we’ve played a part in.”
They mentioned that the three main areas for Apple Music were…
1) Revolutionary music service. It includes human-curated playlists meaning it’s quality is much better than any algorithm could attempt.
2) Global radio station called ‘Beats 1’. This will function 24 hours, and is run by Zane Lowe. It will be broadcasted to New York, Los Angeles and London and you are able to listen for free, even without subscribing to the streaming service.
3) Connect. It is allows unsigned artists and artists in general to upload anything they feel to, and consumers can directly access the content.
The App store has now passed 100 billion app downloads, even though it was introduced 7 years ago.
Whilst Apple’s complete takeover is inevitable, all of these updates make us wonder just how much of our information they have access too?