The Washington Post – Apple unveiled Monday a new music service simply called Apple Music that will compete with Spotify and other streaming competitors, as the consumer electronics giants seek to catch up with rivals which are quickly redefining how consumers buy and listen to music.
The service offers curated streaming song lists — suggested by algorithms and what Apple said would be music experts — that will pull from songs that were purchased by consumers as well as the entire library on the iTunes store. Apple Music will also offer a live 24-hour radio station called Beats One and ways to connect artists and fans through social media.
The announcement came at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The conference, which lasts a week, kicks off with a keynote from Apple chief executive Tim Cook and other top Apple officials and usually offers less flashy updates than its product releases in the fall and winter.
In the early part of the keynote address, Apple executives mainly focused on updates to its operating systems for its iPhones and iPads as well as its Mac computers.
The next version of iOS, Apple’s mobile software, will make the devices’ voice assistant known as Siri a little smarter. Siri will now predict how people use their phones and offer appropriate suggestions. It will learn musical preferences and offer appropriate songs, for instance. Siri can also track your calendar and suggest the right time to leave so that you won’t be late.
The new iOS has the ability to automatically add events to your calendar from your e-mail inbox. The program has also improved its search functions, so that users can look for specific things such as “show me my photos from Utah last August.”
Users will see about an hour or so more of battery life. Apple is also introducing a low-power mode, which turns off phone features to give users an extra three hours.
Similar features have already been offered on smartphones using Google’s Android software system. But Apple is attempting to distinguish itself from its chief rival by emphasizing privacy. Craig Federighi, vice president of software engineering, emphasized that all of this data analysis is done on the device, not stored on Apple’s servers. Chief executive Tim Cook made waves last week when he emphasized in a speech that Apple’s not in the data collection business, something underscored on stage Monday.
Apple said it would soon release the next software version for its Apple Watch, which itself was released just two months ago. The next operating system will allow for expanded friends list, the ability to reply to e-mail and to use the watch to start a workout or control lights, appliances and other smart-home devices. Apple also highlighted a new feature called “Time Travel,” which allows users to rotate the crown of the watch and scroll through a person’s schedule throughout the day.
Apple also provided brief updates on its CarPlay HealthKit and HomeKit apps. For example, users will be able to connect their phones to their cars without even taking the mobile device out of a pocket. Apple is also adding new features to the health program, so that users can measure metrics such as UV exposure.
Apple Maps got some improvements, too. Entrances and exits for subway stations and trains were added to help users figure out more accurate commute times – a feature that has long been part of Google Maps. The transit directions will be available in major cities in the United States and China, Apple said.
Apple also introduced a Flipboard-like app, News, to replace its Newsstand app. The company has partnered with organizations such as Conde Nast and The New York Times, both of which are providing a certain amount of free content for those who sign up for the service.
Cook has also noted before the event that Apple fans will see something unusual on stage: female presenters. Indeed, within the first hour of the keynote address, Jennifer Bailey, an Apple Pay executive, came on stage to talk about new partnerships with a variety of companies such as Pinterest and Square to expand Apple Pay’s reach.
Federighi also showed off new features for the its newest iPad models that should make it more appealing for users who want to use the tablet for work. Users will now be able to use two apps at once and also view video while doing other tasks, such as e-mailing.
The new version of OS X will be called “El Capitan,” said Federighi, continuing Apple’s latest naming scheme to name its systems after California landmarks. Some new features of this system include small updates such as the ability to manage your mail by swiping across the trackpad, or pinning tabs in its Safari browser. Improvements have also been made to up the system’s speed and improvements to its Spotlight search program. The system is available to developers Monday, and will be in a public beta this July. It will be available to all consumers this Fall.
Apple is widely expected to expand its push into media with the announcement Monday of a music service that builds on the iTunes store and Beats Music — a music service that the company picked up when it bought Beats for $3 billion last year.
Reports indicate that Apple’s new music service will compete with Spotify and Pandora, and users will be able to listen to tracks both on demand and by tuning in to digital radio stations. Beats Music’s claim to fame is that it features playlists curated by famous artists and music lovers — its tagline is “a music service with heart” — rather than purely by algorithm. Given the high-placed connections of Beats executives, such as co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, many expect that Apple will be able to generate some significant star power for its music service, which is expected to cost about $10 per month.
Apple is not expected to launch a much-anticipated video service, however, as negotiations with content providers didn’t come together in time for the big show.
In an interview with San Francisco’s ABC7 local news channel, Cook said Apple has invested $50 million toward scholarships that encourage women and minorities to get into programming. He framed it as a smart approach to making better products for everyone: “The more people you get thinking about something that come at things from a different point of view, you wind up with a much better product that way.”
Article by Hayley Tsukayama for The Washington Post
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