Final refrain for iPod as Apple stops production

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Apple put out word it is no longer making iPods, the trend-setting MP3 players that transformed how people get music and gave rise to the iPhone.

Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced the devices nearly 21 years ago with his legendary showmanship flare, and the small, easy to operate players helped the company revolutionize how music was sold.

It packed "a mind-blowing 1,000 songs" the company said at the time, and together with Apple's iTunes shop established a new distribution model for the music industry.

Buying complete albums on vinyl gave way to paying 99 cents a piece for selected digital songs.

Industry trackers and California-based Apple itself have long acknowledged that the do-it-all iPhone would eat away at sales of one-trick devices such as iPod MP3 players.

The trend toward streaming music services, including one by Apple, has made devices designed just for carrying digital tunes around less enticing for consumers.

Apple said in a blog post that the current generation of iPods will only be available as long as current supplies last.

"Music has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impacted more than just the music industry," said Apple senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak.

"It also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared."

Joswiak said that the "spirit of iPod" lives on in its lineup of products including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and its HomePod smart speaker.

"Since its introduction over 20 years ago, iPod has captivated users all over the world who love the ability to take their music with them on the go," Apple said in a blog post.

"Today, the experience of taking one’s music library out into the world has been integrated across Apple’s product line - from iPhone and Apple Watch to iPad and Mac."

In addition, the Apple Music subscription service provides streaming access to more than 90 million songs, the Silicon Valley giant said.

The iPod endured despite analyst worries that the release of the iPhone in 2007 would destroy demand, since the smartphones provided much more than just digital music.

News of the end of the line for iPod prompted a flurry of sad, nostalgic posts on Twitter.

"Damn... low-key a little sad to see that Apple has officially discontinued the iPod from today," said a tweet fire off from the verified @MrDalekJD account of a UK Gaming YouTuber.

"This thing changed the music game forever. RIP."

Agence France-Presse

Spotify drops paying subscribers in Russia; free service to remain

Music streaming giant Spotify said Thursday its paid subscription service would no longer be available in Russia, as sanctions had made processing payments in the country impossible.

"Due to new restrictions introduced by major payment providers, payment processing is not currently possible for the majority of Premium users in Russia," a Spotify spokesman told AFP.

Paid premium accounts "will be cancelled if a recurring payment fails and the account will then be automatically moved to our free service," he said in a written statement. 

The company said it had also "paused all advertising campaigns running in Russia."

Spotify did not immediately confirm to AFP how many subscribers it expected lose in Russia.

Spotify's free service would however remain available in Russia "to allow for the global flow of information," it said, adding that "arts and news are a powerful force for good."

The Swedish company, which is listed on the New York stock exchange, already announced last week that it was closing its offices in Russia and removing Russian state-sponsored content, such as news outlets RT and Sputnik, from its service.

Agence France-Presse

Spotify losses deepen despite rapid expansion

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Streaming leader Spotify said Monday that its losses deepened last year even as the company topped $2 billion in revenue amid the global boom in online music.

The Swedish company founded in 2008 has been at the forefront of the music industry’s turn to streaming, which offers unlimited music on demand, yet it has never turned a profit itself.

Luxembourg-based holding company Spotify Technologies, submitting its annual earnings report, said its revenue jumped 80 percent to 1.945 billion euros ($2.18 billion) in 2015.

The growth rate is significantly stronger than the 45 percent it charted in 2014 and slightly higher than the 74 percent seen in 2013.

“In many ways, it was our best year ever,” the company said in a message to shareholders, describing Spotify as the top driver of growth for the entire music industry.

The company said its revenue from advertisements nearly doubled and that its user base also grew significantly.

Spotify said it had 89 million active monthly users by the end of 2015, up from 60 million a year earlier, of whom some 28 million were paying for subscriptions.

The company’s founder, Daniel Ek, had said in March that Spotify reached 30 million paying subscribers.

But the growth did not erase losses, with Spotify putting a priority on investments at a stage when streaming is increasingly becoming mainstream.

The company’s net losses totalled 173 million euros, nearly seven percent deeper than a year before.

“We believe our model supports profitability at scale,” the company said.

“We believe that we will generate substantial revenues as our reach expands and that, at scale, our margins will improve,” it said.

“We will therefore continue to invest relentlessly in our product and marketing initiatives to accelerate reach,” it said.

Spotify says it offers more than 30 million songs on-demand but has also faced growing competition.

Tech giant Apple last year launched its own streaming service and rap mogul Jay-Z has spearheaded rival Tidal, adding to a market that also includes French-based Deezer and US-based Rhapsody.

Spotify has also faced prominent holdouts including Tayor Swift, Adele and Radiohead who have kept some or all of their music off the service, in part due to objections to its free tier.

source: interaksyon.com

Rihanna releases long-awaited album in streaming exclusive

NEW YORK | R&B superstar Rihanna late Wednesday released her long-awaited eighth album “Anti” as she offered exclusive early access through commercial tie-ups.

“Anti,” Rihanna’s first album since 2012, had been announced late last year but the timing of the release was a surprise and came hours after she put out the first single.

Tidal, the streaming service led by rap mogul Jay Z in which Rihanna is a partner, premiered “Anti” and said it would not appear elsewhere for the first week.

Rihanna signed a deal reported to be worth $25 million with South Korean electronics giant Samsung, which set up an “Anti” interactive website accessible on its smartphones.

Tidal said that Samsung users who used the website would be able to download “Anti” and receive a two-month free trial of the streaming service.

The release marks the latest effort by an upstart streaming companies to challenge the dominance of streaming leader Spotify through exclusive releases.

Prince put out his two last albums on Tidal while pop superstar Taylor Swift released a tour video only on Apple Music.

Streaming services, which offer on-demand access online, have grown rapidly in recent years and become a key part of the music industry’s commercial strategies.

Rihanna earlier Wednesday put out a first single from “Anti” that features chart-topping rapper Drake.

Entitled “Work,” the song is set to tropical house, the light-feeling electronic genre that has become increasingly popular in the past year.

The song returns to Rihanna’s familiar theme of feeling taken advantage of in a relationship, while Drake in his verse raps of his struggle finding intimacy.

“Anti” starts off with the track “Consideration,” a collaboration with SZA, an R&B singer who has come to prominence more recently.

“Anti” does not include “FourFiveSeconds,” a song that Rihanna released a year ago in a collaboration with Paul McCartney and Kanye West.

Rihanna quickly became one of the 21st century’s top-selling artists after releasing her debut album in 2005, but the Barbados-born singer’s prolific output stopped after a seven-year stretch.

The two-month delay between the launch of the Samsung website and the album triggered speculation among fans who wondered if there were disagreements behind the scenes.

Some music industry observers suspected that Rihanna did not want to compete with British ballad singer Adele, whose album “25″ broke first-week sales records in November.

However, it is unclear how Rihanna will fare on the charts as her album is not available for conventional purchase.

Rihanna has already announced a world tour to promote “Anti,” which will begin on February 26 in San Diego.

source: interaksyon.com

Spotify readies to launch video

NEW YORK — Spotify said Monday it will imminently launch video content as the music streaming leader seeks ways to build an audience in the increasingly competitive sector.

The Swedish company will begin webcasting videos by the end of next week on both Android and Apple system smartphones, a Spotify spokesman said.

The videos will initially be available in four markets — Britain, Germany, Sweden and the United States.

Spotify’s chief executive Daniel Ek had announced the expansion into video in May during an event in New York on the company’s future plans, although he did not give a timeframe and the company has been testing its offerings.

  
Spotify at the time said that it would offer exclusive content from media partners as well as existing production and podcasts.

Media companies involved in Spotify’s video plans include major US networks, the BBC, sports leader ESPN, documentary news site Vice and comedy channel Adult Swim.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Spotify’s vice president of product, Shiva Rajaraman, as saying the primary audience would still be music fans.

The company, the report said, will air original music-themed series but most video will consist of short snippets.

Spotify is the leader of the fast-growing sector of streaming. The company says it has more than 75 million regular users, of whom 20 million pay subscriptions for advertisement-free access.

The company, which is privately held, does not release its earnings but is widely believed to be gambling that it can invest heavily initially and turn a profit later.

Smaller rivals have invested heavily in video as a way to win over customers.

Apple Music, which launched in June, recently offered an exclusive tour movie by pop superstar Taylor Swift.

Tidal, led by rap mogul Jay Z, has gone a step further by exclusively webcasting series without a direct music link including the drug-dealing drama “Money and Violence.”

Online content giant YouTube also recently launched a music streaming site, which lets users toggle between videos and audio-only tracks.

source: interaksyon.com

Apple Music faces antitrust scrutiny

The attorneys general of New York and Connecticut are investigating Apple Inc’s negotiations with music companies to look for signs of potential antitrust violations.

The attorneys general want to know whether music labels colluded or were pressured into favouring Apple’s paid music subscription service, which was released on Monday.

Apple launched Apple Music on Monday, a $9.99-a-month streaming music service that will likely alter the dynamics of how consumers listen to music as the music industry grapples with declines in downloaded songs and tries to figure out new ways to get people to pay for music.

In a letter to the New York Attorney General, Universal Music Group said it had no agreements with Apple or music companies like Sony Music and Warner Music that would impede the availability of free or ad-supported services, or prevent it from licencing its recorded music to any music streaming service.

Universal Music also said it offers limited exclusive content to some music streaming services where such exclusivity is not part of an agreement to restrain competition.

“This letter is part of an investigation of the music streaming business, an industry in which competition has recently led to new and different ways for consumers to listen to music,” said Matt Mittenthal, a spokesman for the New York attorney-general, Eric Schneiderman.

“To preserve these benefits, it’s important to ensure that the market continues to develop free from collusion and other anticompetitive practises.”

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the investigation. Reuters could not immediately reach Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

The investigation was earlier reported by the New York Times.

source: interaksyon.com

Spotify rockets to 15 million paying users

STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Swedish music streaming service Spotify said it now has 15 million paying subscribers, boosting claims that its revolutionary and controversial model can work.

The expanding startup said late Monday it had added 2.5 million subscribers since November amid widespread reports that the unlisted company plans to go public.

“It’s been an astronomic amount of growth in a short period of time,” music industry analyst Mark Mulligan told AFP, adding that various discount packages explained the surge.

He said this does not mean the service will keep up that kind of development, but said: “Spotify did everything it could to get right growth at the right time.”

At the end of 2014, Spotify said it had 60 million users of whom 15 million were paying subscribers, compared to 40 million active users and 10 million subscribers in May 2014.

The streaming service has become a major powerbroker in the music industry since its US launch in 2011, drawing criticism from stars like American pop star Taylor Swift and propelling lesser-known artists into the spotlight.

Spotify’s two-tier service lets users stream an extensive catalog for free with advertising, while those who subscribe pay $9-$12 a month for ad-free music listening.

Mobile and smartphone users, however, have to pay to be able to choose tracks.

Fierce competition

Although the company says 70 percent of its revenue goes to the music industry, it has come under fire for the share that ends up in artists’ pockets.

In November, Taylor Swift pulled her catalog from the service, citing low compensation.

“It’s not something (artist payments) Spotify can directly influence, but they get the blame,” Mulligan said. “Most of it lies with the rights holders, who have a big responsibility to be more transparent.”

Spotify founder Daniel Ek replied to Swift’s criticism on the company’s blog, saying that his company provides an alternative to listeners downloading music online for free.

Monday’s figures confirm previous reports that one in four Spotify users is a paying subscriber—although the company reported $80 million in losses in 2013.

Reports of the streaming provider going public are widespread even though the company has yet to turn an overall profit.

“They wouldn’t be the first loss-making music service to go public,” music startup consultant Bas Grasmayer told AFP in an email, referring to US Internet radio service Pandora which went public in 2011.

With Google’s YouTube Music Key on the market since November and Apple making no secret of its music plans, strong competitors are emerging for the Swedish startup, which declined to comment further on Monday’s figures.

“The market is more competitive than ever,” Mulligan said. “Spotify already has challenged economics, can they compete with Google and Apple? That’s what potential investors will ask themselves.”

Agence France-Presse

Amazon launches streaming ‘Prime Music’ service

NEW YORK — Amazon began offering a streaming music service Thursday, in a move aimed at keeping customers in its orbit amid the rise in services like Pandora and Spotify.

The US online giant announced “Prime Music” will be offered free and without advertising for customers of Amazon Prime — a subscription service that includes free delivery, access to online movies and books and other advantages.

The Amazon music catalog of one million songs is far smaller than rival offerings from services such as Spotify, which has 20 million, but appears to aim at a niche of customers as a new benefit to the Amazon Prime service.

“With Prime Music, Prime members have unlimited, ad-free access to over a million songs at no additional cost to their membership,” Amazon said in a statement.

“Prime Music includes tens of thousands of albums from top artists like Daft Punk, Pink, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. And we’re just getting started — more music is being added all the time.”

Customers will also be able to download songs and playlists and listen when they are offline to avoid data charges.

The service, available for US customers as of Thursday, is unlikely to directly challenge rival music services but could bolster Amazon’s customer base and notably its “Prime” subscription service, which recently raised its annual fee for US customers to $99 from $79.

- Driving customers -

“Amazon’s future business will depend on how many times a day the company can get its customers to interact with Amazon,” said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey.

“If you’re Pandora or even Apple, getting people to use you several times a day doesn’t really drive revenue up, but in the case of Amazon, getting the customer to interact with you several times a day leads to more frequent purchases, and that’s what Amazon has in mind with the music service.”

Amazon, which has been adding digital content to its vast retail offerings, has been rumored for months to have been working on a music service but reports said talks had been bogged down over royalties and licensing fees.

Amazon includes songs from major music labels Sony and Warner Music but talks are still ongoing with the other major publisher, Universal Music Group, according to sources familiar with the service.

But there may be gaps for some music lovers: The online news site TechCrunch said nine of the top 10 songs on the Billboard 100 were not available for streaming on Amazon.

The move comes after Apple agreed to pay $3 billion for Beats Music to boost its streaming service and compete with the likes of Spotify and Pandora.

Owners of Amazon Kindle tablets can get Prime Music in an automatic, over-the-air update and it will also be available as an app for users of Apple and Android mobile devices.

The move comes with Amazon having scheduled a media event next week, widely expected to be the unveiling of a smartphone that integrates in the Kindle family of devices.

Amazon said some of the artists available on the music service include Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Whitney Houston and Willie Nelson.

source: interaksyon.com

Spotify to ask users to re-enter passwords after cyberattack

SAN FRANCISCO — Music streaming service Spotify AB will ask some of its 40 million users to re-enter their passwords and upgrade their software in coming days after detecting unauthorized access to its internal systems and data.

Chief Technology Officer Oskar Stal said in a blogpost on Tuesday that it has found evidence of attackers accessing just one user’s data, which did not include payment or password information. But as a precaution, it intends to ask “certain Spotify users” to re-enter their log-in credentials, and upgrade their Google (GOOGL.O) Android app.

Spotify said it is not recommending any action yet for users of Apple Inc (AAPL.O) iPhones or devices based on Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) Windows.

The intrusion was the latest to hit a major tech company. In past months, cyberattackers have infiltrated databases and systems at eBay Inc and Adobe, though no financial information has so far been taken, according to the companies. Spotify, which is expected to seek an IPO soon, has more than 40 million active users scattered across more than 50 markets.

“We have taken steps to strengthen our security systems in general and help protect you and your data – and we will continue to do so. We will be taking further actions in the coming days to increase security for our users,” Stal said in his blogpost.

source: interaksyon.com

Google launches streaming music service ahead of Apple

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc launched a music service on Wednesday that allows users to listen to unlimited songs for $9.99 a month, challenging smaller companies like Pandora and Spotify in the market for streaming music.

With its new service, announced at its annual developers’ conference in San Francisco, Google has adopted the streaming music business model ahead of rival Apple Inc, which pioneered online music purchases with iTunes.

Google’s “All Access” service lets users customize song selections from 22 genres, ranging from Jazz to Indie music, stream individual playlists, or listen to a curated, radio-like stream that can be tweaked. It will be launched for U.S. users first, before being rolled out to several other countries.

Google unveiled a string of improvements to other services, including new mapping features and a voice-activated search, at the conference. The focus was on giving more options to users of mobile devices using its Android software, the operating system that now runs three out of every four smartphones sold.

Shares of Google, the world’s largest Internet search company, jumped more than 3 percent while Pandora Media Inc shares were down more than 1 percent on Wednesday afternoon.

Google’s new music service amps up the competition in the nascent market for subscription-based, streaming music. Amazon.com Inc and Apple are among the Silicon Valley powerhouses sounding out top recording industry executives, according to sources with knowledge of talks.

Pandora is spending freely and racking up losses to expand globally. Even social media stalwarts Facebook and Twitter are jumping onto the streaming-music bandwagon.

All these companies see a viable music streaming and subscription service as crucial to growing their presence in an exploding mobile environment. For Google and Apple, it is critical in ensuring users remain loyal to their mobile products.

With a music service, Google further “locks” consumers into its sphere of products and services, said Chris Silva, an analyst with Altimeter Group.

“They’re trying to sell an ecosystem,” he said. “The more things I’m doing, the more things that tie me to Google services.”

At $9.99 a month, Google’s service is costlier than the $3.99 required for Pandora, but on par with Spotify.

The music service features millions of tracks from Universal Music, Sony Entertainment Group and Warner Music Group, as well as from thousands of independent labels, according to a Google spokeswoman.

Some analysts said the new service allowed Google to catch-up to offerings from the likes of Spotify, but did not offer anything unique. Forrester analyst James McQuivey said combining the service with video or game content might have made it stand out.

“You don’t dismiss Apple, you don’t dismiss anyone. But that is not the point,” said Rich Tullo, an analyst at Albert Fried & Co. “Pandora is the market share leader in the space and their platform is so disruptive — it’s very hard to disrupt them. When you have 70 million people use it – they are the disruptors.”

CEO appearance

A procession of Google executives described and showed off a litany of new features and software updates at the annual “I/O” developers’ conference, from picture touch-ups on Google+ and re-designed Maps that spot when a user is walking or driving, to Star Trek-like voice-activated search that understands a users’ sentences and figures out what he or she is looking for.

“We haven’t seen this rate of change in computing for a long time — probably not since the birth of personal computing,” said CEO Larry Page, who began his address reflecting upon a significant moment in his life, when his father got him into a robotic science fair.

“We’re really only at 1 percent of what’s possible,” said Page, whose on-stage appearance came a day after he acknowledged suffering from a rare nerve problem affecting his vocal cords. The problem, which affects his breathing and makes it difficult for him to speak at length, sidelined Page from public speaking engagements last summer, though Page spoke for 45 minutes on stage on Wednesday.

Decrying a “negativity” in the technology industry which he said impedes progress, Page singled out competitors Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp, criticizing the companies for not being sufficiently collaborative with Google and other companies. Google was sued by Oracle last year, and companies affiliated with Microsoft have complained about Google’s practices to European antitrust regulators.

“Most important things are not zero sum,” Page said.

Lack of Glass
The conference comes as Google’s Android software has become the most popular operating system in both smartphones and tablet PCs. Executives said Wednesday that some 900 million smartphones and tablets running Google Android software had been activated since the platform’s inception in 2010

Google’s popular mapping service, a mainstay of Android devices, features tighter integration with reviews off Zagat, the popular dining-reviews brand that Google bought last year. It also sports more pictures from inside important buildings, sourced from user-uploaded photos. It can now even display the earth realistically as viewed from outer space, something Page said he personally requested.

Shares in Yelp Inc, which like Zagat is built off users’ personal reviews, slid 3.8 percent to $29.80 in the afternoon.

Conspicuously absent from the more than three-hour opening keynote session was any mention of Google Glass, the wearable computing device that the company began distributing to a limited set of early users and developers last month.

The futuristic-looking device has elicited admiration from many technology-lovers, but some have questioned whether the stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on eyeglass frames will appeal to mainstream consumers.

While many enthusiastic attendees and Google staffers strolled about the conference center sporting the Glass devices, executives spent little time discussing it on stage.

Google missed an opportunity to “show that they think they’re onto something big,” said Forrester’s McQuivey.

source: interaksyon.com