CNN Money has today shared the second part of its interview with Apple SVP Eddy Cue. In the first part of the interview, shared last week, Cue noted of how the Apple TV has graduated from the “hobby” stage and sold more than 20 million units. While sales of the new fourth-gen box are unclear at this point, Cue did hint at some future features come to the device in part two of the interview, as well as Apple’s ultimate goal with the tvOS platform.
Ahead of the release of the iPad Pro later this month, Apple executives have been taking part in a variety of enterprise-focused interviews, looking to convince the enterprise market of the device’s usefulness. Today, Apple’s SVP Eddy Cue sat down for a fireside chat with Dropbox CEO Drew Houston at the cloud storage company’s Open conference.
With the new Apple TV shipping to customers and expected to hit stores tomorrow, Eddy Cue, the head of Apple’s Internet services, is talking up the latest set-top box in a new interview with CNN Money.
In the demo, Cue relates the new Siri Remote’s touchpad to using multitouch on iPhones and iPads. This allows tvOS, the software running on the new Apple TV, to become a platform for what Cue calls an “app ecosystem” as we’ve seen explode on iOS. Cue says Apple believes the same explosion will take place on television next.
Asked about Steve Jobs’ description of Apple TV as a hobby years ago, Cue said the product category has “absolutely” graduated past that label with over 20 million prior-generations boxes sold even before the new model hits stores. Tim Cook offered a slightly higher number in January — over 25 million sold — so Cue is likely ballparking it but setting the stage for 4th-gen Apple TV sales.
In an interview with London’s Evening Standard, Apple SVP Eddy Cue said that Apple is relaxed about how many Apple Music subscribers are immediately willing to pay for the service once their free trial ends.
Ultimately, you never know until it happens. But we’re pleased with the number of people who have tried. Everybody gets fixated on the short term but we’re in this for the long haul.
Though published today, the interview took place before the trial ended for early adopters, so doesn’t give any hint as to conversion rates … Expand Expanding Close
In addition to a failed attempt to hire the stars of the BBC series Top Gear for its reported plans to develop in-house content, Re/code reports that media head Eddy Cue also approached sports commentator Bill Simmons.
Apple showed interest in signing up former ESPN star Bill Simmons to an exclusive audio podcast deal. Apple media boss Eddy Cue discussed the idea a couple of times with Simmons this summer, say people familiar with the talks, who say that they were preliminary at best.
Simmons ended up signing with HBO, the deal including a new podcast from October – which is likely to be available on iTunes.
Variety had earlier reported that Apple is looking to create a Netflix competitor, focusing on original programming – likely to form part of its planned web TV service designed to go head-to-head with traditional cable TV packages.
In a statement to USA Today, Apple has officially announced it has signed up 11 million members to Apple Music since launch. Eddy Cue says he is “thrilled with the numbers so far”, noting that about 2 million of that number have signed up for a family plan, which costs $14.99 for up to six people. The real success of Apple Music won’t be known until the 3 month trial ends and the 11 million have to make the choice to start paying for the monthly subscription.
The controversy surrounding Apple Music’s launch thanks to Taylor Swift made for an excellent way to drum up some extra attention for the service’s debut late last month. First, Swift, who was already vocal in the past regarding streaming services, penned a blog post knocking down Apple’s decision to offer a free, three-month trial without paying artists for streams during that period. Apple responded to Taylor’s decision to hold back her music from the service and it was thought the blog post eventually inspired Apple to reverse its decision. Swift responded to Apple’s decision positively and announced her latest record would be available on the service, all in the days leading up to the Apple Music launch on June 30.
Today we get a bit of insight into what was going on behind the scenes via a Fortune interview with CEO of Taylor’s label, Big Machine Label Group, Scott Borchetta. The record exec notes that he was already in the middle of negotiations with Apple regarding the terms of the three-month trial when Swift published her blog post without letting her label know beforehand. In the end, Apple was able to gain added attention over its music service launch with Swift’s album featured on day one.
New photos show Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared at the Sun Valley media conference this week, one of the few industry events the executive has been known to attend in recent years. We noted last month that Cook was once again on the guest list this year but photos published today show Cook was indeed in attendance and mingling with fellow tech executives.
Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue was also spotted attending the event. More photos of Cook and Cue at Sun Valley are below.
Last week, we noted that Apple’s latest iOS 8.4 release with Apple Music removes support for the long-existing Music Home Sharing feature. This function allows an iOS device user to stream music from a computer running iTunes on their own WiFi network. Today, Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services noted on Twitter that Apple is “working” to restore Home Sharing functionality in iOS 9. It is likely that Home Sharing was removed in iOS 8.4 due to changes necessary with the record labels to launch the new streaming music service. Cook previously revealed details on this week’s iOS 9 beta, streaming bit rates, and more via Twitter.
Eddy Cue confirmed late last night that a new iOS 9 seed is coming to developers next week with support for Apple Music, but since the service launched yesterday, users have discovered that there are a few ways to use certain aspects of it while on iOS 9.
While iOS 8.4 users have been able to try out the new Apple Music service since this morning, developers running the latest iOS 9 beta seed have been left out. This will change “early next week,” however, according to Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue. In a reply to a user on Twitter, Cue said that a new beta of iOS 9 will be available next week with Apple Music integration:
In an interview with The Loop, Apple SVP Eddy Cue and Beats founder Jimmy Iovine said that depth, breadth and musical knowledge would allow Apple Music to succeed in a market where all streaming services offer access to the same 30M songs.
“One of the things we wanted with Apple Music was depth, said Cue. “We wanted you to be immersed in it when you started using it.”
I had one of the most fascinating meetings ever today.
Iovine pointed out that playlists generated by algorithms tended to be predictable, while those curated by people with deep knowledge of the music industry could make surprising connections – using Bruce Springsteen as an example.
[With an algorithm, you can] pretty much guess what’s going to be played. Bob Seger, John Mellencamp, and Tom Petty are always popular choices.
What freaked me out is that Apple Music played ‘Paint It Black,’ which I happen to know is one of Springsteen’s favorite Stones songs.
Iovine said that most algorithms stuck to one genre and era, while human DJs could mix things up because “the DJ is in the middle, explaining how it works.” This, said Cue, generated greater breadth, and you could find a hip-hop track following a rock one … Expand Expanding Close
Apple Music makes its debut in a few short hours/minutes/seconds and if you want to spend that time reading about what early reviewers thought (after migrating your playlists), we’ve got a list of Apple’s selected journalists who’ve played with the app and listened to the music with a few choice words: Expand Expanding Close
Taylor Swift has answered one of the last remaining questions about Apple Music before it launches: her popular album 1989 will be available on Apple Music when it launches on Tuesday. The development follows Swift’s high profile letter to Apple over how artists would be paid during the streaming service’s 3-month free trial. Apple later reversed its decision announcing it would pay artists during the trial. Expand Expanding Close
For each song that is streamed free, Apple will pay 0.2 cent for the use of recordings, a rate that music executives said was roughly comparable to the free tiers from services like Spotify. This rate does not include a smaller payment for songwriting rights that goes to music publishers.
Spotify bases its royalty payment for free users on a 35% share, half of the 70% it pays for tracks streamed by paid subscribers … Expand Expanding Close
Apple CEO Tim Cook has once again been invited to the high profile Sun Valley conference this year, Variety reports, where media moguls and tech industry leaders gather annually to meet and attend panels covering the business. Cook’s attendance this year will mark his fourth consecutive year on the private invitation roster since he was spotted with Twitter/Square iCEO/CEO Jack Dorsey at the event in 2012. Expand Expanding Close
While everyone assumed Apple would now be paying artists and publishers the 71.5% royalty rate from day one, it appears the actual amount paid during the free trial will be lower.
Apple declined to say how much it plans to pay during the trial period, though it said the rate will increase once customers start paying for subscriptions.
Eddy Cue’s tweets in response to Taylor Swift’s open letter said only that Apple “will pay artist for streaming” and “will always make sure artists are paid,” stopping short of promising to pay the full royalty rate from day one … Expand Expanding Close
According to a document leaked as part of WikiLeaks’ latest dump of information form the Sony Pictures hack, Apple has been testing and licensing 4K content from Sony since as early as 2013. The document is signed by Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, and former Sony Pictures exec Jim Underwood (via AppleInsider)
Suggestions that Apple will pay music owners just 58% of subscription payments for its Apple Music service are not true, says the company. Robert Kondrk, the Apple VP who has been working with Eddy Cue on negotiating deals with music labels, says that company actually pays a little more than the industry-standard 70% figure.
In the U.S., Apple will pay music owners 71.5 percent of Apple Music’s subscription revenue. Outside the U.S., the number will fluctuate, but will average around 73 percent, he told Re/code in an interview. Executives at labels Apple is working with confirmed the figures.
The 58% number doing the rounds earlier this month appears to be based on a misunderstanding: that’s the usual cut for the label, which owns the recording; the publisher, which owns the rights to the song itself, gets a 12% cut. Add the two together, and you get the 70% number that is standard for streaming music services.
But the most interesting revelation to me was that Apple is not paying music labels a single cent for tracks streamed during the three-month free trial period … Expand Expanding Close
If you’re an unsigned musician looking for your break into the big time, being featured by Apple during a keynote watched by millions of people around the world isn’t a bad way to start.
When Eddy Cue introduced Apple Music, he used the example of Loren Kramar to demonstrate Apple Music Artist Accounts, more colloquially known as Connect. Any artist, he said, would be able to share content with fans through the social features provided within Apple Music – and he named Kramar as an artist who was “going to be really, really huge.”
Kramar yesterday launched his debut single, My Life, on iTunes. TNW did note earlier that Kramar wasn’t entirely without music connections prior to his new-found fame, having apparently worked with Joe Weinberger, a former music scout at Interscope, which was headed by Jimmy Iovine.
If you’re a musician, we can’t get you featured in a keynote, but we have explained everything you need to know about creating and managing your Connect artist profile page.
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference is about to kick off. On Monday, June 8th, company executives will take the stage at San Francisco’s Moscone Center to provide their annual roadmap for Apple’s software, services, and devices.
Traditionally, Apple has used the conference to introduce major upgrades to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system iOS, as well as the Mac operating system OS X, along with new services. Of course, 2015 will be no different. Apple has been preparing a new version of iOS 9 codenamed “Monarch,” a release of OS X 10.11 codenamed “Gala,” a new streaming Apple Music service based on Beats Music, and updates for the Apple Watch.
Over the last several years, we have providedadvance reports on the lion’s share of announcements that will be made at WWDC, as well as a comprehensive roundup ahead of the event. Read on for our roundup of what’s coming, along with fresh new details not found in our earlier reports.
Three years after Apple launched its own iOS Maps app to replace Google as its iPhone and iPad map provider, the Cupertino company is readying its first major enhancements to the service. While Apple was known to be gearing up for the launch of a mass transit directions service this fall in a handful of cities, sources have revealed that it is also developing its first entirely in-house mapping database to reduce its reliance on TomTom, using a fleet of mysterious vans to take still photos of business storefronts to replace Yelp photos, and building a 3D Street View feature. Apple has been using the sensor-equipped vans in cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York since earlier this year, and, below, we detail how the vehicles are advancing Apple’s plans for the future of Maps…
The Apple world this morning seems divided between those who seemingly haven’t grasped the implications of Apple’s ‘promotion’ of Jony Ive, merely taking Cook’s memo at face value, and those switching into full-on ‘Apple is doomed’ mode. The reality is, I think, a little more nuanced.
It seems pretty clear that this move is, as Seth outlined earlier, about Ive taking more of a backseat role – and especially being able to spend a lot more time back in England. Apple’s decision to announce the news on a day when the US markets were closed was obviously not coincidence.
Apple didn’t want to see a knee-jerk panic reaction on Wall Street setting its stock diving. But is there reason to panic? Or is it all much ado about nothing? Or something between the two … ? Expand Expanding Close
Having originally planned to add a new transit directions feature to Maps last year, only to pull the feature before WWDC 2014, Apple now hopes to launch its Transit service with iOS 9, according to sources. Apple currently plans to debut bus, subway, and train route navigation as the central upgrade to the Maps app in iOS 9 at WWDC, using a user interface similar to the one intended for last fall’s launch, as depicted in the screenshots above…
