Spotify

Parental controls for Spotify Premium Family are finally starting to roll out, though oddly only in Ireland for now. The company said today that other markets will get the update later in the year, without explaining the reason for the delay.

Parents will now be able to control the Explicit Content Filter setting of all other accounts on their plan (these parental controls are a long-requested feature).

The update is now available in Ireland and will roll out in all markets with Premium Family this fall …

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There was something of a mystery report this week.

Apple and Spotify are reportedly in talks over potentially allowing Spotify users to control music playback with Siri […]

According to The Information, Spotify and Apple are discussing a “plan” that would “let iPhone users tell Siri to play songs, playlists, and albums with voice commands.” These conversations reportedly stem from new APIs in iOS 13 that make it possible for developers of audio apps to integrate with Siri.

As we noted, it’s unclear why that would require talks, as the SiriKit APIs will allow Spotify or anyone else to take advantage of Siri for music requests. However, there is one rather more radical possibility…

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Apple and Spotify are reportedly in talks over potentially allowing Spotify users to control music playback with Siri. The talks come as Apple faces increasing antitrust scrutiny, some of which has been brought on by Spotify itself.

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Ever since the story broke in mid-July that Apple was looking to fund some original podcast series, the tech-community has had a lot of opinions about what this might mean for the future of podcasting. On recent episodes of The Talk Show and ATP, there was plenty of discussion about why Apple might be considering funding podcasts, and what it might be for the industry as a whole. I think it’s an interesting discussion to have, so I wanted to add my opinions on why I think Apple is funding original podcasts.
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Amazon Music may not be in the same league as Spotify and Apple Music when it comes to subscriber numbers, but it believes it has a plan to help tempt students.

There’s one offer for those who are Prime Student members, and another for those who aren’t…

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Spotify paying subscribers hit 110 million by the end of June, up 31% year-on-year, announced the company this morning. This compares to 60 million Apple Music subscribers as of the last number revealed by Apple, also in June.

Despite this impressive growth, however, Spotify admitted that the number is lower than it had hoped…

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There’s been much criticism of streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify for paying relatively small sums to artists, but a new report today suggests there’s some good news in the mix.

Independent labels now represent 40% of the music market, twice the share they had back in the days of physical music sales, and they have never been more optimistic about the future …

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Apple and Spotify are engaged in a bitter antitrust battle in Europe, with Spotify claiming that Apple’s App Store rules give it an unfair advantage over competitors. Apple has now responded to Spotify’s claims in a new filing with the European Commission.

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The latest version of the iOS & Android Spotify apps provides users with much better organization of both their music and podcasts.

At the top of the screen, you now have Music and Podcasts tabs, so these are now kept completely separate …

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During the WWDC 2019 Keynote, Apple announced watchOS 6 for Apple Watch. While watchOS 6 didn’t get as much stage time as other new software releases, it still looks like a great release. One of the features that is most interesting to me is the API for streaming audio. In watchOS 5, Apple offered streaming on Apple Podcasts and Apple Music, but it left out the ability for third-party developers to access it. Spotify used Apple Watch as one of the reasons Apple isn’t play fair with how it treats its own products vs how it interacts with competitors. I argued that Spotify wants all the benefits of Apple’s platform, but without giving Apple any revenue. With the new streaming API for watchOS 6, it’s time for Spotify to ship or shut up.
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The European Commission is still waiting for Apple to formally respond to the Spotify complaint of anti-competitive actions, says Europe’s competition commissioner.

Margrethe Vestager said that the commission was officially investigating the claim, but hasn’t yet had a response from Apple …

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Inaccurate and missing metadata isn’t just a pain for music lovers – it can also cost artists, songwriters, and others billions in unpaid royalties from streaming music services, suggests a new report.

One example given was a musician who missed out on $40,000 in royalties because a clash between two different metadata databases removed many of his credits …

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In March, we covered Spotify’s It’s time to play fair campaign where the company laid out reasons it felt Apple wasn’t playing fair. Like most services, Apple obligates Spotify to pay a 30% cut in order to use in-app purchases when signing up new subscribers (it drops to 15% in year two of the subscription). Ultimately, Spotify wanted the EU to probe Apple Music in relation to how Apple treats its competitors vs its own business.
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Spotify paid subscribers have now reached 100M, double the last number Apple Music reported back in January.

Spotify announced the number in its latest earnings report, for the first quarter of the year …

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Apple Music has been steadily growing over the past few years, and giving Spotify more competition along the way. Now, a new report from The Wall Street Journal says that Apple has overtaken Spotify in paid US subscribers for the first time.

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