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Tag: music

  • YouTube Music gains new Explore tab in latest update

    YouTube Music gains new Explore tab in latest update

    YouTube Music is getting a new Explore tab on Android and iOS devices, Google announced earlier today. The new feature makes it easier for users to discover new music, including albums, singles, and videos, as well as browse through the service’s catalog of playlists via the Moods & Genre section.

    Those who’ve been using YouTube Music will notice that the new Explore tab replaces the Hotlist tab. Starting today, the new feature will be rolled out to Android and iOS devices, but the complete deployment may take several weeks.

    The Explore tab should be featured as the second tab in YouTube Music and, aside from enabling access to new releases, it will include a new section: Moods & Genres. The new section is meant to help YouTube Music users identify their favorite playlist or genre for different moments.

    Besides Android and iOS, YouTube Music plans to add the new Explore tab to the web player, although no ETA has been provided yet. Also, additional features and enhancements might be added as YouTube is looking for ways to make the new Explore tab the main source for music discovery in YouTube Music.

  • Spotify introduces customizable profiles on Android and iOS

    Spotify introduces customizable profiles on Android and iOS

    Spotify has been on fire since the beginning of the month, as multiple updates added important new features and improvements to the music streaming. The most recent changes involve Spotify profiles and the option to customize them.

    Starting this week, depending on what music you’re listening to on your phone, you’ll be able to update your Spotify profile, including the photo and username, to create a personalized music page representative of your music tastes.

    Spotify users on Android and iOS, regardless of whether they’re using a smartphone or tablet, can head to Home / Settings / View Profile to see their recently played artists, followers, and public playlists. Then, tapping “Edit Profile” will allow users to customize their status starting with the photo, which can be either JPEG or PNG.

    Keep in mind that if you’re using an iPhone or iPad, the picture must be less than 10MB. You can even remove your photo completely if you didn’t link your Spotify account to Facebook, in which case you’ll have to disconnect the two from the Settings menu.

    Apart from adding a photo to your profile, you can also change your Spotify display name. To do that, simply go to Home / Settings / View Profile / Edit Profile and tap your display name, then type your new display name (make sure to save).

    If you’re proud of your new profile and want to share it with your friends, you can do that by heading to Home / Settings / View Profile and tapping the three dots in the top right where you’ll find the Share option.

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  • YouTube Music update brings new player, more controls to Android users

    YouTube Music update brings new player, more controls to Android users

    It looks like Google is very serious about YouTube Music, as the app received two major updates in less than a month. After adding the option to upload music in February, the app is getting another update on Android devices that introduces a new design for the “Now Playing” screen, which includes more accessible controls, static lyrics, and a few other improvements

    The new changes should be available to everyone rocking an Android device, if not now, in the next few weeks.

    • Flipping between songs and videos in the app is now always visible on the player page to make it easy to move seamlessly between a song and its music video, a feature only offered by YouTube Music.
    • Static lyrics are being rolled out within the app, offering highly visible access to follow along to tracks. While still in the experiment phase, this feature will continue to be developed.
    • Playback control is more convenient with repeat and shuffles now located on the player page.
    • Downloading, sharing and adding songs to playlists is now easier than ever with all three features accessible by tapping on album art.

    A new version of YouTube Music has been uploaded in the Google Play Store on March 4, but we’re not sure if it contains all the changes announced today or these will be enabled via YouTube’s servers.

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  • Google to bring Play Music’s most useful feature to YouTube Music

    Google to bring Play Music’s most useful feature to YouTube Music

    Google is reportedly testing Play Music’s best feature for YouTube Music, the ability to upload your music library. It’s one of the features that prevent many Play Music users from moving to YouTube Music despite the fact that Google plans to deprecate the former at some point.

    Google is internally testing music library upload for YouTube Music, which suggests the Mountain View company is very close to transitioning Play Music users to YouTube Music, something that should have happened last year.

    The change doesn’t come as a surprise since YouTube Music’s head confirmed that Google plans to allow Play Music users to preserve and migrate their collection, playlists, and preferences to YouTube Music.

    What’s surprising is the fact that Google missed its own imposed deadline and didn’t manage to add this feature to YouTube Music last year. And we don’t even know if the music library upload will even land this year, although the fact that the feature is already being tested internally suggests that we’re not very far from a public release.

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  • Bose shutting stores across Australia, North America, Europe, Japan

    Bose shutting stores across Australia, North America, Europe, Japan

    Electronics retailer Bose is shutting down its 19 Australian retail stores over the next few months, with the intent to focus on its e-commerce offer in the region.

    Locations across North America, Europe, and Japan will also be affected, putting hundreds of people out of work across the store network.

    The business said in a statement that the approximately 130 stores located across Greater China, the United Arab Emirates, India, Southeast Asia, and South Korea will remain open.

    “Originally, our retail stores gave people a way to experience, test, and talk to us about multi-component, CD and DVD-based home entertainment systems,” Colette Burke, vice president of global sales for Bose said.

    “At the time it was a radical idea, but we focused on what our customers needed, and where they needed it – we’re doing the same thing now.  It’s still difficult because the decision impacts some of our amazing store teams who make us proud every day.”

    According to the brand, it will be offering assistance and severance packages to affected employees.

    Bose joins a list of retailers who have committed to closing stores over the next few months, with EB Gamesshutting 19 stores, Harris Scarfe closing 21, Bardot closing 58, and Curious Planet’s closure seeing 63 doors shut.

    In total, this brings the number of guaranteed store closures to 180 – not taking into account what Jeanswest’s voluntary administration will mean for its 146 stores across Australia.

    While consumer sentiment has been historically low recently, the added pressure on the economy and public sphere due to the unprecedented bushfires burning across the country has raised fears that the Christmas period may not have lived up to retailers’ expectations.

    Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman warned that the consensus for December and January trade is still out, to expect the fires to have an impact on trade figures.

  • YouTube Music gets more personal with three new mixes

    YouTube Music gets more personal with three new mixes

    YouTube Music has announced three new personalized mixes are now available for its customers. The music streaming service is rolling out today the new Discover Mix, New Release Mix, and Your Mix, which should introduce music lovers to a wider range of artists, new and old, based on their listening history.

    All three mixes announced today will be updated regularly, so they’ll remain fresh to offer listeners unique experiences every week. For example, the Discover Mix is a place where you usually head to discover new music. It consists of 50 tracks every week, which will be changed every Wednesday.

    The New Release Mix, as the name suggests, makes it easier for YouTube Music users to find the most recent releases by their favorite artists, as well as artists the service thinks you might like. Every Friday, YouTube Music will refresh this personalized mix with new tunes, but smaller updates will be released throughout the week as well.

    Last but not least, Your Mix is a playlist of songs by artists that you know and love. In addition, YouTube Music is adding other songs and artists that you might have never listened to, but it thinks you’ll love. The mix will receive small updates regularly, so the more you listen to and like these songs, the better your mixes are supposed to be.

    All three new personalized mixes are now available globally for all YouTube Music listeners on both the Android and iOS devices.

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  • New Apple Music subscribers receiving six months of service for free

    New Apple Music subscribers receiving six months of service for free

    Apple is trying to make Shazam, its rather new acquisition, more popular among audiophiles and music lovers in general. The Cupertino-based company now offers a six-month trial to all new Apple Music subscribers, but the redeeming procedure goes through the Shazam app.

    From now until Cyber Monday, if you’ve never been subscribed to Apple Music you’ll be getting six months of service for free. If you for some reason dropped your subscription, you’re still eligible for the deal, it’s just that you’ll receive three months of free Apple Music instead of six when you resubscribe.

    To redeem the Black Friday offer, you’ll need to download the Shazam app on your iOS device via the App Store. Then, simply open the Shazam app, head to Library and a pop up with the Limited Time offer should appear in the column of Recent Shazams.

    According to Apple, the Apple Music promo offer is available until December 2 only for iOS users in the following countries: Canada, USA, and the UK .

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  • Apple Music gains new Replay feature

    Apple Music gains new Replay feature

    Apple is bringing a new feature to its music streaming service in the hopes to bring Apple Music on par with Spotify and other similar services. The new feature is called Replay and lets Apple Music users check out their favorite music from 2019.

    Simply put, Apple Music subscribers will get a playlist of the most played songs from 2019, as well as playlists for every year they’ve been subscribed to the service, retroactively. All songs alongside playlists can be added to the Apple Music Library to allow users to stream them anytime they want.

    More importantly, Apple Music Replay can be shared with others or posted to social media. Unlike Spotify’s Wrapped feature that’s basically an annual retrospective. Apple Music Replay will continue to be updated throughout the year.

    According to Apple, the playlist and all data insights are updated on Sundays to reflect subscribers’ latest listening activity. Think of Apple Music Replay as a compilation of favorites, which changes throughout the year, not just at the end.

    The new feature is now available from the Apple Music app across all platforms, including via the web, so give it a spin until the beginning of the next year when it will become a blank slate waiting to be filled with your favorite music.

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  • Spotify brings back Google Home Mini freebie

    Spotify brings back Google Home Mini freebie

    Remember when the Google Home Mini was deemed the world’s best-selling smart speaker, despite Amazon dominating the vendor ranks both back then and in pretty much every single market report released over the last 12 months or so? The very reasonable price and robust list of features of the search giant’s diminutive Google Assistant device might not be the only reasons the Home Mini was able to achieve that feat, as the gadget’s shipment numbers were no doubt inflated by various promotions offering people the opportunity to pay nothing for the “bestseller.”

    The latest such deal is actually a revival of a similar offer from last year when select Spotify Premium subscribers were eligible for free Google Home Mini units just for using the world’s most popular music streaming service. This time, it’s even easier to join the giveaway, as both Family account holders and individual subscribers can qualify for a unique promotional code towards a gratis Home Mini smart speaker redeemable on the US Google Store.

    Once again, you’re looking at a US-only promotion, although if history is any indication, there’s a good chance availability will be expanded to other regions in the near future. The terms and conditions are relatively straightforward and not particularly hard to meet, requiring you be a new or existing Spotify Premium Individual or Premium Family subscriber registered directly through the platform (and not a third-party service like a cable or telecommunications provider), as well as pay for your unlimited, ad-free music streaming rights with a recurring method such as PayPal or a credit or debit card.

    Predictably enough, those who claimed a free Google Home Mini last time around are not eligible for an additional complimentary smart speaker, and in case you’re wondering, the offer is not valid on the new Nest Mini, even though the $49 list price has gone unchanged. Finally, while Spotify technically mentions November 15 as the end date of the actual deal and December 31 as the expiration date of the Google Store promo codes, you shouldn’t act shocked if supplies were to run out earlier. After all, Google can’t just give away millions of these voice-controlled bad boys for free.

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  • Amazon Music finally arrives on Apple TV

    Amazon Music finally arrives on Apple TV

    Amazon has announced that its music streaming service is finally available on Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD running tvOS 12.0 and later. If you’re an Amazon Music subscriber, you can now download the Amazon Music app from the App Store for Apple TV.

    If you’re not a subscriber, you can still download the app and try out the service for 30 days before deciding whether or not it’s worth a monthly fee. The app allows listeners to browse and search for music from their favorite artists, access all purchased and imported music in their “My Music” library, and follow along with scrolling lyrics to their favorite music within the app.

    To get started say “Amazon Music” into the Apple TV Siri Remote or find the Amazon Music app in the Apple TV app store. The app should then display a 6-letter pairing code, which you must enter at https://amazon.com.code via your mobile browser or computer.

    Once that’s done, you’ll be able to stream millions of songs and thousands of playlists and stations on your Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD. You’ll also get access to a host of global playlists like Pop Culture, which include some of the popular songs across the current pop music landscape.

    Currently, the Amazon Music app for Apple TV is available to customers in the U.S., UK, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Japan, and India.

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  • Spotify update adds Siri support on iOS 13

    Spotify update adds Siri support on iOS 13

    Spotify quietly released a new update for its iOS app which brings important improvements and new features. The most important is Siri support on iOS 13, which means that you’ll be able to control your Spotify app on iPhone, iPad, Carplay, Airpods, and HomePode via Airplay.

    After applying the latest update, simply say “Play [artist] on Spotify” and your iOS 13-powered device should do the rest. Be sure to mention Spotify though, otherwise, Siri will start Apple Music by default.

    Another important new addition is Apple TV support, which means that you can now download the app via the tvOS App Store or enable “automatically install apps” in tvOS settings to install it.

    Last but not least, Spotify has introduced low data mode on iOS 13. Basically, this means that the app will now turn on Data Saver when your iOS device’s Low Data Mode is turned on.

    All the improvements added in the update should work with all the devices running iOS 13, but 9to5mac discovered that the HomePod does not recognize Siri song requests yet. The issue might be addressed in a future iOS update, so you might want to try again after iOS 13.2 gets released.

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  • Apple Music massive update adds dark mode

    Apple Music massive update adds dark mode

    Apple Music beta experimented with a couple of new features that were made available to testers not long ago. Starting today, all those features added to the beta app are available to everyone who uses the Apple Music app on their Android phones.

    First and foremost, Apple Music now has a brand new dark mode, specially designed for low-light environments. It should be easy on the eyes and save some of your phone’s battery at the same time, so we strongly suggest using it whenever possible.

    The next major improvement is Chromecast support, a new change that lets Apple Music users stream their favorite music to their TV or connected speakers. Two other new features have been implemented in this update: live lyrics and access to live radio stations.

    The first allows Apple Music users to listen to their favorite music with perfectly timed lyrics, while the second new feature listed above will give them access to more than 100,000 broadcast radio stations from around the world.

    All the new features and improvements mentioned above are available in the latest version of Apple Music for Android, which you can download now via Google Play Store.

  • Spotify launches two personalized playlists to satisfy your music obsessions

    Spotify launches two personalized playlists to satisfy your music obsessions

    Spotify has just announced two new personalized playlists are now available for music lovers with obsessions: On Repeat and Repeat Rewind. The new playlists let Spotify users enjoy the songs they played most all over again.

    With On Repeat, Spotify users can keep track of what they’ve been playing most over the past 30 days. The playlist auto-updates, which means you can be sure everything that’s playing is the most up-to-date account of what you’ve been playing most frequently.

    The second new playlist, Repeat Rewind lets you rediscover the songs that you played over a month ago. Just like the On Repeat playlist, songs can span across artists, moods, and genres. Repeat Rewind will update itself every five days, although the tracks won’t appear on both personalized playlists at the same time.

    As mentioned earlier, both personalized playlists are now available globally for Free and Premium users in the Made For You Hub, as well as the “Uniquely Yours” shelf on Home.

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  • Spotify wants to track your location ‘from time to time’, which feels wholly unnecessary

    Spotify wants to track your location ‘from time to time’, which feels wholly unnecessary

    Launched way back in 2014, Spotify’s Premium Family plan was revised a couple of years later to allow up to six different users on the same account to stream unlimited music with no ads or interruptions in exchange for only $14.99 a month in total. The catch is the primary account holder and all other family members need to reside at the same address to qualify for this deal, which is a pretty old rule that the service wasn’t very preoccupied to enforce until recently.

    Last year, Spotify tried to crack down on rulebreakers that share their accounts without being related or living in the same place, but unsurprisingly, a lot of people reacted negatively to the company’s attempts at “verifying”, aka tracking, their location. Consequently, the new verification policy, which was merely being tested on a relatively small scale in a handful of markets, got abandoned before reaching a general implementation phase.
    But surprise, surprise, it appears the platform’s legal terms were discreetly modified last month to include a section bound to cause a lot of controversy yet again. In addition to asking for home address verification from all Spotify Premium Family subscribers upon first activating one such account, the service may now ask “from time to time” for “re-verification” in order to “confirm that you are still meeting the eligibility criteria.”
    In other words, Spotify wants to check on your location “from time to time”, which sounds like a pretty sketchy behavior from an app that really doesn’t need that kind of information to do what it does best. For what it’s worth, a company spokesperson highlighted in a short statement to Cnet that Spotify does not store your location data or keep tracking you once the verification procedure is completed. Also, all sensitive data is encrypted and “can be edited by the plan owner as needed.”
    Still, given all the scandals involving the misuse of this type of information by so many tech giants, services, and apps, it’s easy to understand why Spotify subscribers might feel nervous sharing their location (using GPS coordinates no less) from “time to time.” There’s also the question of Spotify’s definition of the word “family”, as real-world family members often live apart.
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