Posts tagged with "Apple Music"

Apple Introduces Two New Personalized Music Stations

Apple Music has added two new personalized stations: Love and Heartbreak. Here’s how Apple describes each:

The Love Station features songs about romantic love, falling in love, feeling amorous, and feelings that these experiences bring. Tailored to each listener’s taste, the Love Station will play songs and artists they know and love along with recommendations. Not exclusively ballads, these love songs are guaranteed to amplify the mood; whether they’ve got that rush of a new crush, or that fully grown long time love. 

The Heartbreak Station features songs about heartbreak, unrequited love, breaking up, or sad love. Having your heart broken is awful. Sometimes during these moments, music is the only thing that can make sense of it all. The Heartbreak Station will play a blend of songs from artists listeners know and recommendations, to help them let it all out.

The introduction of the new stations follows the Discovery station, which debuted last summer. It’s great to see Apple expanding these algorithmically-generated stations based on your listening habits because they’re nice complements to the curated playlists from Apple Music’s editorial team.

Apple Updates Its Collection of Windows Apps

Today, Apple introduced a redesigned version of its iCloud for Windows app. The updated app, which allows users to access photos, files, passwords, and other content on a Windows PC, has clarified how it works and where synced content can be found. The app also adds physical password keys and other refinements. I don’t spend a lot of time using Windows, but I appreciate that it makes it easy to access passwords, files, and other content when I do, and today’s update makes that process a little easier, which is great.

The other updates today were to apps that have been available as previews on Windows for a while. That’s no longer the case for Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Devices. The functionality of those apps was previously found in iTunes for Windows. Music and TV closely resemble their Mac counterparts, whereas Devices lets users update, backup, restore, and manage their Apple devices on a Windows PC, similar to the way Mac users can do the same in Finder.

iTunes for Windows survives for podcast and audiobook listening.

iTunes for Windows survives for podcast and audiobook listening.

Although today marks the end of many of the core features of iTunes for Windows, the app continues to be available to Windows users to manage their podcasts and audiobooks. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Windows versions of Apple Podcasts and Books in the future.

Vision Pro App Spotlight: NowPlaying

NowPlaying by Hidde van der Ploeg has come a long way since its start. It’s always been an excellent companion to Apple Music, packed with music discovery features that fill a big gap in Apple’s system app. But, with the visionOS version, van der Ploeg has taken NowPlaying to a new level. visionOS allows users of the app to spread out, focus on the music, and absorb the rich catalog of metadata and editorial content about their music in a beautiful, relaxing atmosphere.

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Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 17.3 with Collaborative Playlists, Stolen Device Protection, New Black Unity Wallpaper, and More

Update: This story previously listed paying with Apple Pay as one of the actions protected with Stolen Device Protection on. Apple has since clarified in a Support document that paying with Apple Pay can still be performed using the iPhone passcode.

Today, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 17.3, the third major updates to the operating systems that launched in September and Federico reviewed on MacStories.

iOS and iPadOS 17.3 bring only a couple of major new features, including one that was previously expected to be released in iOS and iPadOS 17.2 (but was then delayed), a welcome new layer of protection and security for your Apple ID, and a set of new dynamic wallpapers.

Let’s jump in.

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Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 17.2 with Journal App, Messages and Music Improvements, and More

iOS 17.2.

iOS 17.2.

Today, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 17.2, the second major updates to the operating systems that launched in September and I reviewed on MacStories.

iOS and iPadOS 17.2 revolve around two kinds of enhancements: there are a series of updates to built-in apps (mostly Messages, Music, and Camera) and various tweaks to widgets; then, there’s the brand new Journal app for iPhone, which aims to reinvent the practice of journaling for iOS users with a built-in solution that’s deeply integrated with the OS and apps.

We’re going to cover Journal with a standalone article on MacStories from the perspective of someone who’s been keeping a journal in Day One for several years. In this story, I’m going to focus on what else is new in iOS and iPadOS 17.2 and the different improvements you’ll find throughout the system.

Let’s dive in.

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Apple Music Replay Is Out, but for a Deeper Look at Your Music Habits, Try Last.fm

Yesterday, Apple released Apple Music Replay, its annual recap of Apple Music subscribers’ listening habits. The site is beautifully designed with images of artists coming to life with video when you’re not scrolling the page. Included this year are:

  • A highlight reel
  • Top artists
  • Top songs
  • Top albums
  • Top genres
  • Top playlists
  • Top radio stations
  • Listening milestones

As I scroll through my lists, there isn’t anything surprising here. I could have guessed my top artists, songs, and albums and put at least the top five or so in the correct order, which goes to the heart of what I and others have faulted Apple Music Replay for in the past.

The site looks great, and the listening milestones, which explain things like the fact that I crossed 25,000 minutes of listening in early August, are interesting, but they don’t go deep enough. I’d like to know things like which of the artists that I didn’t listen to prior to 2023, did I listen to the most in 2023? What’s a favorite album or band from years ago that I rediscovered? How did the genres I listened to evolve over the course of the year? Which artists took off in my regular rotation compared to past years? There are a million questions that could be answered by Apple Music that aren’t, and that’s a shame.

Spotify does a better job at surfacing interesting data with Wrapped, but if you’re like me and prefer other aspects of Apple Music, sign up for Last.fm, use one of the many excellent indie apps, like Marvis Pro, Soor, Albums, Longplay, Doppler, and Air Scrobble that support the service, and then enjoy your weekly, monthly, and annual reports in Last.fm’s app or on its website.

To view your own Replay 2023 statistics, visit replay.music.apple.com.

Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 17.1 with New Apple Music Features, Small iPad Enhancements, and More

iOS 17.1.

iOS 17.1.

Today, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 17.1 – the first major updates to the operating systems that launched (and I reviewed) in September. I’ll cut to the chase: these are not big updates and don’t come with new emoji. Instead, iOS and iPadOS 17.1 bring a variety of previously-announced (and then delayed) features such as AirDrop over the Internet and new cover art templates in Music, but they don’t address the complete list of functionalities for this OS cycle that Apple originally announced last June.

Let’s take a look.

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Shazam Introduces Dedicated In-App Concerts Section

Today, Shazam introduced a dedicated Concerts section in its music discovery app that lets you explore upcoming shows that are recommended based on your Shazam history. Users can look at all recommended shows or narrow recommendations to those that are scheduled nearby. There’s also an option to display popular shows irrespective of your listening history.

When you find an artist’s show that you want to learn more about, tapping on the event listing offers additional options to:

  • Buy tickets via Ticketmaster or BandsInTown
  • Save the show for later, which moves it to the top of the Concerts section
  • Add the show to your calendar
  • View a map of the venue in Apple Maps
  • Access playlists, albums, singles, and music videos in Apple Music
  • View additional tour dates on a dedicated Concert Guide screen

Apple says other perks will be available too:

Shazam now also gives users the ability to save and revisit events, set reminders about upcoming shows, view tickets and unlock concert exclusives from select artists, which include brand new Watch faces and wallpapers available for download, behind the scenes video, tour photos, show set lists and more.

An example of bonus content for an USHER's upcoming Super Bowl show.

An example of bonus content for an USHER’s upcoming Super Bowl show.

For example, USHER’s Super Bowl concert in Las Vegas next February includes bonus content that links to information about his appearance, which is sponsored by Apple Music.

Events can be shared via the share sheet and accessed via Spotlight Search, too.

Examples of the dedicated artist pages available via Spotlight Search.

Examples of the dedicated artist pages available via Spotlight Search.

Some of the functionality found in Shazam’s Concerts section was previously added to the app. However, it’s great to see concerts get a dedicated space in the app. The update will make it easier for fans to discover upcoming shows and learn more about newly-discovered artists.

The Shazam update is available now for iOS and iPadOS users and will be released in the Android version of the app soon.

Apple Podcasts Adds Shows From Apple Music and News, Plus a Selection of Third-Party, Subscription-Based Apps

Apple Podcasts significantly expanded its Apple Music and Apple News podcast channels late yesterday and introduced podcasts for subscribers to a variety of third-party apps. In all, Apple says there are over 60 new shows comprised of over 2,500 episodes.

The Apple Music channel new features 42 shows, a significant increase from the handful that were available before. The lineup includes a mix of host-driven shows from Apple Music 1, interviews, music commentary, specials, and more, most of which are exclusive to Apple Music subscribers.

Apple News features four podcasts. News Today features a short, daily rundown of headlines from around the world; After the Whistle follows the World Cup; Apple News In Conversation is a weekly news commentary show; and Narrated News is an Apple News+ subscriber exclusive that presents audio narration of longform writing, something previously only available in the News app.

Some of the subscription-based apps that are offering podcasts. Source: Apple.

Some of the subscription-based apps that are offering podcasts. Source: Apple.

Among the subscription apps that are adding podcasts to their offerings are The Washington Post, Calm, Lingokids, Bloomberg, Sleep Cycle, and several others.

I haven’t had a chance to try any of the app add-on shows because I don’t subscribe to any of the participating apps. However, I spent some time this morning browsing through the Apple Music and Apple News offerings. Most of what is now available from Apple Music or Apple News in Podcasts was already available in their own apps. Still, I like having it available in Podcasts, where both channels’ shows fit in naturally with the other podcasts I enjoy, making Podcasts a one-stop destination for spoken audio. Listening in the Podcasts app also has the advantage of allowing listeners to receive notifications when a new episode is released and queue episodes for playback.

One thing I’d love to see the Apple Music and Apple News shows add is show notes. Links to songs played so they can be added to a listener’s library would be a useful addition to the Apple Music podcasts, as would links to materials on the topics covered by Apple News.