Posts tagged with "music"

Apple Amends App Review Guidelines to Permit Game Emulators and Make Other Changes

Yesterday, Apple announced an update to its App Review Guidelines in a brief post on its developer site. The changes to sections 3.1.1(a) and 4.7 of the guidelines, which apply globally to all apps distributed through Apple’s App Store, address three items:

  • game emulators,
  • super apps, and
  • linking to the web from inside music streaming apps to make purchases outside the App Store

Historically, game emulators were forbidden from the App Store. As a result, an emulator like Delta, which can play games released for Nintendo systems through the N64, could only be used on iPhones through a clever combination of developer tools and a Mail plug-in. In contrast, there are plenty of emulators on the Google Play store for Android users to download.

Revised section 4.7 of the App Review guidelines specifically allows retro gaming emulators:

Mini apps, mini games, streaming games, chatbots, plug-ins, and game emulators

Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, specifically HTML5 mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins. Additionally, retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games.

Presumably, this will allow Delta and other emulators onto the App Store, so they can be used to play game files stored on iPhones.

The change to section 4.7 also says that “mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins” of the sort found in apps like WeChat must be created with HTML 5, a clarification of the language previously used.

Finally, section 3.1.1(a) of the App Review Guidelines allows music streaming services to link out to the web from their apps so customers can make purchases outside the App Store. The change addresses the anti-steering provisions for which Apple was fined $2 billion by the EU, and Apple has said it will appeal.

Apple Music Debuts Heavy Rotation, A New Daily Made For You Playlist

This morning I woke up to a pleasant surprise. Apple had quietly added a new Made For You playlist to the Music app called Heavy Rotation that’s updated daily.

As you’d expect from a playlist called Heavy Rotation, mine is comprised of 25 songs, most of which I believe I listened to yesterday and probably other times recently. What’s a little different about Heavy Rotation compared to the other Made For You Playlists is that it’s updated daily, while the other Made For You playlists get updated weekly.

Made For You and Stations for You are excellent complements to Apple's curated playlists.

Made For You and Stations for You are excellent complements to Apple’s curated playlists.

If you listen to a lot of albums, you’ll probably have a bunch of songs by a handful of artists in your Heavy Rotation playlist. That is certainly true of The National’s Trouble Will Find Me, an album I listened to yesterday. However, most of the time, I listen to playlists, which will undoubtedly add more variety.

Curiously, the new playlist doesn’t seem to respect the Focus filter that allows you to exclude listening from your Apple Music Listening History. Both Federico and Jonathan use that feature and told me they each found a track in their Heavy Rotation playlist that should have been filtered out.

Heavy Rotation is an excellent addition to Music. Playing it as I write this, it feels like I’m picking up where I left off yesterday as I walked around my neighborhood with my AirPods Pro. I hope that today’s addition of a new Made For You playlist and the recent addition of the Discovery station are signs that Apple plans to explore even more ways to resurface songs in your Music library.

Vision Pro App Spotlight: Longplay Adds Immersive Album Listening

The music experience on the Apple Vision Pro is excellent. It starts with the device’s built-in headphones and spatial audio, which work hand-in-hand with the visual components of spatial computing. Apple has already shown off the potential for immersive experiences like Alicia Keys: Rehearsal Room, but the music experience goes deeper than that, thanks to third-party developers.

I’ve already covered Juno, Christian Selig’s YouTube player app, which is great for watching music videos and other content, and NowPlaying, which supplements Apple Music with editorial content, lyrics, and more. Today, though, I want to focus on Longplay, Adrian Schönig’s album-oriented playback app for Apple Music.

Longplay 2.0 was released last August. It was a big update that I reviewed at the time and have been enjoying ever since. The app is available on the Vision Pro now too, complete with an immersive mode that I love.

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Is Apple Collaborating with SongShift on Migrating Users to Apple Music?→

Speaking of Apple Music, Apple appears to be testing ways to migrate your music library and playlists from other streaming services to its own.

Chance Miller, writing for 9to5Mac, reports on the discovery made by users of the Apple Music for Android beta on Reddit:

Now, Apple appears to be testing native integration with SongShift. According to users on Reddit, there is a new prompt in Apple Music for Android that asks users if they want to “add saved music and playlists you made in other music services to your Apple Music library.” There’s also a new option for doing this through Apple Music’s settings on Android.

SongShift is an excellent third-party app that we’ve covered over the years at MacStories. However, I’d be surprised if Apple winds up partnering with a third-party developer for this sort of new user onboarding experience instead of building a similar tool itself. Regardless of the direction Apple decides to take, a migration tool makes a lot of sense for anyone who is deeply invested in another service but is interested in trying Apple Music.

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Apple Music Replay Updated with Monthly Listening Statistics

Apple has updated its Replay website with monthly totals for top artists, albums, songs, and milestones, giving Apple Music listeners a reason to visit the site more than once a year. The update bears some similarities to the sort of monthly statistics available from sites like Last.fm, although less detailed.

Here’s what Apple had to say about the new features:

Once logged in [to Apple Music], users can check out their top songs, top albums, top artists, and milestones of the month, every month. They can also listen to their personal top songs chart of the year with their Replay Mix, which updates weekly.

The update extends the existing Replay site’s beautiful, interactive design. Selecting milestones provides additional details about the music you were listening to when you reach each one.

Currently, only January’s statistics are available. The site says February statistics will appear in early March. However, the monthly stats have been added for 2023, too, so you can browse last year’s musical obsessions as you wait for February’s. The deeper year-round statistics are a welcome addition to Replay. I still wish I could access all of this inside the Music app itself, but I love the new level of detail about my listening habits.

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.

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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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.

AirScrobble Greatly Expands Its Utility with Headphone Compatibility, Live Activity Support, and App Shortcuts

It’s time to take a brief break from widgets to bring you scrobbles. Scrobbling is Last.fm’s name for matching and logging the music to which you listen. The payoff of scrobbling is the in-depth statistics that Last.fm delivers monthly and annually to users. It’s also a great way to relive musical moments in your life and find music that you may not have in your library but that you may have heard while you’re out and about.

One of the best ways to scrobble on the iPhone and iPad is with AirScrobble, which has grown into a terrific all-around Last.fm utility. One of the app’s previous limitations, though, was that it only worked with music playing over a speaker. If you were using AirPods or other headphones, so the music couldn’t be matched via an iPhone or iPad’s microphone, you were out of luck. However, with the app’s latest release, you can now scrobble even while listening with headphones.

Scrobbling from Broadcasts.

Scrobbling from Broadcasts.

That alone is pretty great, but AirScrobble now works with any app that produces audio, too. Say you’re using Steve Troughton-Smith’s excellent Internet radio app Broadcasts to listen to your favorite college radio station. Now, AirScrobble can match the songs as you listen. The same goes for Reels you watch on Instagram, YouTube videos, and a lot more.

AirScrobble also includes Live Activity support. If you’ve started automatically scrobbling as you listen, the Live Activity expands when a song is recognized, offering an interactive button for manually scrobbling the song immediately.

AirScrobble's App Shortcuts, Manual Scrobble App Shortcut, and Live Activity on my Lock Screen.

AirScrobble’s App Shortcuts, Manual Scrobble App Shortcut, and Live Activity on my Lock Screen.

The app has added support for App Shortcuts, too. If you’re out at a restaurant and hear a song you don’t know and want to capture it, do a quick Spotlight search for ‘AirScrobble’ and pick the Match App Shortcut. There’s also a Manual Scrobble App Shortcut, which lets you search for the name of a song using the search field. Plus, there’s a Love Track App Shortcut for marking a track as one of your favorites.

I love this update to AirScrobble. It works in so many more situations now that headphones are supported, as well as other audio sources. The Live Activity makes it easy to scrobble while doing something else on your iPhone or iPad, too. If you’re a music lover and use Last.fm, check be sure to check out AirScrobble.

AirScrobble is available on the App Store as a free download. Some of the app’s features require a subscription.