In a big shake-up at smart speaker maker Sonos — whose high-end audio products are popular with Apple users — CEO Patrick Spence resigned effective immediately and a board member will step in as interim CEO, the company said Monday. Spence’s departure comes after a turbulent 2024 that saw the company struggle with a controversial app redesign, disappointing product launches and declining customer satisfaction.
iOS 18.2 will make searching on Apple Music and Apple TV much easier with natural language support. This means you can use natural language to describe and search for TV shows or music you are looking for.
The revamped Photos app gained support for similar search capabilities with the iOS 18.1 update.
Apple Music Replay is a great way to find your music stats for the past year: the most played songs, artists and albums in the last 12 months. Similar to Spotify Wrapped and the like, your annual Apple replay is a fun way to see what tracks you listened to most.
Fun fact: Apple usually publicizes Apple Music Replay in November, but it’s actually updated weekly and available throughout the whole year! You can check in whenever you want to see how 2025 is shaping up.
We’ll show you how to find it and how to share your top music of the year to your friends and social media.
Apple Music has a karaoke mode for people who love to sing along as they listen. Apple Music Sing lets you turn down the lyrics so you can karaoke to your favorite hits with just one tap.
In fact, I’m using it right now to listen to some of my favorite music without the lyrics distracting me from reading and writing. Let me show you how it works!
Apple Music named Billie Eilish Artist of the Year for 2024 on Thursday. That makes her the first artist to receive the honor twice. The 22-year-old singer-songwriter previously won the inaugural award in 2019.
“Since day one, Apple Music has supported my music and artistry, and I am both honored and humbled to receive this recognition as Artist of the Year this many years into my career,” Eilish said.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: So … many … M4 Mac reviews! Griffin tells us why the new Mac mini and the updated iMac make him go gaga. And the faster MacBook Pros are no slouches, either.
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
Back when Apple Music put out its 100 Best Albums of all time list, some people expressed shock at the No. 1 pick — 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. And now they might be shocked they’re being asked to pay a whopping $450 for a fancy-schmancy, limited-edition coffee-table book version of the whole list. That seems like an Apple move, doesn’t it? But if you’re into it, act fast — only 1,500 copies exist.
However, before you do … you know you could buy an M1 or maybe an M2 Mac mini with that $450, right? Just sayin’.
Songs disappear from Apple Music all the time due to licensing problems or artists doing controversial things. Spotify found itself caught up in similar situation in 2022, losing Neil Young’s discography in a protest of the streaming service’s association with podcaster Joe Rogan. Luckily, there’s a way you can find out if any songs in your library have been removed from Apple Music behind your back.
If you own a Mac, you can quickly find out by building a special Smart Playlist. I’ll show you how.
A hot feature of Apple Music playlist collaboration. In advance of a party, road trip or any kind of themed event, you and others organizing the music can build a playlist together.
This isn’t to be confused with a similar feature, SharePlay, which lets people in the same room add songs to a live queue. SharePlay is more ephemeral; it lets others nearby play songs in the car or to a Bluetooth speaker without passing around your unlocked phone.
A shared Apple Music playlist is saved and can be replayed at any time. To find out everything you need to know about Apple Music playlist collaboration, keep reading or watch our quick how-to video.
October 9, 1991: A court orders Apple to pay $26.5 million to Apple Corps, The Beatles’ record label and holding company, for trademark infringement. The end of this Beatles versus Apple lawsuit marks the second time Cupertino is forced to pay the English rock band.
The ruling comes a decade after Apple swore it would never get into the music business.
iOS 18 is getting a bunch of cool new accessibility features this year, including bringing eye tracking to the iPhone for the first time. You also can feel haptic music, control your phone with custom voice commands, use your phone in the car without suffering from motion sickness, and improve the accuracy of Siri and dictation.
Check out our video to see it in action or keep reading below.
The Apple Music Classical streaming service now includes over 50,000 album booklets featuring in-depth liner notes, translations and more.
These provide music aficionados with the in-depth information they want.
September 1, 2010: Apple’s new music-focused social network, Ping, ships as part of iTunes 10. Apple says the service will let users discover new music and more easily follow their favorite artists.
Ping racks up 1 million signups in the first 48 hours. Nevertheless, Apple’s social network is doomed from the start.
In a surprising move, Apple is making it easier to transfer your playlists from Apple Music to YouTube Music. This is the first time the Cupertino company is offering a tool like this for Apple Music users.
If you are an Apple Music subscriber, the tool makes transferring your playlists to YouTube Music easy.
You can find new music on the Apple Music Discovery Station, which gives you a tailored playlist to suggest new artists and jams you’ve never heard before but should like based on your personal musical tastes.
Personalized recommendations have long been a reason people cite for sticking with Spotify over Apple Music. But you can add the Discovery Station to my list of eight reasons you should make the switch. Apple Music offers personalized music picks, too, and the system works great.
I’ll show you where to find Apple Music’s Discovery Station and how to make the most of it.
The Apple One subscription bundle lets users save money on Apple’s subscription services like Apple Music, Apple TV+ and iCloud+ storage. The company offers three Apple One configurations. Check pricing on Apple One’s three tiers — Individual, Family and Premier — and find out what you get for your money (and, most importantly, how much you can save).
iPhone users could use AI to create their own artwork for playlists in Apple Music, according to code reportedly found in the latest iOS 18 beta. The feature would use Apple Intelligence’s ability to generate images based on simple instructions.
If true, this is be one of multiple new artificial intelligence capabilities coming to iPhone.
The recent return of the iconic Beats Pill portable Bluetooth speaker wasn’t just a typical product update, but a complete overhaul to help cement Beats’ identity as a premium-products subsidiary of the iPhone giant, according to a new interview with Apple executives.
“We wanted to do something special with the Pill and completely re-architect and reimagine it,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple VP of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Sports and Beats. “It wasn’t a case [of] let’s swap out one or two things. We really wanted a complete refresh. This is a completely new product inside, and outside as well.”
June 30, 2015: Apple launches 24/7 radio station Beats 1. Part of Apple Music, Beats 1 features top DJs ranging from former BBC presenter Zane Lowe to top musical artists like Lil Wayne.
Apple calls Beats 1 “the biggest radio station in the world” and says it beats (no pun intended) all other music stations when it comes to concurrent listeners. However, without hard figures to back that up, some call out Cupertino on this claim.
Dozens of students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) participated in a two-week creative arts program funded by Apple’s Racial Equality and Justice Initiative, the iPhone giant said Thursday.
Apple’s Propel Center and Apple Music’s Nashville office worked with two universities on the program. It aims to help students pursue creative and executive careers in the arts, particularly music.
Following a price hike in the US earlier this month, Spotify has unveiled a cheaper streaming music plan for its users. The new “Basic” streaming tier costs $10.99/month, $1 cheaper than the Premium plan.
Spotify charged the same price for its Premium plan before increasing it in early June. That was the company’s second price hike in less than a year.
The streaming music service Spotify just increased its prices for new U.S. subscribers. The costs of most subscription options are now above those of its arch rival, Apple Music.
The new prices go into effect for current subscribers in July.
With Apple’s massive annual software confab known as WWDC24 coming up fast on June 10, the iPhone giant decided it’s time to rock out with a special WWDC24 Apple Music playlist. The WWDC24 Hello list of tunes features music by Billie Eilish, Good Neighbours, Glass Animals and other artists.
Check it out below! This probably won’t be as controversial as the streamer’s top 100 albums list and its surprising No. 1 pick.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: First we get into what makes the M4 iPad Pro so fabulous. Then we discuss the latest rumors about iPhone 16 and beyond. And then we ponder the unthinkable: A Siri that’s actually smart!
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
You might be shocked to find out the No. 1 album of all time according to Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list.
After releasing 10 albums a day in an agonizingly slow bleed, Apple Music finally unveiled its top 10 Wednesday. The final installment is sure to get people talking, especially the No. 1 pick: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Apple Music took care to justify every selection, though. DJs Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden spoke with guest artists Nile Rodgers and Maggie Rogers about the top 10.