Plenty of Apple, iPhone, and iPad news gets released each week – but not everything is worthy of its own full article! Sometimes, scanning a few quick summaries gives you all the information you need.
So please dig into this week’s Apple news bites, freshly sourced from all around the web. As ever, click through to read the full stories if you want to know more!
Apple adds 100k radio stations to Siri’s knowledge base
This is something that was announced at WWDC as part of iOS 13, but seems to be rolling out early. You can now invoke a live radio station just by asking Siri on iPhone, iPad, and HomePod. Apple has teamed up with existing radio aggregators to source over 100,000 stations from around the world.
Jony Ive leaves Apple to start new company after becoming ‘dispirited’
Apple’s Chief Design Officer and the genius behind the company’s most iconic designs is starting his own design practice, with Apple a key client. Reports suggest this was an inevitable move, as Ive has been moving steadily away from his old hands-on approach since the release of the first-gen Apple Watch in 2015. The reports states he was often late or absent from meetings and has been giving less feedback to the design team over the last few years.
However, Tim Cook tells a different story…
Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t agree with the conclusions formed in the WSJ report about Jony Ive. In fact, he penned a pretty blunt email to defend the company. Here’s a taste:
“The story is absurd. At a base level, it shows a lack of understanding about how the design team works and how Apple works. The design team is phenomenally talented. As Jony has said, they’re stronger than ever, and I have complete confidence that they will thrive under Jeff, Evans, and Alan’s leadership. The projects they’re working on will blow you away.”
Apple executive Eddy Cue talks TV+ in recent interview
SVP Eddy Cue has revealed more about upcoming streaming service Apple TV+ in a new interview. He says TV+ will use a different model than Netflix, and it won’t attempt to compete with the streaming service in terms of the sheer quantity of original shows. He also admits that Apple itself didn’t know enough about the TV world to make good shows on its own, which is why it hired two of Sony media’s big names to oversee things.
Apple Music and Spotify improve music industry for indies
Streaming music services get a lot of flak for the relative pittance paid to artists, but there is evidence to show that smaller independent labels are benefitting from all the world’s music being so easily accessible. The easy discovery promoted by Apple Music and Spotify has double indie labels’ music market share to 40% since the days before widespread streaming. It’s also good to be reminded that Apple pays artists much more than the competition – $12-15 for every $1 paid by YouTube, and roughly double what Spotify pays out.