Apple Inc’s online music subscription service Apple Music is losing a key player as millions of listeners near the end of a free three-month trial period that has drawn mixed reviews.
Ian Rogers, part of a team acquired last year, is leaving Apple to take a job at an unidentified company in Europe. Apple confirmed Rogers’ departure on Friday without providing additional details.
Apple’s US$3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics LLC last year was driven in large part by the iPhone maker’s desire to draw upon the musical chops of Rogers, long-time recording executive Jimmy Iovine and hip-hop artist Dr Dre. Both Iovine and Dr Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, remain with Apple.
Rogers got his start running a fan Web site for the Beastie Boys in the 1990s and later became involved in various musical endeavors that tried to blend tunes with the latest in technology. He had been CEO of Beats streaming music service at the time of the Apple acquisition.
After working with the Beats team, Apple launched its music streaming service in late June to compete with more established rivals such as Spotify Inc and Pandora Inc.
Rogers had been overseeing Apple Music’s online radio stations, including Beats 1, which are to remain free even after people have to start paying to use most of the company’s music service.
Apple says 11 million people have tried its music service during its trial period. In contrast, Spotify boasts 75 million users, including 20 million subscribers to a more sophisticated ad-free version of its service.
Music streaming services that charge monthly fees or play ads are becoming increasingly popular as people gravitate away from digital stores, such as Apple’s iTunes, which sell entire albums or individual songs that can be stored on devices. The shift is the main reason that Apple decided to build its own streaming service with a library of more than 30 million songs.
Since its debut, Apple Music has been criticized for being too complicated to use and for having trouble customizing suitable song recommendations for the individual tastes of different listeners. Analysts believe the true test of the service’s staying power is to come after listeners’ free trial period ends.
That expiration is to occur in October for people who activated the service within the first few days that it was available. After the trial period ends, Apple is to charge US$10 per month for individuals and US$15 per month for a family plan that gives up to six people unlimited access to the music library.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day