Apple Inc chief executive officer Tim Cook on Monday said that the technology giant’s new music service has about 6.5 million subscribers.
“It is going really well,” Cook said during an on-stage chat on the opening evening of a Wall Street Journal technology forum on the Southern California coast. “Lots of people are liking it.”
People have begun ending free trials of the music service, which launched at the end of June in more than 100 nations.
FREE TRIAL
More than 8 million people are still in the free trial of Apple Music, pushing the total number of users to more than 15 million, Cook said.
He credited a human curation element — people who fashion playlists — for creating listening experiences superior to that delivered by “zeroes and ones” of computer algorithms.
“We have music experts just like the DJs when we were growing up,” Cook said, setting the service apart from entrenched rivals, such as Spotify and Pandora, which use software to tailor tunes to people’s tastes.
Apple Music, the tech giant’s new streaming service, went live at the end of June as the company behind iTunes looks to dominate the fast-growing sector.
On another entertainment front, Apple is to begin taking orders for new Apple TV hardware beginning on Monday and shipments are to start by the end of next week, Cook said.
“I think it will be disruptive of the TV watching experience,” Cook said. “This is the foundation of the future of TV.”
The new Apple TV, unveiled last month, has the potential to do for television what iPhone did to mobile phones, while claiming a starring role in home entertainment.
Updated Apple TV hardware is not expected to revolutionize the television industry, but it could strike a blow to cable companies that have been in a power seat when it comes to delivering shows and other content.
APPLE TV
The new Apple TV is to have a version of the App Store that has been a hit on iPhones. The service is to launch with a starting price of US$149.
Cook refused to provide figures regarding Apple Watch sales, but said the California company shipped “a lot” in the first quarter they were released and that number has ramped each subsequent quarter.
He dodged questions regarding what kind of plans, if any, Apple had for making a car.
Rumors have abounded in recent months of Apple working on a self-driving car, in its own spin on work being done by Google Inc and Tesla Motors Inc.
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