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.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS