Apple Music Likely To Face Competition And Criticism

Apple Music has to deal with rivalry, criticism and competition before its launch.

Apple Inc.’s annual World Wide Developers Conference for the year 2015 took place earlier this month. The highlight of the show were the launch of its much awaited online music streaming service Apple Music along with the launch of their upcoming operating system for Apple products.

The WWDC broadcasted Apple Music to a great extent. The idea behind this service is to bring users and music streaming under one consolidated umbrella. It is said that this service will be a direct competitor to Tidal and Spotify where the former holds almost 49 percent of the total market share. The Swedish platform has a strong position and it will be relatively difficult for Apple Music to overthrow them so easily. Spotify is not really a major threat. The service has 60 million active users among which only one-fourth of them actually pay for the service.

Apple’s entry into the online music industry is not something astonishing. The company previously acquired Beats Electronics the previous year for $3.2 billion which is said to be a record-breaking deal. Apart from that, the company has immense success with its music downloading platform iTunes.

Apple faced its first setback in FY13 since its launch which occurred 10 years back since the online music subscription trend rose by 50 percent in that tenure. So now when Apple is actually coming up with its own online music streaming service, then the impact will be observed on iTunes as the trend of digital downloads will further decline. This is quite similar to how initially Apple iPhones took over the iPods because of their mass storage capacity.

Apple Music is the first initiative by the company to enter the music streaming market so at this point users will not be comfortable in shelving out $10 monthly if they don’t know what the service actually holds for them. So the company has announced a three-month free trial to its customers so that they get the heck of it.

Recently, the company dealt with criticism when one of the renowned pop icons, Taylor Swift decided to remove her popular alum from Apple Music since the company decided not to pay artists during the free three month trial period. So Apple had to deal with criticism and eventually decided to pay artists during the free three month trial period.

Thus Apple Music does have its pros and cons but the response can only be governed once it is officially launched by the company.

Bidness Tech - Pebble Time Is Not Content With Apple

Apple faces criticism by Pebble Time for not approving its app review.

Recently Pebble Time started the shipment of is the wearable device. However, the company is dealing with several issues whilst connecting with Apple iPhones. The company is concerned about this issue and to add more value to this, the company has approached Twitter Inc. to make the issue viral on social media.

Pebble Time has asked customers to help it out and has asked consumer to promote ““#FreeOurPebbleTime” since Apple Inc. is making it relatively difficult for them. App store submission is the core problem, which the company is dealing with currently.

According to the company, the developers have sent an app review to Apple on May 18 before the Pebble Time was actually launched. Moreover, Pebble also believes that the company is responsible for the obstruction. Ironically, many customers consider Pebble’s device to be “paper weight” for Apple users since it is not much compatible.

Apple is not the one to be blamed since Pebble submitted the app review and less than 10 days had passed. However, for any app review to publish, minimum 10 days are required. Pebble should have taken this factor into consideration before submission because this is certainly not Apple’s fault if they were not considerate about Apple’s policies.

For the time being, Pebble has asked its clients to access the watch facilities by borrowing an Android phone. The idea is to down load the Watch Faces so that they can enjoy the features of this wearable technology.

Pebble has also acknowledged that they submitted bug fixes for its product, but that also has been pending since 43 days. According to them the issue is the Apple Watch is the reason why Apple has been skeptical about their products. The company wishes to only develop, market, sale and promote its own wearable technology. According to BidnessEtc, “The official statement by the company remains that they have not faced any faults with the Pebble app, with the previous statement of applications not being denied access, on the grounds that they are working with Pebble.”

It is normal for Pebble to react in such a manner, but now they are just trying to create controversy, everybody knows that the Apple Watch is relatively better than Pebble Time in terms of quality, finish, features etc. but the biggest benefit for Apple watch is that it is an Apple product. The company should settle the dispute with authorities in a subtle manner rather than making the entire social media talk about it.

Bidness Tech - Google's Carboard VR experience is now also available for iPhone users

Google's Carboard VR experience is now also available for iPhone users.

Thanks to Google iOS, users can now witness things in a virtual sphere as well and that too for less than users would expect. On Friday, Google released cardboard for iOS to the App Store. The move means that the super cheap virtual reality equipment will also work with Apple iPhones.

The Cardboard for iOS app is free and is combined with a DIY mount for a mind-blowing VR experience, the amount costs $20 only, which is pretty cheap for such an amazing gear. The VR gear is available for iPhone 5 down to the latest model.

This week at the annual I/O 2015 developers conference, Google also revealed some changes that have been made to the Cardboard, one crucial modification being the fact that the Cardboard can now support phones sized up to six inches, according to latest Google updates about its ongoing projects and innovative ventures which were brought to light in the auspicious keynote.

Unveiled at the annual I/O 2014 developers’ conference, the Cardboard was designed specifically for Android phones, therefore it was limited in terms of device support, moreover, it was only available on Google Play. However, that has taken a 360-degree turn with the Cardboard for iOS now out.

The reviews are coming in pretty quick and from what we’ve gathered, Cardboard for iOS seems to be doing really well; the process of assembling the mount is pretty simple, a three step process actually. Moreover, the VR experience is pretty smooth with Cardboard for iOS; it is no different than the Android Cardboard experience.

The iPhone 6 cardboard experience is pretty smooth as well, actually it is even better than Nexus 5 and 6, some reviews report that it is so far their favorite Cardboard VR experience. Let be it the device itself, resolution, or the new headset size, with the iPhone 6, it all comes together as the best Cardboard experience yet. Do check it out, if you are an iPhone user, the VR experience will barely cost you anything, and it goes without saying that it is all worth it.

Apple Watch Sales Better Than Expectation

Analyst at UBS claims Apple Watch Sales to be better than expected.

UBS analysts have again given Apple Inc. a BUY rating where the price target for Apple stocks is now $150. The firm recently conducted a survey for a smartphone which clearly highlights how Apple (AAPL) iPhones have been doing well in the market. The company has maintained a strong hold in the market with its top-notch products and services.

The survey involved 8.650 respondents; however, the results obtained did not really boasts of very astonishing results when considering their previous track record. According to this survey, a drop has been observed in the retention rate, but Apple’s market share has substantially risen.

The survey clearly shows that the retention rate of AAPL has dropped where initially it was at 84 per cent and now it has been recorded at 78 per cent. However, analysts at the firm expect the company’s performance to get better with the times to come despite the retention rate has slacked. The reason why Apple will continue to do well is fairly simple since now users are more inclined towards Apple than any other brand including Samsung. A 14 percent increase has been observed in the company’s stocks this annum.

There are several reason so as to why Apple products have more demand in the retail business than any other firm which includes battery life, size of the screen, network quality etc. according to the survey, almost 30 percent of iPhone users are likely to spend more time on the smartphone that is manufactured with a lifespan of 2.1 years. The company is known for high quality and top notch products that are far unique than any other smartphone in the market. However, the tech behemoth needs to work on the value for money factor.

However, despite the popularity of the smartphone a decline has been observed in the number of people interested to buy Apple Watch. Previously it had a 10 per cent market share but now it stands at 8 per cent. On the other hand, all Apple Watches together have done better than expectation where orders are rolling in for sports and edition.

Apple’s price target is $150 which is based on the company’s FY15 performance which has estimated price earnings of 16.5x. A poll happened on Bloomberg in which out of 57, 39 analysts gave the company a BUY rating, 15 rated the stock as HOLD and the remaining rated as SELL. The approximated price target for FY15 is $148.71.