Apple to launch music streaming service and revamp news app
Tech giant Apple is the world's biggest company – and it's intending to keep it that way.
The California-based company – which as of February was twice as big as the world's second-largest listed company, ExxonMobil – is looking to expand its business beyond just coming up with new iterations of the iPhone or risky, potential white elephant innovations like the Apple Watch.
To do this, Apple is ploughing a similar furrow that led to the iPhone in that it is going to reinvent the wheel, or wheels.
At its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8, the company showed off how It will give the Cupertino spin to existing ideas, in particular, a music streaming service and an app that hosts news stories.
Now where have we seen those before?
Apple Music
The rise of Spotify has seen music lovers gravitate towards subscription streaming rather than paying for individual tracks.
Streaming industry leader Spotify announced that it had hit 15 million paid subscribers and 60 million active users as 2014 drew to a close.
And naturally, tremendous success caught Apple's eye.
In June, Spotify, Rdio, Tidal and all other streaming services will be watching with trepidation as Apple Music launches.
It may be late to the party, but as far as other services are concerned, it may be the most popular guy there and those other guys better watch their girlfriends.
The analogy might be odd, but with over 30 million tracks in the vault and athree-month free trial for new users, some speculation has it that Apple Music could beat Spotify's subscriber base in less than a year.
But not everyone is convinced.
One aspect that few have considered, what happens to iTunes?
Will Apple Music users still want to buy songs from the iTunes store?
However, there is one thing people aren't complaining about - Apple Music will also be supported on Android devices.
News
Spotify isn't the only company facing competition.
Another guy at risk of losing his girl to the new but very popular boy in town is Flipboard Inc.
Gone is Apple's Newstand and in its place is News, a sleeker service that lets users tailor news stories to their locations.
It will host articles from major publications like The New York Times and Guardian.
Newstand was lauded as a saviour of newspaper and internet market in the digital age and with Apple's large following, it's as if Flipboard's going up against the captain of the college football team.
Music streaming and news aside, Apple will also be rolling out the iOS 9 software update and El Capitan OS X Macintosh operating system update.
iOS 9
If you're a person who feels that the only way to be productive is to divide your focus then iOS 9 might be for you.
When the update rolls out later this year, iPad users will be able to have more than one app open at the same time.
There's also an enhanced Siri for the forgetful ones who need a bit of reminding from time to time.
Apple has made enhancements to its built-in assistant which can now tell you that it's time to leave for an appointment.
First Spotify and Flipboard, now Apple's looking to put secretaries out of job?
It's also perfect for users who prefer to leave the decision making to someone, or something else.
Additionally, Apple has promised an additional hour of battery life and a low power mode to help users save battery.
We'll just have to wait and see if that promise is fulfilled.
OS X El Capitan
El Capitan (The Chief) improves on last year's Yosemite and will, like iOS 9, allow Mac users to multi-task.
Also, fret not if you have a messy desktop because Apple's sending The Chief to clean up your mess.
He's equipped with the tools to help you free up space by grouping applications.
On top of that, he'll bring along the new San Francisco typeface and let you modify your notes by dragging and dropping PDFs and photos into them.
Let's just hope that Apple's saviour has what it takes to deal with those pesky Yosemite bugs that cause users to get disconnected from WiFi networks.
Sources: Guardian, Techcrunch, The Verge, Recode.net
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