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Responding to what is fast becoming a world of audio first, Apple unveiled Monday new ways to make it easier to listen to live radio and podcasts on its devices. While the technology giant has long supported popular streaming radio applications, Siri is taking action to allow users to use the digital assistant to access some 100,000 radio stations.
In the midst of a series of product updates announced at the worldwide developer conference held yesterday in San Jose, Apple announced the provision of live radio via Siri, its digital assistant. "Today we are introducing live radio so you can ask Siri to broadcast iHeartRadio, TuneIn and Radio.com," said Stacey Lysik, senior director of Apple's OS program. "In fact, we have more than 100,000 radio stations around the world."
Apple already has relations with iHeart and a spokesman for the radio and streaming company has announced that the integration with Siri would be added at the end of the year.
The live announcement on Apple's radio was part of an update on Siri, which should be used on its smart speaker HomePod, the AirPods wireless headset, iPhone and CarPlay, the car platform connected with this technological giant. Handoff, the feature that allows you to start something on one Apple device and then retrieve it on another, now allows you to enter the house and touch your iPhone to transfer everything that is read on your iPhone to HomePod. Thus, a person listening to a live radio stream on his iPhone can continue to listen to the station when she goes to her home or office or to any other place where she uses the HomePod Smart Speaker. Apple.
According to Edison Research, 41% of early users asked their smart caller to listen to an AM / FM station last week, compared with 47% of early mainstream users. First time adopters are defined as a person who has had a smart speaker for at least a year, while the beginning of general integration refers to those who have one for less than one year.
In addition to adding support for live radio streams, Apple said that Siri's sound had been improved. Through machine learning, Apple says that Siri now has a more natural cadence and a better emphasis, especially in longer or more complex sentences.
Slowly delete iTunes
The biggest news of the conference is perhaps that Apple removes iTunes iTunes nearly two decades after changing the way people buy and listen to music. It will be replaced by three desktop applications called Music, Television and Podcasts, a little like the way these services are already distributed on iPhones and iPads. The dedicated Apple Podcasts app "offers all the cool features you're used to in iOS, like watching new episodes and listening to all your devices. And it includes an exciting new feature related to the search, "said Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple. He told the annual developer conference that the standalone application would come with the release of the next version of MacOS, called Catalina.
The news still more used by podcasters than by launching a dedicated app: Apple also used its technology to help listeners find their way into what is now more than 700,000 podcasts on Apple Podcasts . "Sometimes you hear about something on the radio or a new podcast on the news and you want to know more about it, but you do not know exactly what show was or what the title was," he said. Federighi. "We now use machine learning to index podcast spoken content so you can search that content and find the podcast in just a few clicks in the app."
The split iTunes will also mean a new application dedicated Apple Music. "With its singular focus on music, it's very simple, but it has all the powerful musical functions you expect from iTunes, while being extremely fast. This is the best place for Apple Music subscribers with personalized recommendations from a catalog of more than 50 million tracks, "said Federighi. Apple also makes it easy for podcasters and music publishers to find Apple Watch users. The company said the device now has its own App Store. This means that users will no longer need to rely on their iPhone to find or download applications. "You can stream quality content like live podcasts, music, and sports games," said Kevin Lynch, vice president of technology at Apple.
As part of the new MacOS features expected in the fall, Apple said that users will still be able to buy and download songs via the iTunes music store in the Apple Music app, and buy movies and shows TVs in the Apple TV app. The planned abandonment of iTunes is the consumer's preference to pay for access to content rather than a proprietary model.
"Apple had to put the parts in place for all this to happen," said Ramon Llamas of IDC Research at CNN Business. "If you examine the behavior of consumers in which users are willing to pay normal fees for unlimited content – and that's what they can get from other services such as Spotify, Pandora and Netflix – Apple sits smartly on its own competitors' approach. "
Other news from the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference:
- CarPlay receives its biggest update of all time. The infotainment platform for dashboards will feature an updated visual design that can display multiple applications in a single view, as well as new features such as enhanced Siri support and "clear mode". Apple will allow automakers to allow CarPlay to display on other screens (such as digital instrument groups).
- A new Mac Pro, dubbed "the most powerful Mac ever created by the CEO", Tim Cook, will be released this fall for $ 6,000.
- A new operating system for the iPad (iPadOS) will offer a narrower grid of icons and more tools for scrapping on the home screen. A drag-and-drop function "will allow users to switch from one application to another by sliding a finger, bringing aspects of one window into another with the help of finger drops", according to CBS News.
- The new iOS 13 will offer a new Apple Maps application and will incorporate more privacy protections. A new "Dark Mode" allows iPhone users to browse their device with a darkened screen background, thus offering a higher contrast than the lighter mode existing on previous iPhones.
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