MacRumors

Spotify today announced it now has over 140 million subscribers worldwide, including users that only listen to the free ad-supported tier.

Spotify last said it had over 100 million subscribers in June 2016, so it has gained around 40 million listeners in one year to remain the world's largest streaming music service. Spotify didn't update its number of paying subscribers, which stood at over 50 million worldwide as of March 2017.

By comparison, Apple at its Worldwide Developers Conference last week announced that Apple Music now has 27 million paying subscribers, just weeks before the streaming music service turns two years old. Apple Music doesn't have a free tier, and Apple doesn't regularly disclose how many users are using the free trial.

Last year, Spotify vice president Jonathan Forster said Apple Music has helped, not hurt, their business by raising the popularity of streaming music services overall. He added that, at the time, Spotify was growing more quickly and adding more users since Apple Music launched, a trend that appears to be continuing.

"It's great that Apple is in the game," Forster told Reuters. "They are definitely raising the profile of streaming. It is hard to build an industry on your own."

While many artists remain critical about Spotify's free ad-supported tier, longtime holdout Taylor Swift reversed course last week and made her catalog of music available on most streaming music services. Swift's music was previously exclusive to Apple Music, only after Apple agreed to pay artists during its free trial period.

Spotify's revenue grew more than 50 percent, to $3.3 billion last year, according to the company's latest financial statement. The company has committed to spending more than $2 billion in payments to record labels over the next two years.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California has announced that former iOS chief Scott Forstall will sit down with journalist John Markoff on June 20 for a fireside chat about how the iPhone came to be.

Forstall will be talking publicly about Apple for the first time since he was reportedly ousted from the company in October 2012, following the botched launch of Apple Maps. Forstall has maintained a quiet presence since then, although he did announce he was co-producing the Broadway musical Fun Home in 2015.

How did the iPhone come to be? The leader of the iPhone software team Scott Forstall sits down with Computer History Museum historian John Markoff to share his experience working with Steve Jobs on the secretive Apple iPhone project, codenamed "Project Purple."

Forstall's fireside chat will be preceded by a panel discussion with a trio of engineers from the original iPhone development team, Nitin Ganatra, Scott Herz, and Hugo Fiennes, who will talk about their work on the transformative device.

The two-part event is part of the Computer History Museum's ongoing "iPhone 360" project this year that explores the story of the iPhone, from its prehistory, inception, and launch, to its evolution and impact.

Coinciding with the 10th anniversary year of the iPhone launch in 2007, iPhone 360 includes integrated initiatives across the Computer History Museum to create new collections of artifacts and oral histories, scholarly research and insights, dynamic events, and educational content and curriculum.

"Putting Your Finger On It: Creating the iPhone" is scheduled for Tuesday between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Pacific Time at the museum's Exponential Center. Check-in begins at 6 p.m. Registration is available online.

June 20 also marks the release of the book The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant, in which Forstall is quoted. Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller and former iPod chief Tony Fadell have both turned to Twitter in recent days to refute some of the book's contents.

Bloomberg Businessweek sat down with Apple CEO Tim Cook last week to discuss a collection of topics related to Apple and the tech industry, including augmented reality, the legacy that Steve Jobs left behind, the HomePod, and the opinions he has following his work with U.S. President Donald Trump. Bloomberg Businessweek's full interview with Tim Cook will appear in the Sunday, June 19 edition of the magazine, but for now the site has shared a few interesting snippets from the talk.

One of the major talking points of the interview centered around the HomePod, Apple's new Siri-based speaker for the home that the company says will have a focus on high quality audio playback. When asked whether or not he thinks people will actually pay $349 for a HomePod, Cook pointed out the same question that gets brought up heading into the launch of every new Apple product.

If you remember when the iPod was introduced, a lot of people said, “Why would anybody pay $399 for an MP3 player?” And when iPhone was announced, it was, “Is anybody gonna pay”—whatever it was at that time—“for an iPhone?” The iPad went through the same thing. We have a pretty good track record of giving people something that they may not have known that they wanted.

When I was growing up, audio was No. 1 on the list of things that you had to have. You were jammin’ out on your stereo. Audio is still really important in all age groups, not just for kids. We’re hitting on something people will be delighted with. It’s gonna blow them away. It’s gonna rock the house.

The main iOS topic covered in the new interview was augmented reality and its upcoming addition in iOS 11 thanks to ARKit. Cook said that he's so excited about the possibilities for the future of AR that he just wants to "yell out and scream," while admitting that there are limitations to the technology in its current state. But he thinks that those limitations are the building blocks of an "incredible runway" with a bright future, and said that, "When people begin to see what’s possible, it’s going to get them very excited—like we are, like we’ve been."

Bloomberg Businessweek asked how much time Cook spends thinking about his own legacy -- in the context of Steve Jobs -- to which Cook plainly stated, "None." Cook hopes that people simply remember him "as a good and decent man," and wants Jobs' DNA to remain the heart of the company for any future CEO over the next 100 years. Cook explained that while Apple as a whole will adjust and change with the times, this "Constitution" created through Jobs' beliefs and actions should be set in stone.

His ethos should drive that—the attention to detail, the care, the ­simplicity, the focus on the user and the user experience, the focus on building the best, the focus that good isn’t good enough, that it has to be great, or in his words, “insanely great,” that we should own the proprietary technology that we work with because that’s the only way you can control your future and control your quality and user experience.

And you should have the courage to walk away and be honest with yourself when you do something wrong, that you shouldn’t be so married to your position and your pride that you can’t say, “I’m changing directions.” These kind of things, these guardrails, should be the basis for Apple a century from now.

It’s like the Constitution, which is the guide for the United States. It should not change. We should revere it. In essence, these principles that Steve learned over many years are the basis for Apple. It doesn’t mean the company hasn’t changed. The company’s going to change. It’s going to go into different product areas. It’s going to learn and adjust. Many things have changed in the company, even in the last six to seven years. But our “Constitution” shouldn’t change. It should remain the same.

Cook was also directly asked about his experience working with President Donald Trump, including a tech summit late last year that saw a group of CEOs attending a meeting in Trump Tower to discuss trade, immigration, vocational education, and more. Ultimately, Cook admitted that he and Trump have "dramatically different" beliefs in most areas, and he argued that above all else, "America's more important than bloody politics."

I feel a great responsibility as an American, as a CEO, to try to influence things in areas where we have a level of expertise. I’ve pushed hard on immigration. We clearly have a very different view on things in that area. I’ve pushed on climate. We have a different view there. There are clearly areas where we’re not nearly on the same page.

We’re dramatically different. I hope there’s some areas where we’re not. His focus on jobs is good. So we’ll see. Pulling out of the Paris climate accord was very disappointing. I felt a responsibility to do every single thing I could for it not to happen. I think it’s the wrong decision. If I see another opening on the Paris thing, I’m going to bring it up again.

At the end of the day, I’m not a person who’s going to walk away and say, “If you don’t do what I want, I leave.” I’m not on a council, so I don’t have those kind of decisions. But I care deeply about America. I want America to do well. America’s more important than bloody politics from my point of view.

Rounding out the questions for the interview snippets posted today, Bloomberg Businessweek asked Cook to respond to critics who say Apple isn't innovating anymore. Cook answered with the long-time Apple argument that it's not about being first to a product category, it's about being the best in the category, while focusing on what particularly will elevate its users' lives: "It’s actually not about competing, from our point of view. It’s about thinking through for the Apple user what thing will improve their lives."

The rest of the interview includes Cook's comments on the enterprise market, Apple's $1 billion advanced manufacturing fund, and his opinions on a tax plan for repatriating the international earnings of U.S. companies. More topics are expected to be covered in the full interview on June 19.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

A new European Union law came into effect on Thursday that abolishes roaming charges for people using mobile phones abroad. The new rules mean that EU citizens traveling within the EU that call, text, and browse the internet on their mobile devices will be charged the same price they pay in their home country.

Previously, roaming charges were added to the cost of calls, SMS messages, and web browsing whenever mobile users in the EU traveled to another country and connected to another cellular network. The practice of charging consumers extra while they were abroad gained widespread notoriety because users often ended up having to pay extortionate fees for relatively moderate data usage.

"Each time a European citizen crossed an EU border, be it for holidays, work, studies or just for a day, they had to worry about using their mobile phones and a high phone bill from the roaming charges when they came home," said the European Commission in a statement. "The European Union is about bringing people together and making their lives easier. The end of roaming charges is a true European success story. Eliminating roaming charges is one of the greatest and most tangible successes of the EU," the statement added.

The EU has been negotiating with mobile networks for nearly 10 years to come to an agreement regarding the legislation, following repeated warnings from networks that the law could mean higher tariffs at home. That outcome appears to have been avoided, however.

"The EU has managed to find the right balance between the end of roaming charges and the need to keep domestic mobile packages competitive and attractive," continued the statement. "Operators have had 2 years to prepare for the end of roaming charges, and we are confident that they will seize the opportunities the new rules bring to the benefit of their customers."

Despite the new law, consumer watchdog Which? told the BBC that mobile users need to be aware that if they exceed contract data allowances while traveling within the EU they will still be charged, just as they would be in their own country. Also, the law only applies to travelers, so calling another EU country from home will still incur additional charges.

Update: Some readers are reporting that mobile carriers in certain EU countries have already raised their plan prices, although it's still unclear if this is a direct result of the legislation that came into effect today.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple wants the iPhone to serve as a comprehensive health repository for every iPhone user, keeping track of medical data like doctors visits, lab results, medications, and more, reports CNBC.

Apple is said to have a "secretive team" within its health unit that has been communicating with developers, hospitals, and other industry groups about storing clinical data on the iPhone. With all of their medical data at their fingertips, iPhone users would have a better overall picture of their health, which could also be readily shared with doctors.

Apple has been hiring developers familiar with protocols dictating the transfer of electronic health records and has talked with several health IT industry groups, including "The Argonaut Project," which promotes the adoption of open standards for health information, and "The Carin Alliance," a group aiming to give patients more control over their medical data. According to CNBC, Apple VP of software technology Bud Tribble has been working with the latter group.

Apple is also rumored to be looking at startups in the cloud hosting space for acquisitions that would fit into its health plan.

Essentially, Apple would be trying to recreate what it did with music -- replacing CDs and scattered MP3s with a centralized management system in iTunes and the iPod -- in the similarly fragmented and complicated landscape for health data.

Such a move would represent a deviation in strategy from Apple's previous efforts in health care, the people said, which have focused on fitness and wellness.

A centralized way to store all of a person's health data would allow the medical community to overcome existing barriers that prevent the transfer of patient information between medical providers. Hospitals and doctors offices often don't have a simple way to transfer patient information, and online medical portals are sometimes difficult to use with little info available to patients,

Apple already allows iPhone users to record medical data and health information gathered by the Apple Watch and other connected devices in the built-in Health app, and it has delved into health research with CareKit and ResearchKit, but based on these rumors, the company's goal is to expand its health efforts far further in the future.

Siri gets smarter in every new version of iOS, and iOS 11 is no exception. This year, Siri has been improved with advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, giving the personal assistant a much more natural, expressive voice.

As you'll hear in the video, Siri sounds more human, adopting better pronunciation and different inflection depending on what's being said. There are also a lot of other improvements, which are covered in our Siri video and in the post below.

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In iOS 11, Siri uses on-device learning across all of your devices to get a more complete picture of your interests, preferences, and routines. Because Siri now syncs across multiple devices, Siri learns more about you and your interactions with Siri are always the same regardless of whether you're using an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Siri can now do things like suggest a topic you might like in Apple News based on Safari browsing habits, or suggest a Calendar reminder for an appointment you've booked in Safari. Siri might also make QuickType word suggestions based on things you've recently viewed -- names of movies or places, for example.

Siri has built in translation capabilities in iOS 11 and can translate English to Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, plus with music enhancements implemented for HomePod, Siri can play music you like and offer up answers to music-related queries like "What song is this?" or "Who's the drummer in this band?" when you're listening to music.

You can even type to Siri using a new "Type to Siri" Accessibility option. This makes it easier to communicate with Siri when speaking isn't an option.

For more on Siri and the rest of the new features coming in iOS 11, make sure to check out our iOS 11 roundup. Stay tuned to MacRumors, because we have more videos coming on iOS 11, watchOS 4, and macOS High Sierra.

iPhone assembler Wistron has confirmed that at least one of Apple's next-generation iPhone models will be "waterproof" and include wireless charging capabilities, according to Japanese website Nikkei Asian Review.

"Assembly process for the previous generations of [iPhones] have not changed much, though new features like waterproof and wireless charging now require some different testing, and waterproof function will alter the assembly process a bit," [Robert] Hwang, [Wistron CEO], told reporters after the company's annual shareholders' meeting on Wednesday.

Apple analysts Jeff Pu of Yuanta Investment Consulting and Arthur Liao of Fubon Securities claim Wistron is splitting orders for the upcoming 5.5-inch iPhone with a flat display with larger Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn, so it's likely that Wistron is referring to the so-called "iPhone 7s Plus."

Given the higher-end "iPhone 8" is expected to be a premium smartphone, positioned above the iPhone 7s Plus, that model will likely feature wireless charging and improved water resistance as well. That leaves the next 4.7-inch iPhone, which is already rumored to have wireless charging, and it's reasonable to assume the smaller model will have improved water resistance too.

iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models are already splash- and water-resistant with an IP67 rating, but Apple's fine print warns that "splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear." iPhone water damage is not covered by Apple's warranties.

Nevertheless, many iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus users use their smartphones in the shower, for example, without issue.

A report earlier this year said Apple's next iPhone models will feature improved IP68-rated water resistance. In the IP68 rating, the "6" means the next iPhone would remain effectively dustproof, with "no ingress of dust" and "complete protection against contact," while the "8" means the device will be even more water resistant.

Samsung's Galaxy S8, which already has IP68-rated water resistance, is able to withstand 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes.