Apple Reaches Cloud Music Deal With Sony, Universal Last Major Label Still to Sign

itunes 10 icon 150Following up on news from earlier this week regarding Apple having signed EMI Music to a deal to permit cloud-based music streaming of the label's content, Bloomberg now reports that Sony has reached a similar deal with Apple. With Warner Music Group having already agreed to a deal, Universal remains the lone holdout among the major labels, although sources indicate that Apple and Universal are close to a deal.

Apple has reached licensing accords with Sony Corp.'s music division, EMI Group and Warner Music Group, the people said. Universal Music Group, the largest recording company, is close to a deal, another person said. The company also would need to reach agreements with music publishers, which control different rights than the labels.

Sources have indicated to Bloomberg that Apple could preview the new cloud-based music streaming service at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco early next month. A public launch would presumably follow relatively soon thereafter.

Related Forum: Mac Apps

Popular Stories

iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

M5 Chip Achieves Impressive Feat in 14-Inch MacBook Pro Speed Test

Friday October 17, 2025 7:10 am PDT by
The first alleged benchmark result for the M5 chip in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro has surfaced, allowing for some performance comparisons. Based on a single unconfirmed result uploaded to the Geekbench 6 database today, the M5 chip has pulled off an impressive feat. Specifically, the chip achieved a score of 4,263 for single-core CPU performance, which is the highest single-core score that...
iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...

Top Rated Comments

Themaeds Avatar
188 months ago
People seem to have forgotten about ping, but Next to a new notification system, Ping is a major interest of mine. I think Ping is Apple's secret weapon they hope the competition has forgotten about.

They didnt forget about it...most people just call it Facebook
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Macsterguy Avatar
188 months ago
Just to know. In what way does the approach of google and apple differs when it comes to cloud music? Google has its cloud for music now too, so why does apple have to sign the labels?

I think with Apple, you would own your music. With Google you would rent your music... Unfortunately, most people just steal their music...
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
caccamolle Avatar
188 months ago
it's not out yet, can't be sure of anything of course.

NONETHELESS I have been waiting for this forever.

Without some "cloud" implementation, managing music with multiple computers and locations is a gigantic PITA.

I am so looking forward and pray it's done right.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Maximilian H Avatar
188 months ago
I'm not quite sure what the Cloud music is, is it like you can listen to /download lots of songs with no limit if you pay some money monthly? Like Spotify?
If they allowed users to use it for free with ads just like Spotify does it'd be awesome.

Cloud music can be like Spotify or Amazon/Google Music.
Spotify offers lots of songs with no streaming limit if you pay some money monthly. Amazon and Google music offer a virtual hard drive which allows you to upload your (bought) music. The uploaded music can be streamed to your devices. I think that kind of service will Apple offer.

I hope Spotify will be soon available in Germany. I can hardly wait!
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Maximilian H Avatar
188 months ago
It sounds nice but I think that I won't use the new service. I've got already a Spotify Premium account which is just amazing ;)
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
duervo Avatar
188 months ago
Don't kid yourselves. Whenever Apple finally gets around to launching their iCloud offering, there will most assuredly be a clause in the EULA that states something about how they are not responsible for the security and stability of your data (music). They have to. There is just no way that they can realistically assume responsibility for the security and stability of all of that data. If any of it were lost for any reason (and bad things do and will happen at some point) they could be held liable for that lost data to their users without some type of clause in their user agreement.

That being said, I'm sure they'll have all sorts of redundancies built into everything, but things can still happen. To put a play on words of Apple's recent iPhone ads: If you don't have a backup ... well, you don't have a backup. (And Apple's iCloud product should not be treated as a backup.)
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)