Apple Music passes 11M subscribers as iCloud hits 782M users
During a wide-ranging interview published on Friday, Apple executives Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi revealed fresh statistics on the company's various internet services like Apple Music, which now boasts more than 11 million paying subscribers.
The new Apple Music headcount surfaced alongside other interesting tidbits in an hour-long sit-down session with John Gruber, published as an episode of the blogger's The Talk Show podcast. The 11 million subscriber number is ten percent higher than the last figure provided in the company's earnings call just over two weeks ago, when it was noted that over 10 million had signed up.
During that call, Apple's chief executive Tim Cook emphasized that Apple had also reached the milestone of one billion devices in its active installed base. Cue's total of iCloud users is about 78 percent of that figure, which he explained was due to the fact that many people own multiple devices.
Cue said that Apple's 782 million iCloud users contribute to a crush of photo uploads, iMessage communications and iTunes and App Store purchases. At peak operating status, the company's cloud currently processes over 200,000 iMessages per second, a number that translates to more than 17 billion per day. In addition, combined iTunes and the App Store purchases clock in at more than 750 million per week.
Cue and Federighi also addressed Walt Mossberg's critique of Apple's first-party app development efforts. Mossberg in a recent post on The Verge pointed to much-maligned issues involving a bloated iTunes client, an aging Mail app and niggling iCloud synchronization problems.
"I know our core software quality has improved over the last five years -- improved significantly. But, the bar just keeps going up, and that's a bar that we embrace," Federighi said. "Every year we realize the things we were good at least year, and the techniques we were using to build the best software we can, are not adequate for the next year because the bar keeps going up."
Federighi goes on to say that niche problems are quickly amplified as devices like iPhone become an integral part of users' daily lives.
The new Apple Music headcount surfaced alongside other interesting tidbits in an hour-long sit-down session with John Gruber, published as an episode of the blogger's The Talk Show podcast. The 11 million subscriber number is ten percent higher than the last figure provided in the company's earnings call just over two weeks ago, when it was noted that over 10 million had signed up.
During that call, Apple's chief executive Tim Cook emphasized that Apple had also reached the milestone of one billion devices in its active installed base. Cue's total of iCloud users is about 78 percent of that figure, which he explained was due to the fact that many people own multiple devices.
Cue said that Apple's 782 million iCloud users contribute to a crush of photo uploads, iMessage communications and iTunes and App Store purchases. At peak operating status, the company's cloud currently processes over 200,000 iMessages per second, a number that translates to more than 17 billion per day. In addition, combined iTunes and the App Store purchases clock in at more than 750 million per week.
Cue and Federighi also addressed Walt Mossberg's critique of Apple's first-party app development efforts. Mossberg in a recent post on The Verge pointed to much-maligned issues involving a bloated iTunes client, an aging Mail app and niggling iCloud synchronization problems.
"I know our core software quality has improved over the last five years -- improved significantly. But, the bar just keeps going up, and that's a bar that we embrace," Federighi said. "Every year we realize the things we were good at least year, and the techniques we were using to build the best software we can, are not adequate for the next year because the bar keeps going up."
Federighi goes on to say that niche problems are quickly amplified as devices like iPhone become an integral part of users' daily lives.
Comments
"Federighi goes on to say that niche problems are quickly amplified as devices like iPhone become an integral part of users' daily lives."
Of course they are, because they're not really niche problems anymore because so many users experience the same problems, the same little buggy problems affects millions of users. The response is straight out of the Steve Ballmer playbook.
They came across as defensive, not offensive. Same as Cook on the earnings call
We know you are at world-wide scale. Embrace it and make it an advantage. Act like you are setting the world on fire, which you are. Don't be so damn understated
You've taken everything out of context in attempt to make your point.
The original 9.7" iPad was $499 for 16 GB, the iPad Air 2 shouldn't be $499 and also 16 GB. After 6 years of iPad and 2 years or more of declining sales it's time to do something radical and offer a compelling product at a better price point. People are sick of all this up-selling. Kill old iPad models and lower the price of the main models and kill all 16 GB models. Make iPad compelling again.
I use my Watch every day and have no issues with it. Sure Apple can do more with regards to more intelligent notifications and more/better watch faces but I have no issues using the Watch interface. None. Zero. Dead simple to me.
I think it's pretty close to ballpark that the tone of Apple executive interviews has less than 1% impact on sales of whiz bang, shiny, fun Apple products.
10x of what it is now easily!
Maybe not an apology but at least acknowledging people's concerns. Don't use the large user base as an excuse (if Jobs/Cook didn't set the company up to be able to scale well that's a problem) and don't dismiss complaints as people stuck in their ways not receptive to change. I'm sure there's some of that. But there are also people who have legitimate issues/annoyances. One that I have is I'll delete emails and 5 seconds later they'll reappear, sometimes as unread other times as read. Just today I had one email that I deleted 5 different times, it just kept coming back. Little annoyances like that can add up, especially if there's a lot of them, and that's not something Apple's going to see on a diagnostics or crash report and probably won't show up in a radar.