Porsche electric vehicle integration, new Shazam playlist and more!

Apple Music: Porsche electric vehicle integration, new Shazam playlist and more!

The platform streaming Apple’s music business has been the subject of positive (and some negative) news recently; among them, the service will be the first to natively integrate the next electric model of the German vehicle manufacturer Porsche. In addition, the service added a new playlist in partnership with Shazam and gained compatibility with Alexa (virtual assistant from Amazon) in more countries in Europe.

On the negative side, Apple Music was accused of infringing four patents by a Canadian company, which had already sued Spotify for similar reasons, as we will see below.

Native app on Porsche Taycan

Porsche Taycan with Apple Music support

The German luxury car brand recently announced the launch of the Taycan model, its first all-electric car that will include something new: native support for Apple Music, as reported by TechCrunch.

This means that model owners will be able to access your iCloud library, playlists and Beats 1 radio stations without the need for an iPhone nearby. To this end, Porsche said it plans to offer Taycan buyers three years (!) Of free data, as well as providing up to six months of Apple Music license to new customers.

Although it is possible to access Apple Music in vehicles compatible with CarPlay (which Porsche has supported since 2015), this is the first time that the streaming of the company will be made available natively as an app in any car. $ en $ acional, no?

New playlist “Top 50 Shazam Findings”

Apple Music recently added a new playlist with rising songs that are getting the most shazams around the world, called “Top 50 Shazam Findings”.

New playlist by Shazam on Apple Music

According to the description of the playlist, it will be updated every Tuesday, with a new ranking. In an interview with Variety, Apple said it will use Shazam’s algorithms to «offer a unique insight into promising artists and music to Apple Music subscribers.»

If, on the one hand, the idea is, in fact, interesting, on the other it goes against the philosophy of the service, which boasts for highlighting its human curation. As we know, the Cupertino giant confirmed the acquisition of the music identification service in late 2017.

Alexa support in more countries in Europe

As we announced at the end of last year, Apple Music started offering support for third-party speakers (read: Amazon) compatible with the company’s virtual assistant, the Alexa. Support, however, has been offered gradually to even more regions around the globe, and now a number of new countries in Europe have been added to the list.

More precisely, users of Echo speakers in the Germany, at Spain, at France and on Italy can enjoy their Apple Music subscriptions through Alexa, with shared by MacRumors.

In addition to support, you can set Apple Music as the default music service for Echo speakers – via the Amazon Alexa app – so you don’t have to configure your device every time you need to play a song or playlist of the Apple service. In addition to the aforementioned countries, Alexa support is also available in Australia, the United States, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Patent proceedings

As not everything is flowers, Apple Music was the target of a new lawsuit about an alleged patent infringement related to “methods of transmitting audio files on shared networks”, as informed by AppleInsider.

Whoever is accusing the Cupertino giant of infringing such intellectual property is Postmedia Network, a media conglomerate based in Canada. According to the lawsuit, Postmedia is acting on behalf of developer Alan Bartholomew, the alleged creator of these patents, to reward and indemnify him with the amount due for the use of the technologies.

However, Postmedia’s reputation in the legal environment is not the best; in 2016, the company filed a similar lawsuit against Spotify and iHeartMedia and, in both cases, the Canadian company’s accusation was unsustainable.

In the case against Apple, Postmedia seeks damages (unspecified), royalties with interest and the reimbursement of legal costs. Apple did not comment on the process, for now.