YouTube Music adds a transfer option ahead of Google Play Music’s shutdown this year

Google is making it easier for Google Play Music users to make the switch to the company’s now preferred music app, YouTube Music, ahead of its plans to shut down Google Play Music later this year. Starting today, Google Play Music users will be able to move their libraries, personal taste preferences and playlists to the newer YouTube Music service by way of a new “transfer” option available in the app.

The company has been steadily working to make YouTube Music its default music service, in order to eventually replace Google Play Music. Last year, for example, Google shut down the Google Play Artist Hub and began preinstalling YouTube Music on Android smartphones. It said at the time those moves were part of its broader strategy to merge the two services.

Now we have a deadline of sorts for Google Play Music’s end-of-life — sometime later this year, according to Google’s announcement.

One challenge in this transition was the ability for Google Play users to retain their personalization preferences, library and playlists from Google Play Music, when moving to the new service. Most users did not relish the idea of starting from scratch after building up years of history on Google Play Music.

That’s where today’s new “transfer” option comes in.

On YouTube Music, users will be able to now click on a “transfer” button on iOS and Android to start the transfer of their uploads, purchases, added songs and albums, personal and subscribed playlists, likes and dislikes, curated stations and personal taste preferences.

Following the transfer, users will immediately see an updated YouTube Music home screen reflecting the impact of this new data on their personalized recommendations. YouTube Music will also email users when the transfer is complete and their music has been fully added to the in-app “Library” tab.

Current customers will be alerted to the transfer option via an email that includes more detailed instructions.

Google also addressed Google Play Music user feedback by rolling out new features to YouTube Music aimed at making its newer service more compatible (in terms of feature set) with the older one.

It recently added increased playlist length (from 1,000 to 5,000 songs), support for uploads (up to 100,000 tracks — which is 50,000 more compared with Google Play Music), offline listening, lyrics and an Explore tab for discovering new music, playlists and genres.

In addition, podcast listeners are able to visit a webpage (http://podcasts.google.com/transfer) to transfer their subscriptions and episode progress to Google Podcasts with a single click. The Google Podcasts app, like YouTube Music, will serve as Google’s default podcast listening experience, similar to how Apple’s Podcasts is its own dedicated app for audio programs.

YouTube Music has yet to rival Spotify or Apple in terms of paying music subscribers. Earlier this year, the company said YouTube Music and YouTube Premium combined to have more than 20 million paid subscribers, but it didn’t break out how many users converted to paid customers to access the music subscription offering. Meanwhile, Apple announced last year its Apple Music service topped 60 million subscribers; Spotify as of Q1 2020 now has 130 million paid subscribers.

In part, YouTube Music’s struggles are due to the fact that Google is operating two separate music services, splitting its customer base. When Google Play Music fully shuts down, that could change.

YouTube Music is being offered at the same $9.99 per month subscription price as Google Play Music, which includes on-demand streaming, background listening, offline access and an ad-free experience. For $11.99 per month, users can extend that experience to YouTube by way of YouTube Premium.

Google didn’t provide an exact date for the shutdown of Google Play Music.

“For now, users will continue to have access to both services,” the company said. “We want to ensure everyone has time to transfer their content and get used to YouTube Music, so we’ll provide plenty of notice ahead of users no longer having access to Google Play Music later this year.”

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China’s smartphone shipments are reportedly up for April, following COVID-19-fueled decline

Smartphone shipments are reportedly beginning to see signs of life in China, after a sizable dip from the COVID-19 pandemic. New numbers from China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (a government-connected agency) point to a 17% rise in shipments for April, pointing to some recovery for the market.

The figure, from the China state-supported group, is virtually a mirror reflection of the 18% dip Canalys reported for Q1. COVID-19 was the primary culprit for those figures, through a combination of decreased spending among China’s phone-buying public and sizable supply chain constraints, as many Asian nations were on lockdown to slow the spread.

Both Huawei and Apple benefited from the rebound, though Reuters notes that the firm opted not to include an OS breakdown for the first time in a while, making it more difficult to parse market share.

Smartphone shipments dropped 18% in China, thanks to COVID-19

Smartphone shipments have suffered across the board, along with countless other industries. A rebound for China’s market could be a bellwether for positive numbers for the industry moving forward — especially given the country’s close ties to the global supply chain. In spite of being the first country hit, China’s official figures for COVID-19 deaths have remained low, compared to countries in Europe and North America.

That’s likely due in part to some draconian measures used to stop the spread. Other countries (the U.S. in particular) may not be so likely to rebound from the pandemic, leading to a more protracted impact on the global market. 

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India’s contact tracing app tops 100 million users in 41 days

As most countries across the globe scramble to build an app to trace the spread of coronavirus, India’s solution is growing at an unprecedented scale — despite being dogged by privacy concerns.

New Delhi’s contact tracing app, called Aarogya Setu, has reached 100 million users in 41 days since its release. A representative at think-tank Niti Aayog told TechCrunch that this 100 million figure represents unique users — and not just those who had merely downloaded the app.

The app, available on Android and iOS, allows people to self-assess whether they have caught the infectious disease by answering a set of questions. It then uses this information to alert users if they have come in contact with someone who might be infected. (It’s also available for feature phone users through an IVR system.)

Aarogya Setu, which means healthcare bridge in Hindi, also delivers updates on India’s testing efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic and tips to stay safe.

But the app has also raised concerns from privacy advocates and security researchers. The app stores location data of users when they sign up and logs detail of those who have reported facing symptoms of the disease. New Delhi has dubbed this as a feature — even as this centralization approach is in stark contrast with how smartphone vendors Apple and Google are tackling this.

Aarogya Setu is also not open source, which means that independent researchers can’t audit the code and find any flaws in it.

Ajay Prakash Sawhney, secretary in the ministry of electronics and information technology, said in an interview with Indian daily Business Standard that the government has not made the source code of Aarogya Setu public because it feared many will point flaws in it and overburden the staff overseeing the app’s development.

“If I open up my source code, and say, some 50,000 people start criticizing it, raising issues every day, we will have to spend too much time reacting to those. We might do that for all in due course, but right now we are planning to open it up to some of the top cybersecurity experts in the country,” he said.

There are some other concerns, too. Singapore is relying on its contact tracing app, called TraceTogether, for disease control but not using it to enforce lockdowns. Aarogya Setu, in contrast, retains the flexibility to do just that, or to ensure compliance of legal orders and so on, according to New Delhi-based digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation.

Additionally, Aarogya Setu, which was launched as a voluntary app, is now mandatory for those who wish to travel with Indian railways. In Noida, at the outskirts of New Delhi, those found without the app installed on their phone could be fined or sent to jail, the local authority said earlier this month.

“Aarogya Setu is an important step in our fight against COVID-19. By leveraging technology, it provides important information. As more and more people use it, its effectiveness will increase. I urge all to download it,” a quote attributed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears on the homepage of the app.

The confirmed coronavirus caseload in India, which ordered one of the world’s most stringent lockdowns in late March, has risen steadily in recent weeks. More than 71,600 confirmed infections have been reported to date, with about 2,320 confirmed dead.

In a televised address on Tuesday, Modi unveiled a $266 billion stimulus package to help the nation’s stalled economy recover.

More to follow…

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YouTube Music adds a transfer option ahead of Google Play Music’s shutdown this year

Google is making it easier for Google Play Music users to make the switch to the company’s now preferred music app, YouTube Music, ahead of its plans to shut down Google Play Music later this year. Starting today, Google Play Music users will be able to move their libraries, personal taste preferences and playlists to the newer YouTube Music service by way of a new “transfer” option available in the app.

The company has been steadily working to make YouTube Music its default music service, in order to eventually replace Google Play Music. Last year, for example, Google shut down the Google Play Artist Hub and began preinstalling YouTube Music on Android smartphones. It said at the time those moves were part of its broader strategy to merge the two services.

Now we have a deadline of sorts for Google Play Music’s end-of-life — sometime later this year, according to Google’s announcement.

One challenge in this transition was the ability for Google Play users to retain their personalization preferences, library and playlists from Google Play Music, when moving to the new service. Most users did not relish the idea of starting from scratch after building up years of history on Google Play Music.

That’s where today’s new “transfer” option comes in.

On YouTube Music, users will be able to now click on a “transfer” button on iOS and Android to start the transfer of their uploads, purchases, added songs and albums, personal and subscribed playlists, likes and dislikes, curated stations and personal taste preferences.

Following the transfer, users will immediately see an updated YouTube Music home screen reflecting the impact of this new data on their personalized recommendations. YouTube Music will also email users when the transfer is complete and their music has been fully added to the in-app “Library” tab.

Current customers will be alerted to the transfer option via an email that includes more detailed instructions.

Google also addressed Google Play Music user feedback by rolling out new features to YouTube Music aimed at making its newer service more compatible (in terms of feature set) with the older one.

It recently added increased playlist length (from 1,000 to 5,000 songs), support for uploads (up to 100,000 tracks — which is 50,000 more compared with Google Play Music), offline listening, lyrics and an Explore tab for discovering new music, playlists and genres.

In addition, podcast listeners are able to visit a webpage (http://podcasts.google.com/transfer) to transfer their subscriptions and episode progress to Google Podcasts with a single click. The Google Podcasts app, like YouTube Music, will serve as Google’s default podcast listening experience, similar to how Apple’s Podcasts is its own dedicated app for audio programs.

YouTube Music has yet to rival Spotify or Apple in terms of paying music subscribers. Earlier this year, the company said YouTube Music and YouTube Premium combined to have more than 20 million paid subscribers, but it didn’t break out how many users converted to paid customers to access the music subscription offering. Meanwhile, Apple announced last year its Apple Music service topped 60 million subscribers; Spotify as of Q1 2020 now has 130 million paid subscribers.

In part, YouTube Music’s struggles are due to the fact that Google is operating two separate music services, splitting its customer base. When Google Play Music fully shuts down, that could change.

YouTube Music is being offered at the same $9.99 per month subscription price as Google Play Music, which includes on-demand streaming, background listening, offline access and an ad-free experience. For $11.99 per month, users can extend that experience to YouTube by way of YouTube Premium.

Google didn’t provide an exact date for the shutdown of Google Play Music.

“For now, users will continue to have access to both services,” the company said. “We want to ensure everyone has time to transfer their content and get used to YouTube Music, so we’ll provide plenty of notice ahead of users no longer having access to Google Play Music later this year.”

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India’s contact tracing app tops 100 million users in 41 days

As most countries across the globe scramble to build an app to trace the spread of coronavirus, India’s solution is growing at an unprecedented scale — despite being dogged by privacy concerns.

New Delhi’s contact tracing app, called Aarogya Setu, has reached 100 million users in 41 days since its release. A representative at think-tank Niti Aayog told TechCrunch that this 100 million figure represents unique users — and not just those who had downloaded the app.

The app, available on Android, iOS, allows people to self-assess whether they have caught the infectious disease by answering a set of questions. It then uses this information to alert users if they have come in contact with someone who might be infected. (It’s also available for feature phone users through an IVR system.)

Aarogya Setu, which means healthcare bridge in Hindi, also delivers updates on India’s testing efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic and tips to stay safe.

But the app has also raised concerns from privacy advocates and security researchers. The app stores location data of users when they sign up and logs detail of those who have reported facing symptoms of the disease. New Delhi has dubbed this as a feature — even as this centralization approach is in stark contrast with how smartphone vendors Apple and Google are tackling this.

Aarogya Setu is also not open source, which means that independent researchers can’t audit the code and find any flaws in it.

Ajay Prakash Sawhney, secretary in the ministry of electronics and information technology, said in an interview with Indian daily Business Standard that the government has not made the source code of Aarogya Setu public because he feared many will point flaws in it and overburden the staff overseeing the app’s development.

“If I open up my source code, and say, some 50,000 people start criticizing it, raising issues every day, we will have to spend too much time reacting to those. We might do that for all in due course, but right now we are planning to open it up to some of the top cybersecurity experts in the country,” he said.

There are some other concerns, too. Singapore is relying on its contact tracing app, called TraceTogether, for disease control but not using it to enforce lockdowns. Aarogya Setu, in contrast, retains the flexibility to do just that, or to ensure comply legal orders and so on, according to New Delhi-based digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation.

Additionally, Aarogya Setu, which was launched as a voluntary app, is now mandatory for those who wish to travel with Indian railways. In Noida, at the outskirts of New Delhi, those found without the app installed on their phone could be fined or sent to jail, the local authority said earlier this month.

“Aarogya Setu is an important step in our fight against COVID-19. By leveraging technology, it provides important information. As more and more people use it, its effectiveness will increase. I urge all to download it,” a quote attributed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears on the homepage of the app.

More to follow…

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Despite the economy, LA’s Maple Media is hunting for app acquisitions

Over the past three years the Los Angeles-based startup Maple Media has amassed a portfolio of roughly thirty companies and one hundred apps in its quest to become the IAC of app store businesses. And now, even with the economy continuing to collapse, the company is on the prowl for new acquisitions and expects to spend tens of millions of dollars on new deals.

“We look at three pillars of our types of apps… casual games, mobile games, and personal tools,” said Maple Media chief executive, Michael Ritter. 

The company recently acquired PlayerFM, a podcast discovery service, for an undisclosed amount to expand its footprint in the podcast space. Other apps in the company’s portfolio include Pic Stitch, the photo collage editor and the calendar app, WeCal. 

The PlayerFM deal stands out as an example of what the company looks for in an acquisition target, said Ritter. “It’s an app that’s been in the market for eight years — and it’s feature complete, which is what you would expect in the podcast category.”

What Maple Media provides, said Ritter, is an ability to use its marketing muscle and internal development shop to update products more regularly, add new features, and make sure that those features are marketed effectively to potential new users.

“We actually push a lot of product… we’re working on five to six different apps at a time pushing updates weekly to our apps… we work on very short two-week sprints and doing a lot of different development,” said Ritter.

Typically production cycles are driven by the rhythms of Google Play and Apple’s app stores. If an app store reaches out to feature one of the company’s portfolio of apps then that app gets an upgrade. As new features come online or stores switch out APIs those thirty apps will all get the attention they need to remain up to speed, says Ritter.

One of the benefits of having such a broad stable is that the company can update a single codebase in its library and push that update to several different apps. “We have one codebase that we manage things from,” Ritter said.

Maple Media raised its original capital from Shamrock Capital, the investment firm managing money for the Disney family.

“We see ourselves as a media company,” said Ritter. “Our strategy is to build as large a user base over mobile and distribute advertising across that platform.”

Going forward, Maple Media could spend as much as $50 million this year alone, according to Ritter. The key for the company is to make acquisitions in areas that have lasting resonance with a certain audience, whether that’s a broadly useful service like a calendar, or a digital document scanner — or a game like Sudoku or Mah Jongg.

“What we’re looking for,” says Ritter, “are classic and evergreen games and apps.”

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Xiaomi spinoff POCO’s F2 Pro undercuts Android rivals with low price and flagship features

POCO, a brand that spun out of Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi earlier this year, today launched the POCO F2 Pro smartphone as it kickstarts its new journey as an independent firm.

The POCO F2 Pro, like its two-year-old sleeper hit predecessor Pocophone F1 smartphone, punches above its price class. It features an all-screen 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display (with 2400×1080 pixels), in-screen fingerprint scanner, support for 5G, quad-core rear camera setup, and a pop-up front camera that quietly tucks away when not in use. It also features a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The smartphone comes in two variants: one with 6GB of RAM and 128GB internal storage that is priced at €499 (roughly $540), and the other that features 8GB of RAM and 256GB internal storage that costs €599 (roughly $650).

Both the variants run Android 10 and are going on sale globally starting Tuesday through Gearbest and Aliexpress e-commerce sites. POCO said it will begin selling the POCO F2 Pro on Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee among other e-commerce sites including its official website in the coming weeks.

The dual-SIM card supported smartphone, a popular feature in several Asian markets, is powered by Qualcomm’s flagship octa-core Snapdragon 865 processor, coupled with Adreno 650GPU. POCO F2 Pro also sports what the company claims to be the largest vapor chamber in any smartphone to support LiquidCool, a technology that keeps the device cool even when a user is playing high-end games such as Fortnite or Pubg.

A total score of 589,983.

CPU Benchmark score of 184,817.

GFXbench Manhattan 4.0 benchmark score of 40.

Yes, the #POCOF2Pro is simply #PowerfullyCool! pic.twitter.com/KgyHJt2dI4

— POCO (@POCOGlobal) May 12, 2020

On the camera front, the POCO F2 Pro features a 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor, which serves as the primary camera, with a 13MP ultra wide-angle lens, a 5MP macro and one 2MP depth sensor. The pop-up camera, that serves as the selfie sensor, is a 20MP lens. The rear camera setup is capable of recording videos in 8K resolution at 24fps, and 4K in 60fps.

The POCO F2 Pro, which comes in Neon Blue, Electric Purple, Cyber Grey, Phantom White colors, houses a 4,700mAh battery with support for fast charging and ships with a 33W charger in the box.

POCO listed a number of additional features that other flagship Android smartphones offer such as support for HDR10+ video, display brightness of 500 nits, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 that protects the screen, and an IR blaster. But its display lacks support for 120Hz refresh rate — as seen on OnePlus 8T Pro that makes viewing experience extra smooth.

More to follow…

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