Apple Music Tops 11 Million Subscribers; iCloud Reaches 782 Million

At the beginning of this year, Apple Music had surpassed 10 million subscribers, according to a report from the Financial Times. Now, Apple SVP Eddy Cue has confirmed this figure. In fact, he gave a more precise number – the company has just passed over 11 million subscribers, he says. This tidbit and more were revealed on John Gruber’s “The Talk Show” podcast where Cue and SVP Craig Federighi joined to dish about features in upcoming OS releases, Apple’s intentions around its public beta, and more.

The Apple Music subscriber count is especially interesting because of how quickly the service has been growing. Apple’s debut in the streaming music space launched last June, offering users free, three-month trials on iOS. The app then arrived on Android in November. Those who didn’t choose to cancel began paying the $9.99 per month fee to remain subscribed.

Apple also recently closed off some of the features on its free tier in order to boost subscriptions. Specifically, it shut off access to its curated Apple Music radio stations, and instead made Beats 1 radio the only free station for those who aren’t subscribers. To what extent that has impacted growth still remains to be seen, however.

Other numbers surrounding Apple’s products and services were unveiled, as well. While we already knew there were 1 billion Apple devices, thanks to figures reported in Apple’s Q1 ’16 “Earnings Supplemental Material” documentation, there were a number of surprises, too.During the interview, the execs were dropping mini-scoops left and right. For example, the two revealed that Apple is working on an updated Remote app that will allow it to do everything that Apple TV’s own remote can. In fact, this will also allow multiple users to operate Apple TV at the same time – one on the Remote app, the other using the Apple TV remote.

It was revealed that Apple’s iCloud service now reaches 782 million users; Apple’s iMessage users send 200,000 messages per second; Apple Pay has processed billions of dollars in payments; the App Store and iTunes see 750 million transactions every week; and Siri handles billions of requests per week.

Plus, there was one number that’s worth noting, if not something to necessarily brag about: Apple Maps’ team has corrected 2.5 million issues based on customer feedback. (It’s not just your gut, I guess – Apple Maps has been getting better.)

The whole episode is worth listening to in its entirety, and can be found on Gruber’s Daring Fireball website here.

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