Apple gets big connections

Apple are building up their connectivity worldwide. They already had connections into LINX (the London Internet eXchange), unfortunately they don't say what connectivity they have. Now Apple has taken more connectivity into LONAP who do publish what connectivity their members take, and Apple have taken a big chunk 4*10GE + 4*10GE + 4*10GE + 4*10GE, which makes a whopping 160GB of bandwidth (the next largest members only take 2 x 10GE).

Apple's huge bandwidth requirements could be for many reasons, but it's likely that they'll be pushing stuff into the exchanges rather than getting traffic from other sources. This is likely to improve Apple's download services (there's always big spikes in exchange traffic when say, Apple release a new version of MacOS X or iOS).

More likely it's to support Apple's new Apple Pay service that is coming to the UK in July (along with the latest version of iOS), supporting the alleged 250,000 merchants who are going to offer Apple Pay on it's release, means a lot of potential traffic back to Apple (though the wireless terminals will connect back to the merchant services servers such as Barclaycard), but mobile users paying for stuff in-apps/etc will go back to Apple.

Another reason for so much traffic is Apple's new streaming music service that launches soon (they want to replace Spotify) and streaming music does require LOTS of bandwidth.

After examining LONAP's member list, it seems the total bandwidth of all the members is around 630Mb/s (excluding content providers such as the BBC, Netflix, Google and Microsoft), so Apple's connectivity accounts for 25% of all their bandwidth. Google only have 40Gb/s, Microsoft 20Gb/s, BBC 20Mb/s and Netflix 30Gb/s.

Spotify hits 15m users

Spotify, the music streaming service has now reached over 15m active users and over 4m paying users.

Though Spotify are not in Apple's league with iTunes, they are gaining ground and if they can continue to grow and get traction with paying users (and the licensing authorities don't put their pricing up) they may actually succeed and keep going.

Spotify nows Plays on Android

Spotify has now released their app on to Google Play (formerly Android Marketplace). The app has been available from Spotify's site in beta for a while. The new features are

• Totally new app with full support for Android 4.0
• All-new slide-out navigation
• Crossfade/gapless playback settings
• Widget - control Spotify from the home screen
• Playlist folder support
• Even more social - check out friends’ profile pages and playlists on the go
• Artist imagery in high resolution
• Related artist view - available for the first time on mobile
• ‘Extreme’ sound quality setting for 320kbps listening
• Play queue
• Last.fm scrobbling
• Speed increases

In order to use the mobile version users need a Spotify Premium subscription. Spotify now gives access to over 18 million songs and is available in 15 countries including USA, UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. there are now over 10 million active users with over 3 million paying subscribers.

Date via Spotify

On Thursday 10th May, Spotify launched two apps that allow users to find suitable dates based on their musical taste. The apps are Tastebuds and Fellody.

• Tastebuds: The app will match you with a potential partner based on the artists you’ve listened to most on Spotify and your collection of playlists. Filter matches by gender, age and location, and message matches in real-time and share playlists with them directly. Add your Songkick details to your profile to share gigs that you are going to on your profile – the perfect setting for an offline meet up!
• Fellody: Simply drag and drop Spotify playlists into the app to find friends and potential love interests with the highest match rate. Instantly send a ‘flirt’ or browse your matches’ tastes to discover new music. Check out the top artists to see the most popular artists amongst the Fellody community.

Tastebuds (based in the UK out of Cambridge) has acquired around 50,000 users, mainly in the US, UK and Brasil. They have been though the Springboard incubator program. Fellody are Swiss. Today Spotify also announced that it is arranging a 'house party' that anyone using Spotify can join in with. On June 1st 2012 DJ's Sebastian Ingrosso from Swedish House Mafia and Alesso will set-up a special room using the Spotify app Soundrop and they will share their tunes 'live'. Users will be able to vote on what the DJ's play next and chat to them.

Spotify launches on iPad

Spotify has released a new version of their app for iPad which now supports features of the iPad3 such as the high resolution retina display. It's also easier to explore and browse songs (out of the 18m catalogue), when a song is playing the album art is now available in full-screen mode in HD. Playback has also been improved and the app now supports gapless playback and crossfade and there's Airplay integration too as well as social improvements to see what your friends are playing. Spotify for iPad is available immediately from iTunes.

Spotify launches in US today

Any current Spotify users can invite their friends from across the pond to use the service while anyone in the US can sign-up to apply for membership.

It's taken a while, but Spotify US is a go-er and they've beaten Apple with their new iCloud service and others.

It's yet to be seen how popular Spotify will be in the US as there are existing music streaming services.

Spotify get's early content

R.E.M's new album "Collapse Into Now" will be available today to Spotify Premium users one week prior to the official album launch. This will be available to premium users in UK, Spain, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands and Finland.

Spotify are also running a competition to go with the launch where users can win: -
* A Fender Squier Stratocaster guitar, signed by Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck
* A Sonos S5 – a high-performance wireless music system
* A signed photograph of the band
* A special Spotify playlist compiled by the band, which will be automatically added to their Premium account

User can enter here by answering a simple question and entering their details and Spotify account name.

Spotify goes iPhone and US (soon)

Spotify the Swedish music streaming company (which has players for Mac and Windows) has now launched an iPhone version.

It's been in the queue with Apple for about a month, but was finally given approval yesterday. Many feared it wouldn't make the app store as it competes with Apple's own iTunes service.

Spotify on iPhone will only be available to users who subscribe to their £9.99 per month service, though the application is a free download. Spotify expect the iPhone app to drive new customers to their premium services.

The app allows sync'ed playlists with the desktop version and other features.

US customers still have to wait until Spotify complete licensing deals with the stakeholders in the US, but a launch there is expected next year, though some lucky US people have had pre-launch invites.

Spotify is also rumored to be in talks with Facebook who have been lacking a music service so far, a FB/Spotify tie-up would seriously impinge MySpace's youth music market.

Whichever way you look at it, Spotify are a company to watch, hopefully they'll not get bought out by Facebook or other US giant and can be a genuine European success story.