Tag: smart speakers

Audio firm Sonos saw its revenues drop by 4% year-on-year during the second quarter of 2020 (its fiscal Q3), but the company sees that as a good performance given the shutdown of many physical retailers due to Covid-19...

2020 appears to be the year of European Commission antitrust investigations affecting Apple's music operations, although the latest one will also be training its sights on Amazon and Google too. The Commission has launched...

Last night was the keynote for Apple's annual WWDC event, which is an online-only affair this year. You can watch the full presentation on YouTube, and read about the new features coming to iPhone's iOS software. But what...

We are seeing more artists embrace the possibilities of voice assistants, led by Amazon’s Alexa music + Alexa. Witness The 1975’s recent use of an Alexa skill to nudge fans towards their latest website. Amazon,...

We’ve seen some plucky independent startups try to go up against Amazon, Google, Apple, Baidu and other big tech companies in the past. It’s never ended well. Could Syng be different? The company does have some...

Apple has its Beats 1 radio station, but now Google has Nest Sessions. Alright, it's not quite on the same level of ambition. Described as "a mood-lifting music experience inspired by psychology", Nest Sessions will broadcast...

Sonos has a new device on the way: the Sonos Arc soundbar, a $799 device that will go on sale on 10 June. There will also be updated versions of its Sonos Sub and Play:5 devices, with the latter now simply named Sonos Five....

US radio group NPR and research firm Edison Research have published their latest Smart Audio Report, which usually has plenty of interesting data on digital listening habits in the US. The new edition, for spring 2020, has...

This is the second part of our Amazon Music piece, based on a face-to-face interview in February that was being held for our Q1 2020 report in early April. Given the impact of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic since February,...

More research firms have been putting out numbers on the market for smart speakers and voice assistants. Juniper Research claims that by 2024 the number of devices with voice assistants in use will “overtake the world’s...

Sonos is launching a new app in June, alongside new software for its speakers. Well, some of its speakers. The app and software is called ‘Sonos S2’, and it will be compatible with many existing Sonos devices...

App-cracker Jane Manchun Wong has been poking around in Spotify’s innards again, and has uncovered more signs of the streaming service’s work on voice controls. It’s a toggle to enable a feature called ‘Hey Spotify’,...