Apple Music passes 11M subscribers as iCloud hits 782M users

During a wide-ranging interview published on Friday, Apple executives Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi revealed fresh statistics on the company's various internet services like Apple Music, which now boasts more than 11 million paying subscribers.

The new Apple Music headcount surfaced alongside other interesting tidbits in an hour-long sit-down session with John Gruber, published as an episode of the blogger's The Talk Show podcast. The 11 million subscriber number is ten percent higher than the last figure provided in the company's earnings call just over two weeks ago, when it was noted that over 10 million had signed up.

During that call, Apple's chief executive Tim Cook emphasized that Apple had also reached the milestone of one billion devices in its active installed base. Cue's total of iCloud users is about 78 percent of that figure, which he explained was due to the fact that many people own multiple devices.

Cue said that Apple's 782 million iCloud users contribute to a crush of photo uploads, iMessage communications and iTunes and App Store purchases. At peak operating status, the company's cloud currently processes over 200,000 iMessages per second, a number that translates to more than 17 billion per day. In addition, combined iTunes and the App Store purchases clock in at more than 750 million per week.

Cue and Federighi also addressed Walt Mossberg's critique of Apple's first-party app development efforts. Mossberg in a recent post on The Verge pointed to much-maligned issues involving a bloated iTunes client, an aging Mail app and niggling iCloud synchronization problems.

"I know our core software quality has improved over the last five years — improved significantly. But, the bar just keeps going up, and that's a bar that we embrace," Federighi said. "Every year we realize the things we were good at least year, and the techniques we were using to build the best software we can, are not adequate for the next year because the bar keeps going up."

Federighi goes on to say that niche problems are quickly amplified as devices like iPhone become an integral part of users' daily lives.

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58 Comments

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

About 8 years ago

Free doesn’t pay the bills as Pandora has found out the hard way and now offering itself up for sale.

isilver 15 comments · 17 Years

So Walt and everyone else who complains about the problems wth Mac software these days is wrong, thanks goodness for that, i thought it was Apple doing something less than perfectly.

"Federighi goes on to say that niche problems are quickly amplified as devices like iPhone become an integral part of users' daily lives."

Of course they are, because they're not really niche problems anymore because so many users experience the same problems, the same little buggy problems affects millions of users. The response is straight out of the Steve Ballmer playbook.

red oak 1104 comments · 13 Years

I listened to the whole thing

They came across as defensive, not offensive. Same as Cook on the earnings call

We know you are at world-wide scale. Embrace it and make it an advantage. Act like you are setting the world on fire, which you are. Don't be so damn understated

drewys808 549 comments · 16 Years

isilver said:

So Walt and everyone else who complains about the problems wth Mac software these days is wrong, thanks goodness for that, i thought it was Apple doing something less than perfectly.

"Federighi goes on to say that niche problems are quickly amplified as devices like iPhone become an integral part of users' daily lives."

Of course they are, because they're not really niche problems anymore because so many users experience the same problems, the same little buggy problems affects millions of users. The response is straight out of the Steve Ballmer playbook.

You're wrong.
You've taken everything out of context in attempt to make your point.

rogifan_old 725 comments · 9 Years

red oak said:

I listened to the whole thing

They came across as defensive, not offensive. Same as Cook on the earnings call

We know you are at world-wide scale. Embrace it and make it an advantage. Act like you are setting the world on fire, which you are. Don't be so damn understated

I like Craig. And I like the fact that when he was asked about radars he admitted external communion isn't as good as it could be. I wish Gruber would have pushed Cue a bit more on iTunes. I didn't get the sense he really gets how awful and bloated it is. Also there's no way Cue set up a new TV like a customer would because if he had he would have said its not shipping until it has remote app and/or BT keyboard support.