MacRumors

Male employees who work for Apple in the United Kingdom earn five percent more on average than women, according to a UK Gender Pay Gap report released today by Apple [PDF]. The median hourly pay gap was two percent in favor of women, however.

According to Apple, the average pay gap is due to more men holding senior positions at the company, and when factoring in "similar roles, markets, and performance" it has achieved pay equity. Apple has more than 6,000 employees in the UK.

Apple believes strongly that equal work deserves equal pay. Every year, we examine the compensation employees receive and make adjustments where necessary to ensure we maintain pay equity. And we have achieved this in every country -- women at our company earn the same as men when you factor in similar roles, markets and performance.

As part of our commitment to eliminating pay disparities from the first day at Apple, later this year we'll also stop asking candidates about their salary history.

Apple says that 30 percent of its UK employees are women, and 36 percent of new employees last year were women. 40 percent of the companies "leaders under the age of 30" are also women.

92 percent of men received a bonus including vested stock, while 88 percent of women received the same bonus. Additional detail on the wage gap in the UK is available in Apple's full report.

Apple published this information because of a new UK law that requires companies with more than 250 employees to publish the average total pay received by men relative to that received by women.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Spotify, Apple Music's main competitor, this morning opened on the New York Stock Exchange at $165.90 per share, valuing the company at $29.5 billion.

When Spotify filed to go public in February, CNBC estimated the company's valuation at ~$23 billion based on private trades that had reached as high as $132.50. Spotify used the $132 per share figure as its reference price, which would have given the company a $23.5 billion valuation.

As noted by TechCrunch, Spotify is not selling its shares on the stock market and is not raising money today. Its direct listing is instead a collection of transactions from existing shareholders selling shares to stock market investors.

Spotify employees are allowed to sell their shares right away, unlike with a traditional IPO, which could lead to volatility in the coming weeks.

As of December 31, 2017, Spotify had 159 million active monthly users and 71 million premium subscribers, which Spotify says is "double the scale" of Apple Music. Apple as of February boasted 36 million paying subscribers.

In an appearance on CBS This Morning, Spotify cofounder and CEO Daniel Ek today discussed the company's public offering and a recent report from The Wall Street Journal suggesting Apple Music is on track to overtake Spotify in U.S. subscribers.

In response, Ek said that because Spotify is twice the size as Apple Music, the company "still has some room." Ek said that he's "very happy" with the growth that Spotify is seeing. The music industry, he says, is too big for Spotify alone.

"What we've found is that when we've got competition, it actually grows the market because more people are now talking about streaming. It's easy to forget that just three years ago, even in the U.S., streaming wasn't a thing," he said.

Update: Spotify closed at $149.60, giving it a market cap of $26.5 billion.

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.4 update to its public beta testing group, one day after providing the beta to developers and a little under a week after releasing tvOS 11.3, a minor update that introduced a few smaller features.

The tvOS 11.4 public beta can be obtained by going to the Settings app on the Apple TV and navigating to the Software Updates section under "System." "Get Public Beta Updates" will need to be toggled on, and once it is, the Apple TV will download the beta software.

tvOS 11.4 and iOS 11.4 reintroduce AirPlay 2 features that were included in early iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3 betas but were pulled from the update ahead of its release.

AirPlay 2 is designed to let you play the same audio content on multiple devices throughout your home, full a whole-home audio experience. AirPlay 2 works with the Apple TV, the HomePod, and it will work with future speakers that implement AirPlay 2 support.

Following the installation of iOS 11.4 and tvOS 11.4, the Apple TV will once again be listed in the Home app, as it was when AirPlay 2 features were available in iOS and tvOS 11.3 betas.

No other major feature changes were discovered in the tvOS 11.4 beta that was provided to developers.

The Weeknd's new single "Call Out My Name" was streamed 6 million times in its first 24 hours of release on Apple Music last Friday, March 30. As a comparison, Apple Music's streams of the song nearly doubled Spotify's 3.5 million streams in the same 24-hour period.

As reported by The Verge today, Apple Music's numbers on the new song are impressive given the context of Spotify's advertising push for The Weeknd's new album "My Dear Melancholy." On Friday, Spotify debuted two exclusive videos from the album, one of which was for "Call Out My Name." The Weeknd also tagged Spotify in multiple Instagram posts focusing on the new videos after the album dropped.

Still, Apple Music beat out Spotify for the single's streams on Friday, and in total Apple's service managed over 26 million streams for the full My Dear Melancholy album.

Apple Music has seemingly cracked the streaming formula when it comes to hip-hop and R&B, despite a sizable disadvantage in users compared to Spotify. While Apple Music isn’t the dominant service when it comes to subscribers, it’s quickly becoming the leader when it comes to engagement — at least when it comes to the world’s biggest genre — and that can’t be overlooked.

In March 2017, Drake's "More Life" album streamed 29 million more times on Apple Music than on Spotify in its first 24 hours of launch. Later in the fall, Post Malone dropped his single "Rockstar" and quickly broke Apple Music records with over 25 million streams in one week, grabbing 56 percent of the first week streams of the song in the United States.

At the time, Apple Music head of artist curation Carl Chery said that the company repeatedly wins the streaming game on songs like "Rockstar" because it's "ahead of the curve on them."

“A lot of times on those records where we outperform is because we’re ahead of the curve on them, Chery says.” Chery told me he heard "Rockstar" before it was released and knew immediately that it would be a hit, allowing Apple to move fast and add it to the relevant playlists in the first week. “And to a point, Apple Music becomes the destination where people want to hear that particular record,” Chery said.

In terms of paying subscribers, Apple Music had 38 million worldwide as of March 2018, and Spotify had 71 million as of February 2018. Spotify also has a free, ad-supported tier, giving it over 159 million listeners overall around the world.

The latest addition to Apple Music launched last week in the form of an overhauled music videos section, where subscribers can stream continuous video playlists, watch exclusive videos, and browse a deep back catalog of video content.

Update: Spotify now claims that streams of "Call Out My Name" reached 7.5 million in its first 24 hours of release, while the full "My Dear Melancholy" album was streamed 29 million times, surpassing Apple Music on both counts. The Verge asked The Weeknd's label, Republic Records, for the single's streaming numbers again, but instead of the previous 3.5 million number, the label said it was streamed 6.5 million times on Friday, which is still one million less than Spotify's claims. It remains unclear which number is accurate.

Apple this week updated its Apple Music Android app with the revamped music videos section that launched on iOS and macOS devices late last week.

Announced earlier in 2018, Apple Music's new music videos section provides access to a wider variety of both classic and brand-new videos, exclusive videos from artists like Kylie Minogue, and full video playlists that let subscribers stream music videos back-to-back without ads. Similar to the non-video section, there are curated playlists for topics like The Beats 1 Video List and Today's Video Hits, but users can also create their own custom playlists of music videos.

WHAT'S NEW: Apple Music now includes a new music video experience. Find what’s new and popular in Music Videos within Browse, and play videos back-to-back with exclusive music video playlists.

The new Android update comes about a month after the last one, which also focused on music videos. Instead of major changes, the March version update introduced the ability for users to watch music videos in fullscreen or inside Now Playing, so that the music continued playing while browsing other parts of the app. About a year ago, Apple introduced major design changes to the Android app that more closely resembled the look of the Music app on iOS devices.

Apple Music for Android can be downloaded from the Google Play store for free.

In February, Apple updated its website with a new section explaining the advantages of closing the Apple Watch's three Activity rings. At the same time, the company kicked off an internal challenge for its employees that tasked them with closing their Move, Exercise, and Stand rings every day for the entire month.

This was the second "Close Your Rings" fitness challenge for company employees, with the rewards last year including an Activity rings pin and a matching T-shirt. For the 2018 challenge, eBay users have already begun taking advantage of the Woven Nylon band's exclusive status, with Buy-it-Now prices going as high as $250-$350 at the time of writing. Apple sells Woven Nylon bands for $50.

Besides internal challenges, Apple frequently launches public Activity challenges on Apple Watch, with recent ones focused on International Women's Day, Heart Month, and the New Year.

Snapchat today announced that users on iOS and Android will soon be able to begin group video chats with up to 16 friends at once. The feature's addition comes about two years after Snapchat first introduced video and voice chat in spring 2016.

To start a group video chat, users will need to enter an existing group chat -- or create a new one -- and then tap the video icon. This will notify every group member that the other people in the chat are joining in on a group video call, and as they join their name bubble will light up above the keyboard to confirm they're on the call.

For bigger groups, Snapchat said that up to 32 people will be able to join a group voice chat, but video chat will be capped at 16 members. If someone wants to join the video call but doesn't want to use their camera, they'll be able to choose a chat entry option that only uses their voice, and toggle between video and voice when they're ready. For those using the camera, Snapchat's usual face lenses will be available for members to use as they chat with friends and family members.

In addition to group video chat, Snapchat revealed that stories will be getting the ability to add in @ mentions in the new update. This way, users can tag friends in any snap they add to their story and then viewers looking at the story will be able to swipe up to watch the tagged friend's public story and see an option to add them as a friend. Users will get notified in chat when someone tags them in a story.

The new features will begin rolling out to all Snapchat users worldwide over the next few weeks.

Apple today updated its investor relations page to announce that it will share its earnings results for the second fiscal quarter (first calendar quarter) of 2018 on Tuesday, May 1.

The earnings release will provide a look at sales of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X following its record January quarter that saw the company sell 77.3 million iPhones.

Apple's guidance for the second fiscal quarter includes expected revenue of $60 to $62 billion and gross margin between 38 and 38.5 percent. Apple will beat its Q2 2017 earnings results based on those guidance numbers.

Apple's quarterly earnings statement will be released at 1:30 p.m. Pacific/4:30 p.m. Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 p.m. Pacific/5:00 p.m. Eastern. MacRumors will provide coverage of both the earnings release and conference call on May 1.

Over the past few months, DirecTV Now have been offering a great deal for anyone interested in the Apple TV 4K. The offer stipulates that when new subscribers prepay for three months of DirecTV Now at $105, they can get a 32GB Apple TV 4K at no additional cost. It was believed that the company would remove the deal at the end of March -- or revert back to the original offer to prepay for four months at $140 -- but now that a new month has rolled around it appears that the offer should be available through the end of April.

DirecTV Now introduced this new, lower-cost offer back in February and it has remained the best sale price for a brand-new 32GB Apple TV 4K since then. Although eBay and retailers like Adorama and B&H Photo sometimes have sales, the 32GB Apple TV 4K's normal price is $180 on Apple.com.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with DirecTV Now. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

The offer's $105 price tag calculates the cost of three months of DirecTV Now's "Live a Little" $35/month plan, which includes around 60+ live channels. On the Apple TV app, users can stream live TV and watch on-demand shows, and sometime this spring they'll be able to record content to DirecTV Now's long-promised cloud-based DVR.

To take advantage of the sale, follow these steps:

• Visit DirecTVNow.com's landing page for the deal
• Click "Redeem & Stream"
• Select the "Live a Little" package to get the Apple TV at the lowest possible price
• Choose if you want to add premium channel add-ons, or click "Skip for now"
• Click "Add to plan" under the Apple TV 4K box in the Special offer section
• Click "Continue" and go through the account creation and checkout processes

It's important to note that the deal is for new subscribers only, but existing subscribers can claim it by using an alternative email address from their original account, or by setting up an iCloud email alias. Once ordered, the Apple TV 4K arrives in the mail within a few weeks, and those who don't want to continue paying for DirecTV Now beyond the three months offered in this deal can cancel the service before the fourth month is billed and keep the Apple TV 4K.

For more on the latest discounts and savings happening this spring, visit our Deals Roundup.

Instagram today became the latest company to ditch the Apple Watch, eliminating its Apple Watch app in an update that was released this morning.

In a statement given to French site iPhoneAddict, Instagram said the Instagram Apple Watch app was built using the watchOS 1 SDK, which was obsoleted by Apple on April 1. Rather than putting effort into rebuilding the app, Instagram has decided to end support for the wrist-worn device.

"The Instagram app for Apple Watch will no longer be available as a stand-alone experience once users upgrade to Instagram version 39 on iOS, released April 2, 2018. We are committed to providing users with the best experience with their Apple products and we will continue to explore ways to achieve this on all platforms. Users with an Apple Watch will continue to enjoy a great Instagram experience through various rich and varied notifications. "

Apple last year began notifying developers that Apple Watch apps need to be native apps built with the watchOS 2 SDK or later as of April 1, 2018. Apple first began requiring new apps to use the watchOS 2 SDK in June of 2016, and watchOS apps that continue to use the watchOS 1 SDK can no longer be updated. Apple now requires all new watchOS apps to be built using the watchOS 4 SDK.

Instagram has had a watchOS app available since 2015, and it was one of the first companies to support the Apple Watch when it first launched. The app was designed to let you view and like photos from the social network on your wrist. Instagram features will continue to be available on Apple Watch, but through notifications sent to a linked iPhone.

Instagram joins several other major companies that have abandoned development for the Apple Watch and eliminated their watchOS apps, including Twitter, Google Maps, Amazon, and eBay.