Cue told John Gruber the news on Gruber’s podcast, The Talk Show. These weren’t the only numbers shared, as Cue also said that the company has 782 million iCloud users, who upload billions of photos to the service each week.
If the user base continues to grow at this rate, it seems likely that Apple Music could top 20 million paying users by the end of the year, just as the Financial Times estimated last month. This would put the service within striking distance of Spotify’s paid tier, which currently boasts over 20 million paying subscribers acquired over a much longer period of time (Spotify launched in 2008). Spotify also had between 55-60 million free, ad-based subscribers at last count, but its paying user base brings in the vast majority of its revenue.
The subscriber numbers weren’t the only interesting tidbits shared in the interview. As Digital Trends has reported elsewhere, Cue and Federighi revealed to Gruber that Apple is currently working on an overhauled Apple Remote app which, once released, will allow an iPhone to work as a “full replacement” for the remote included with the Apple TV, even working as a second controller for two-player games.
The two executives also talked about the new dictation feature coming in tvOS 9.2, saying that it’s a feature that Apple wanted to include from the very start. Unfortunately, no release information for the update, currently in beta, was given.
The interview wasn’t all about cold hard facts, however. Cue also took a moment to tease Apple CEO Tim Cook over his infamous blurry Super Bowl photo, which Cook deleted shortly afterward due to relentless trolling on Twitter. “He’s a huge sports fan, and was loving it, and he loved that his team actually won the Super Bowl,” Cue said.
For the full interview, listen to the podcast available at Daring Fireball.
