iTunes Radio

iTunes Radio now requires Apple Music subscription

Keeping true to its promise, ad-supported iTunes Radio, which launched in 2013, is no longer available for free and now requires an Apple Music subscription, leaving Beats 1 as the lone free-to-stream radio service on iTunes.

Starting today, non-subscribers who attempt to access iTunes Radio on iOS or via iTunes for Mac or Windows are greeted with a “Get on Our Wavelength” prompts, asking them to subscribe to Apple Music in order to continue enjoying Apple's selection of streaming radio stations.

Apple killing off ad-supported iTunes Radio stations this month

Apple on Friday began sending out emails to listeners of legacy iTunes Radio stations, informing them that it will be shuttering all ad-supported stations on Apple Music this month. The move will take place on January 29, leaving Beats 1 as the only free music stream available to non-subscribers.

How to replay a Beats 1 DJ’s entire show, including commentary

Beats 1 is a great, but what if you're not available to listen to your favorite DJ's show at the time it initially airs? Good news: Beats 1 nowallows users to replay entire shows.

Since Beat 1's inception, it's always been possible to replay a DJ's playlist, but being able to replay an entire show, complete with commentary, wasn't possible. Thanks to the recent change, this is no longer the case.

Users can now easily replay a show from their favorite DJ just by following a few steps. Admittedly, the steps aren't as straightforward as one might expect from a company that prides itself on dead-simple usage, but it seems to be a running theme with iTunes and the Music app to make things more muddled than need be.

iTunes Radio revamp rumored to include Drake, Pharrell Williams and David Guetta as guest DJs

Apple is reportedly in talks with some more A-list names to add as gust DJs to its Beats Music revamp, including Drake, Pharrell Williams and David Guetta, The New York Post learned yesterday.

These well know names in music should join the likes of BBC Radio 1 DJ personality Zane Lowe who was recently confirmed as leaving the radio giant for a job at Apple in March.

Warner Music Group: Streaming music revenue now outweighs downloads

Tucked away in its earnings release on Monday, major music-player Warner Music Group announced that revenue from streaming surpassed revenue from downloads for the first time. This signals a major turn in the industry, as an old school player is finally revealing it may be comfortable, and on board, with the shift in how customers consume music.

Pandora CFO talks support for CarPlay, relationship with Apple

Pandora revealed on Tuesday it has plans to launch its online music radio on Apple's CarPlay, the in-car infotainment software set to be found in several vehicles on the market.

While Pandora is a little late to the party, as CarPlay launched in 2014, it's a seemingly perfect app to fit the car software. Many users already utilize the Pandora app on their iPhone to play music through their car's speakers.

NY Times: Apple/Beats music streaming service to rival Spotify, iTunes Radio overhaul coming

Stating what's pretty close to the obvious, the New York Times reports the teams at Apple and Beats are working on a digital music service to directly compete with Spotify, one year after the Cupertino-based company paid $3 billion for the headphone maker. It won't bring lower prices than its competitors, the publication says, and is currently being planned for launch this year.

Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers to head iTunes Radio at Apple

Following the completion of Apple's Beats acquisition today, the Wall Street Journal reports on a major position appointment for the two companies. Apparently, Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers (left) has been assigned to lead Apple's iTunes Radio team.

Citing sources familiar with the situation, the outlet says that Rogers will head up both streaming services at the company. He's been tasked with creating cohesion between the two offerings, to better compete with services like Pandora and Spotify...

Apple said to be buying Swell Radio app

Following a TechCrunch report last Friday which claims that Apple has recently acquired data-style book analytics services BookLamp (basically a “Pandora for books”) to beat Amazon at its own game, Re/code is reporting early Monday that the Cupertino firm has another acquisition target in its crosshairs - a radio/podcast app Swell ("Pandora for talk radio") which raised $7.2 million from investors including DFJ, Google Ventures and InterWest Partners...

OneThumb: a universal thumbs up/down tweak for Spotify, Pandora and iTunes Radio

OneThumb is a unique new jailbreak tweak that works with Spotify, Pandora, and iTunes Radio. It allows you to use a universal Activator gesture to input thumbs up or thumbs down ratings across all eligible apps.

Instead of having different manners and methods for curating radio stations, OneThumb brings it all under one umbrella. We've tested it out, and we can vouch that the tweak works exactly as it is described. Take a look at our video inside for all of the details.

T-Mobile announces new ‘Music Freedom’ and ‘Unradio’ initiatives

During T-Mobile's event in Seattle tonight, the carrier announced a handful of new 'uncarrier' initiatives. There's Test Drive, which we've already talked about here, and two new programs for music lovers: 'Unradio' and 'Music Freedom.'

Unradio is an interesting new streaming music service from T-Mobile and Rhapsody that addresses "major pain points" of other services, and Music Freedom allows users to stream music without it hitting their monthly data allowance.

Keep reading for a full breakdown of both programs...