Music

Irish newspaper claims U2 won’t be involved in iPhone 6 launch, retracts itself minutes later

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

There's been a flurry of speculation by fans and watchers alike that the popular Irish rock band U2 will be performing live at Apple's media event next Tuesday and even preload its new album on the forthcoming iPhone 6. Thursday morning, an Irish newspaper added to the confusion.

The band's spokesperson purportedly quashed the rumor in a statement released to Independent [Google Cache]. The story got pulled minutes later without an explanation, casting doubt on its veracity.

As Cody told you last night, The Sunday Times newspaper first started this rumor based on vague hearsay among fans and shady photographic evidence in the form of images depicting U2's secret video shoot in Dublin last week, which music promotor Stephen Browne shared on Twitter.

Much-improved Rdio launches with new look and features, free version coming to 20 countries

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Rdio, the popular Internet radio service, on Thursday launched a major redesign of its mobile app which now aims to compete with the likes of Spotify and rival Pandora by bringing its ad-supported free Stations to 20 countries.

The new look includes your personalized Home featuring an evolving mix of music stories based on your listening history and tastes, a new Browse section which now features both genre and curated Stations, a Trending feature showing what's popular right now, the ability to favorite just about anything, from albums to artists to songs to stations, and much more.

Rdio is free in the App Store.

Sony overhauls Music Unlimited for iOS 7, adds speed enhancements and new features

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Music Unlimited, the PlayStation music app from Sony optimized for the iPhone, at last has received its long-overdue iOS 7 refresh bringing it in line with Apple's design language for iOS.

Nearly two and a half years following its debut, the app now finally sits at version 2.0 with half a dozen new features and a fresh new look owing to the use of iOS 7 styling and a flattened Home screen icon.

If you have the PlayStation console and use the Music Unlimited service, you're going to be appreciative not only of its crisp typography and user interface, but also of a lot faster and more reliable performance. Jump past the fold for a quick highlight of the most important new features.

The best apps for guitar tabs and chords

Lory Gil ∙ Updated March 1, 2018

You may recall that I fancy myself a bit of a musician. I’ve been forcing my friends to listen to a variety of my musical endeavors for nearly two decades now. I’m sure they are bored with my stage antics by now. One piece of equipment that is almost as important to a musician as the instrument itself is a songbook.

There are a variety of ways to keep track of songs you’ve written or want to cover, and chords you need to practice, or want to perfect. The dawn of the mobile device has made it even easier than ever to carry your songbook with you through apps specifically designed for musicians. We’ve compiled a list of what we think are the best guitar tabs and chords apps for iPhone and iPad.

#PlayMe2 displays the currently playing song’s details in the Status Bar

Alihassan Mahdi ∙ August 30, 2014

If you've been following iDB, you'll remember that Jeff reviewed a status bar tweak a few months ago known as #PlayMe. The same developer has now released #PlayMe2 which is a more stable version of its predecessor with fewer bugs, but it serves the same purpose.

#PlayMe2 makes your Status Bar more informative by displaying the name of the currently playing song along with the artist name in the Status Bar. The tweak will rotate between the time, song name and artist name in the Status Bar. This allows you to take a quick peek at what music is playing in the background without opening the music app or Control Center.

PlayTask lets you play or pause a currently playing song from the App Switcher

Alihassan Mahdi ∙ August 29, 2014

The main purpose of the App Switcher is to display the apps running in the background as well as enable you to close them. PlayTask is a brand new tweak that makes the App Switcher a little more useful by allowing you to play or pause music.

Developed by TheJailPad, PlayTask allows users to play or pause the currently playing song by swiping down the Music app card in the App Switcher. The tweak not only works with the stock Music app but with other third-party apps as well such as Spotify. By default, when you swipe down a music app card in the App Switcher, nothing happens, but with PlayTask, the music will start to play from where you left it or it will pause.

iTunes Festival and Showtime Anytime channels launch on Apple TV

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

Two nice updates for Apple TV owners today. First, Apple has re-launched the iTunes Festival channel on the $99 media-streming box in time for the 2014 iTunes Festival, which kicks off on September 1 in London.

And second, the firm has also added the Showtime Anytime channel to the device.

Showtime is a premium cable network offering some free content to all users, in addition to live and on-demand shows and events to those who've subscribed to the network through a participating cable provider.

Additional content sources have been added to the Apple TV in select markets, as outlined after the jump.

Spotify now lets you save whole albums to Your Music and access more album info

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 25, 2014

Spotify, arguably the most popular subscription-based music streaming service, on Monday refreshed its free iOS client with a few improvements.

In addition to adding Finnish language support that recently appeared in Spotify's Android client, the updated software now makes it possible to save albums to Your Music, from any album page. Moreover, you can now easily check out album release dates and total play time, too.

Google Play Music update improves music management, accessibility and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 21, 2014

A month and a half ago, the Internet giant Google pushed a nice update which added several useful enhancements to its Play Music for iOS client, including support for gapless playback, playlist downloading and other nice-to-haves.

Today, another Play Music update has dropped. Available free in the App Store, the new 1.3.2.2559 build brings out even more useful stuff like ability to remove cloud tracks on the go, improved playback and accessibility features and more...

Lullaby lets you set a timer to automatically stop playing music via an Activator gesture

Alihassan Mahdi ∙ Updated June 7, 2017

If you listen to music regularly before going to sleep, you should probably check out a new tweak called Lullaby. Brought to you by the same developer who created Hermes and Acute, Lullaby ensures that the music playing on your device stops automatically after a set amount of time. Lullaby can also be used for other purposes as well such as while exercising.

Apple Stores shave 10 percent off Beats by Dr. Dre headphones until Saturday

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Apple's short-term strategy regarding the $3 billion buy of Beats Electronics and Beats Music is starting to take shape with each passing day.

Not only is it actively advertising and selling Beats products through its brick-and-mortar locations and online retail stores, but now the California firm has shaved a cool 10 percent off all Beats by Dr. Dre headphones and assorted accessories.

This is virtually an unheard-of move — the company rarely discounts its own products by more than a meager few percents.

I'd say that it's kinda interesting seeing the maker of overpriced gadgets — as haters usually diss Apple — actually bring the overpriced Beats by Dr. Dre headphones to more bearable levels...

Sony releases ‘Album of the Day’ for iPhone app

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 14, 2014

Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony today released a brand new iPhone app focused on daily deals on select iTunes music purchases.

Created by Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH and dubbed 'Album of the Day,' the software is now available in key market globally as a free download from the App Store, following its soft-launch back in March in Germany.

The app offers daily deals on whole albums from the Sony label, with up to 70 percent off on popular artists...