Radio

How to request a song for Apple’s new Beats 1 radio station

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

Apple's new 24/7 radio station, Beats 1, went live this morning and is now in full effect. Initial feedback on the experiment is mixed—some people really like it, others don't—but the consensus is that Apple has managed to capture the essence of radio.

Keeping with that theme, Apple has announced that it's going to start taking listener requests for songs during at least a small segment of its Beats 1 broadcast. From the service's official Twitter account: "in a few hours, we turn the show over to you."

Beats 1 celebrity hosts to include Drake, Dr. Dre, Elton John and others

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple's Beats 1 streaming radio service will feature celebrity hosts such as Pharrell Williams, Drake and Elton John, reports The New York Times. In a profile of Apple's newly recruited D.J., Zane Lowe, the outlet says a number of well-known stars have been given spots.

Other well-known stars on the menu for Beats 1 programming include Dr. Dre, who will host a show called "The Pharmacy," teen actor Jaden Smith, and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age. Apparently, each of them will be hosting and planning the shows themselves.

iHeartRadio gains iOS 8 Today widget and CarPlay support

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 23, 2014

Thursday, an enhanced version 5.3 of iHeartRadio became available for download in the App Store.

The refreshed application brings out a nice Today widget allowing you to play your recent stations from the Notification Center in iOS 8. You should also appreciate its built-in support for Apple's in-car entertainment system dubbed CarPlay, so you can now listen to iHeart Radio in CarPlay-enabled vehicles.

The updated app can be grabbed for free in the App Store.

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.

NPR launches new curated news radio app ‘NPR One’

Cody Lee ∙ July 28, 2014

NPR launched a new mobile application today which aims to make news radio more tailored and accessible. It's called NPR One, and it curates a mix of NPR radio segments and news articles based on your location and interests.

Now, this won't replace NPR's existing mobile apps, which allow you to listen to nationally syndicated programs and local programming. But what it does do is provide a simple way to listen to relevant, public news radio streams...

Apple said to be buying Swell Radio app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 29, 2018

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...

Broadcast radio stations and locally targeted ads reportedly planned for iTunes Radio

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 30, 2014

According to The Information, a technology blog run by the former Wall Street Journal star reporter Jessica Lessin, Apple is about to bring broadcast radio stations to its iTunes Radio service and permit advertisers to target listeners with greater granularity than before.

These latest strides, said to materialize later this year, are believed to be aimed squarely at the likes of Pandora as Apple moves to make its service more competitive versus established Internet radio offerings...

iTunes Radio expanding to UK soon, iAd director meets with UK ad agencies

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

More signs are pointing to an imminent iTunes Radio launch in the United Kingdom. The company recently banned London-based music streaming service Bloom.fm from advertising on its iAd platform citing competitive reasons and now Apple's iAd director is meeting with the country's ad agencies, seemingly in preparation for iTunes Radio roll-out in the 63 million people market of United Kingdom...

Pandora alarm clock now available on iPad, launches Pebble app for iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 14, 2014

You've been able to wake up to your favorite Pandora station since last December, assuming you're enjoying the popular Internet radio service on your iPhone. On Monday, Pandora has finally rolled out the useful alarm clock feature to the iPad.

It's pretty straightforward and works a lot like the alarm clock feature in the iPhone edition: you just pick your favorite song or station to play as your alarm, knowing you'll be woken up to your favorite music.

And should you decide you could use a few extra minutes of sleep instead of waking up early to eat breakfast, you can do so by adjusting your snooze time...

Apple bans UK’s iTunes Radio competitor from iAd

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2014

Bloom.fm, a London-based music streaming service, on Friday made it known on Twitter that Apple's blocked it from advertising on its iAd platform, citing competitive reasons.

"Apple just banned our ads because we're 'a competitive service to iTunes Radio and it is against Apple policy'", reads the tweet.

The service has a catalog of 22 million tracks that can be streamed for as low as £1 a month (about $1.67).

It's easy to see why Apple has taken a stance against the service: its own iTunes Store sells individual song downloads for the price of a month's worth of unlimited streaming on Bloom.fm. The development has prompted Bloom.fm to boast that "We must be big time now", adding the team was surprised to learn that Apple even noticed what such a small company was doing...

Rdio update makes album headers prettier, brings out Chromecast support

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

Google's Chromecast is picking up some noteworthy support from third-party software makers. The latest example: the popular Internet radio service Rdio has just pushed a new update today bringing support for Google's inexpensive $35 HDMI dongle.

The new Rdio version 2.5.8 also includes various user interface improvements, minor bug fixes and prettified album headers.

The update is now live in the App Store...

iTunes Radio is getting NPR’s streaming news channel today

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

National Public Radio (NPR) is adding the first streaming news channel to Apple’s free iTunes Radio service, Re/code just reported.

The unexpected development marks the official branching out of iTunes Radio, which debuted last September as a music-only streaming service available on Mac and PC desktops as well as on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices.

When NPR’s new channel goes live later today in iTunes Radio, Apple users will be able to tune in to a free stream offering 24/7 mixes of live news with segments from pre-recorded shows such as 'All Things Considered' and 'The Diane Rehm Show.'

But the good news doesn't stop here. Read on for the full reveal.

UPDATE: NPR's channel is now live in iTunes Radio...