With less than two weeks until the launch of Apple Music in over 100 countries, the latest signs of the streaming music service continue to appear in iOS 8.4 and iOS 9 betas. A number of users running the pre-release software versions have shared screenshots showing a new Radio tab in the Music app that displays a Beats 1 demo alongside a list of other stations and genres.
The new Radio tab and Beats 1 pre-recording by DJ Zane Lowe have gone live for users in the United States, Canada, Germany, Norway, United Kingdom and select other countries, although it remains unclear if all features of Apple Music will be available worldwide on June 30. The search feature in the Radio tab is working as of now for some users, but Beats 1 and other playlists cannot be listened to yet.
The curated playlists shown in the screenshots cover a wide selection of genres, including classic, indie, pop-hits, all-city, francophone hits and charting music. Searching for and tapping on an individual song brings you to the Apple Music subscription menu that began appearing earlier this month and has revealed possible international pricing of €9.99/£9.99 per month in Europe and as low as $2-$3 per month in some countries.
Apple Music subscription menu added to iOS 8.4 beta earlier this month
Apple Music was announced last week as an all-in-one streaming music service, live global radio station and social platform for artists to connect with fans. The subscription-based service will be available June 30 for $9.99 per month after a three-month free trial period for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and PC. Apple TV and Android versions of the service will be available in the fall.
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Apple is expected to release iOS 18.4 to the general public as soon as next week, following more than a month of beta testing.
Apple's website says some iOS 18.4 features will be released in "early April," so the update should be out as early as Tuesday, April 1.
Apple this week seeded the iOS 18.4 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, barring the discovery of any...
Tuesday March 25, 2025 11:52 am PDT by Juli Clover
Leaker Jon Prosser today shared a mockup of what he says the Messages app will look like in iOS 19, demoing an interface with rounded, translucent bubble-shaped navigation buttons at the top and softer, rounder corners for the keyboard and word suggestions.
Jon Prosser's Messages app mockup
The return button, a button for going back to the Messages list, and the FaceTime button have a deeper...
Thursday March 20, 2025 12:01 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost.
The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month.
In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
Apple today announced that AirPods Max with a USB-C port will be gaining support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio with a firmware update next month, alongside the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS 15.4.
For context, audio files are typically compressed to keep file sizes smaller. There are lossy compression standards like MP3 and AAC (Advanced Audio Codec), which...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:53 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple regularly refreshes the MacBook Pro models, and a new version that uses M5 series chips is in the works. Apple just finished refreshing most of the Mac lineup with M4 chips, and now it's time for the M5. Rumors suggest that we could see the first M5 MacBook Pro models this fall.
Design
There have been no rumors of a design update for the M5 MacBook Pro models that are coming this...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 12:19 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is going all out with promotions for the popular Severance Apple TV+ show today, and as of right now, you'll find a new "Lumon Terminal Pro" listed on Apple's Mac site.
The Lumon Terminal Pro is designed to look similar to the machines that Severance employees like Mark S. and Helly R. use for macrodata refinement. The Terminal features a blue keyboard, a small display with wide...
The iOS 19 mockup images that leaker Jon Prosser shared today are not representative of the actual iOS 19 design, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said on social media.
According to Gurman, the images that are "floating around" are based on "very old builds" or "vague descriptions," and are lacking key features. Gurman says that we can "expect more from Apple in June."
Gurman made the same comment ...
Get users to pay for radio. Wow that takes some balls!!! or poor education from parents to children.
what next?
paying to browse a shop for clothes, electronics or food. I **** you not. Tokenisation of bluetooth and wifi to debit your apple account everytime you enter a shop.
Beats 1 radio is free. You don't have to be signed up for any special plan to listen to it.
Get users to pay for radio. Wow that takes some balls!!! or poor education from parents to children.
what next?
paying to browse a shop for clothes, electronics or food. I **** you not. Tokenisation of bluetooth and wifi to debit your apple account everytime you enter a shop.
It depends on the quality of the stream. If it's a 128kbps stream, then 128kb :)
Which is about 1MB per minute.
not quite. 128 Kbps is 16 kB/s which is about 0.012Mb per second or 0.72Mb per minute. Yeah I get .72 could be said to be "about 1Mb" but that is a pretty big difference once you start to add up over a longer duration. For example over an hour that becomes 43.2Mb vs 60Mb. People average about 2.5hr per day of terrestrial radio (streaming radio is probably higher for this demographic but I didn't look up the data) so in a given months time that would equate to about 77.5 hours. This would be about 3348Mb vs 4650Mb.
Lastly, this also does not factor in the potential for other compression technologies that may be used to reduce the size of data in-transit, however, I wouldn't assume this when trying to plan how much streaming music you can listen to with your data plan.
