Big changes are coming to the community-based music streaming service SoundCloud as the company today introduces a new subscription service for the first time.
The new feature, dubbed SoundCloud Go, will allow users to listen to SoundCloud music both offline and ad-free for $10/month:
You might have heard some discussing the state of Apple Music on the iPod nano and shuffle, two products that just got a minor facelift alongside a larger refresh for their bigger brother, the iPod touch. And you might have already guessed that streaming to the devices was a no-go from the lack of Wi-Fi capabilities, but it turns out you won’t even be able to store your offline Apple Music collection on the devices either.
The reason, according to sources, is simply to prevent piracy…
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We were quite impressed with the redesigned Infuse media player from developers FireCore when it first launched version 2 last month. The app, which supports 14 video formats and 1080p playback, is today getting an update to version 2.2 with a few notable new features and performance enhancements.
The update includes some features highly requested by users including the ability to download files form network shares for offline playback, as well as new “rich cover art and video info” when browsing network shares. Other new features include a new list view option, a volume boost setting, and an option to disable metadata fetching.
A full list of improvements in today’s update below:
The Infuse 2.2 update should be hitting the App Store any minute.
iOS 7 Dictation Interface
Apple is testing a local, offline version of Dictation voice input for iOS devices, according to strings of code found inside of the iOS 7 beta. The code, which was discovered by Hamza Sood, is located inside of both iOS 7 betas, but it is not present in iOS 6. Currently, when an iOS user uses their voice to input text using Dictation, the iOS device will use software that uploads your speech to the cloud to be converted into text. Because this relies on an internet connection and a cloud backend, this could sometimes mean errors and long-loading times, as well as some unwanted data usage…
An Apple patent granted on Tuesday would allow you to buy some music and other iTunes content even when offline.
It appears that iTunes would proactively download locked versions of new recommendations (and perhaps more generally new releases) which you could later unlock by using credit stored on the device. So if you are both very impatient and without wireless data access, Apple may one day have you covered.
Update: The stores appear to be back online now, and while the China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand stores have access to Red Friday deals, the others don’t. As for discounts, most products, including iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs appear to be on sale for in between 5% and 10% off. For everyone else, 9to5 readers can still get some of the best prices on Macs in the U.S. through our discount code at MacMall.
While we have not confirmed the exact reason, it looks like around 13 Apple online stores worldwide are currently down. Among them: China, Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
There is a good possibility Apple is updating these websites to reflect the ‘Year of the Dragon’ Jan. 6 Red Friday shopping event that is expected to land in China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and possibly the other countries with online stores currently down. We will keep you posted if we notice any changes when they come back online.
