Rdio, the popular subscription music service, is rolling out an update today to its iPhone and iPad app that brings a couple of welcomed new features including playlist editing for iPhone and iPod touch and reviews. As for the new playlist editing features, Rdio explained in its blog post:
Now, you can update your playlists from your iPhone or iPod touch — in addition to creating playlists and adding new tracks, you can now remove and rearrange tracks until you’ve made the best playlist ever (or it’s dethroned by your next playlist, of course). You can also customize the playlist artwork, change its visibility and collaboration settings, and more.
The new Rdio app also includes reviews for albums and playlists from both users and critics. Not only will you now be able to write your own album and playlist reviews from within the app, you’ll also be able to browse reviews from critics in addition to reviews written by other users.
Rdio notes in its blog post that it has “also made tweaks to the app’s design, user interface, and overall performance.”
Beats Music is now available for iPhone on the App Store, after being originally announced back in October. The app is a very stylised adaption of a typical music streaming service app, with Beats heavily pushing the idea of customisation and curation to distance it from its many competitors.
What do 1980, 1989 and 2003 have in common? They were the peak sales years for LPs, cassettes and CDs respectively. After that, a very slight resurgence in vinyl aside, it was all downhill.
Billboard magazine has an interesting piece in which they suggest that perhaps 2012 might join that list – as the year that saw peak sales for music downloads, with streaming services like Spotify, Rdio and now, of course, iTunes Radio the heir apparent …
If you use Shazam to note music you’d like to listen to later, that just got easier with the latest version of the iOS app: you can set it so that all the tracks you Shazam are automatically added to a My Shazam Tracks in Rdio.
Shazam was last updated in September, with instant previews of tweeted tracks and faster song recognition on older iPhones. Press release below … Expand Expanding Close
Rdio has launched a free personalized radio stations option within its iOS and Android apps. This is a more controllable version of the You FM feature added back in August.
Like iTunes Radio, you can’t choose a specific artist or track, but you can create a radio station based on a song, artist or genre and then listen to the stream Rdio creates based on your selection. Unlike iTunes Radio, Rdio’s free streaming service is ad-free, at least for now.
New subscribers also get a 14-day free trial of the Rdio subscription service, allowing you to play specific tracks. Once the 14 days end, however, you’ll revert to radio stations only unless you sign-up at $9.99 a month to keep the paid service.
Subscription music service Rdio announced today that it’s completely overhauling how stations work through the service. While stations and the player get a refresh with new endless station types to pick from, the big new feature is something Rdio calls “You FM”:
You FM — A brand new, personalized, adjustable station that leverages Taste Profiling technology from The Echo Nest and incorporates all your listening history, track voting, Facebook likes, Twitter follows, and more to create a truly unique and individualized listening experience. As your tastes grow and evolve, so does You FM.
The new player will let users “vote on individual songs, tune stations towards familiar or adventurous sounds, and pivot stations based on favorite tracks” in order to fine tune stations. You’ll even be able to listen to others’ You FM stations. An endless station that’s automatically customized to the user’s listening habits seems like a must have feature for apps competing with Pandora and Spotify, and it’s something that Apple’s upcoming iTunes Radio app will take advantage of heavily.
The subscription based Rdio music streaming service today updated its iOS app with a few features similar to those included in Apple’s recently introduced iTunes Radio service. The most notable new feature is Song Stations which, much like iTunes Radio, allows users to automatically create a station based on any song with the ability to view and skip upcoming tracks.
Another new feature in the updated Rdio app is “AutoPlay”, which automatically continues playing music similar to what you’ve just listened to when a station or playlist has ended. A full list of what’s new is below:
What’s New in Version 2.2.1
• Song Stations. Start a station based on any song to hear more from that artist and other related artists. See four upcoming tracks and skip as much as you want.
• AutoPlay. After the music you’re playing has ended, hear more like what you’ve recently listened to.
• Various UI improvements and minor bug fixes.
Rhapsody is rolling out an all new iPhone app today following some big updates to competitive music services earlier this week including Pandora and Rdio. Rhapsody is calling this app update “a completely new experience” for iOS and broke down on its blog a ton of changes its made to the UI on top of adding new features like customizable organization for your library and downloads, improved album and artist pages, and a new full-screen player.
Personalized organization: The music you curate lives in the My Music section, which now has improved organization into two key categories:
o Library: The central folder for your Rhapsody music when connected to the Internet. Music is sub-categorized by playlists, artists, albums, stations, queue and listening history
o Downloads: All the music you can’t live without can be downloaded for easy offline playback
· Upgraded Album and Artist pages: Read a review of an album, shuffle tracks from an artist, and much more
· Full-screen player: Showcase gorgeous artist and album imagery that takes advantage of iPhone’s full screen real estate
· Pop-up menus: Easily add tracks to “My Music,” download, add to a queue or favorite by tapping the + image
A new iPad version of Shazam available today introduces a whole raft of new functions, ranging from passive tagging without user input to the ability to recognise a song and then play it in Spotify or Rdio.
With passive tagging, the app continually listens to any music in the background and automatically tags it, ideal for use in bars where you may idly wonder what a track is but not want to go to the trouble of manually checking. The feature also works in the background, displaying a notification while the iPad is running other apps. Shazam’s claim of one-second tagging appears somewhat optimistic, however: a random sampling of tracks I tested took the usual several seconds.
LyricPlay displays lyrics in sync with the background music (Encore version only), while you can now immediately open the currently-playing track in either Rdio (all versions) or Spotify (Encore version only).
Shazam for iPad also introduces the kind of networked feature which seems to be expected in apps these days even if we’re not quite sure why. You can see which music and TV shows people are currently tagging in your country, city of neighborhood – as well as use a map to see tagging charts for anywhere else in the world.
Following a big update to the Pandora Radio app earlier today, the subscription based Rdio iPhone and iPad app has been updated today with UI improvements, a new “Find People” feature for finding artists and friends to follow, and the ability to search by record label to find artists and albums.
The updates to the app’s UI are most noticeable in a “new, cleaner look for sliding side navigation.” (as pictured to the right)
What’s New in Version 2.2
– Find People. New feature makes following friends and artists easier than ever.
– Labels. Search for a record label to find its top albums and artists.
– Various minor bug fixes and UI improvements, including new, cleaner look for sliding side navigation.
Twitter #music takes a step toward filling the void created when everyone migrated from MySpace, which was one of the most effective music discovery tools for me until it was largely vacated.
Twitter promises to “change the way people find music, based on Twitter,” per the social network’s blog, which I believe will be widely appreciated.
Vimeo On Demand: After launching a brand new iPhone app in November and rolling out its Tip Jar feature in September, Vimeo is today officially launching its new Vimeo On Demand ‘self-distribution service’ that allows Vimeo PRO creators to sell content directly to their audience. Vimeo said content creators will keep a 90 percent share after transactions fees and will also be able to “choose their price; select country-by-country availability; customize their page design; and offer content on Vimeo, their own website, or both.” Purchased videos will be available to users across all devices that support Vimeo. Previously, Vimeo had a preview of the service available on its website that offered a selection of movies for $5.00.
“What used to be a confusing and labor-intensive process is now open and simple with Vimeo On Demand,” said Blake Whitman, Vice President of Creative Development. “We always strive to provide our community and visitors with the best experience possible, and this opens up a new world of viewable content and support for creators. We are proud of this first phase of Vimeo On Demand, and we’re already working on another suite of creator-focused features to release in the near future.”
Rdio version 2.1.3:Internet radio streaming service Rdio has been updated with a refreshed UI that brings brand new album/playlist views on the iPhone, as well as larger album art, the ability to see friends who have listened recently, and much more.
– New album/playlist views on iPhone. Shows large album art, friends who have listened recently, and more.
– Various bug fixes and UI improvements.
Tumblr version 3.3:A nice update to the Tumblr iOS app today brings a bunch of new features including a brand new camera, the ability to create photo sets right from within the app, and a few other UI enhancements and usability features:
– Brand new camera!
– Create photosets straight from the app
– Double-tap posts to like!
– Tap the avatar in your profile to change it
– Link posts: Copy or enter a URL and we’ll fetch the title!
Apple Store version 2.5: Apple’s Apple Store app for browsing the Apple online store, scheduling appointments and much more was updated today with new delivery options and an easier experience for checking if products are available for local pickup:
– New delivery options make it even more convenient to get your Apple products. Choose different shipping options for different items in an order.
– An even easier way to see if the product you want is available for pickup at your favorite Apple Retail Store (U.S. only).
We just got word that Spotify will launch tomorrow in the US (as reported last week). Perhaps something nice to put on your new Mac?
New York, July 13, 2011 – Spotfy, the award-winning digital music service loved by millions of Europeans, will become available tomorrow morning in the United States by invitation and subscription. Spotify is a new way to listen to and manage your music, discover new tracks and share songs and playlists with friends – music whenever you want it, wherever you are.
Be one of the first people in the U.S. to experience Spotify by signing up at www.spotify.com.
Spotify will announce more details at 8:00 AM EST.
