“Having a look around our newly jailbroken iPads with iFunBox, we happened on a new set of files in the iPad Music.app,” Seth Weintraub reports for 9to5Mac. “The files are called some variation of ‘radio button’ with an icon that looks similar to the radio icon that used to be in iTunes for Mac (it was traded for a more prominent top location in iTunes 11 without the antenna tower).”
“More interestingly, the name of these button files and are labeled with “buy” in the filename. This could imply exciting new functionality,” Weintraub reports. “We heard no shortage of rumors that Apple planned to take on the Pandoras and Spotifys of the world with its own ‘Radio’ service, and Bloomberg predicted a Q1 2013 (current) launch… If the buttons are taken at their literal meaning, Apple could offer to sell stations of music based on particular songs, artists, or genres.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Analyst: No ‘Apple Television’ this year, but ‘iRadio’ on the way – January 3, 2013
Apple’s iTunes radio should pump up heat on Spotify, not Pandora – December 3, 2012
Analyst: Apple to launch ad-supported ‘iRadio’ music streaming service next year, before ‘Apple iTV’ – December 3, 2012
What if iRadio,
is actually an infrastructure provider from Apple,
“Communicating over the air using secure digital radio technology with a cell sites that routes mobile calls through a switch and other cellular networks.”
What if, iRadio is an all Apple mobile communications network solution.
I like the way you think Sam.
Haha! A ‘radio button’ doesn’t have anything to do with a radio: “A radio button or option button is a type of graphical user interface element that allows the user to choose only one of a predefined set of options.”
I have no idea how to interpret the Eiffel Tower icon, but am well aware of Apple’s practice of confusing/befuddling observers in the months leading up to product launches by inserting random elements (noise) that can later be reversed/removed at very little cost.
A radio button *does* have something to do with a radio — the interface paradigm comes from old car stereos.
I’ve wondered for some time what to do with the entirely inappropriate term ‘RADIO’ when applied to the Internet where the only radio going on is your Wi-Fi signal.
How about settling on the term STREAMING? As in: ‘My favorite Internet streaming station is RadioActive in Wellington, NZ!’
My fave streaming station IS RadioActive, BTW. Call letters FCKN:
http://www.radioactive.co.nz