Apple’s Upcoming Music Streaming Service Won’t Offer a Free Tier

Apple’s Upcoming Music Streaming Service Won’t Offer a Free Tier

Unlike iTunes Radio, Apple\'s upcoming beats-based music streaming service won\'t offer a free, ad-free version, according to Re/code. This doesn\'t mean they won\'t offer a free trial to the service. According to anonymous sources who talked to SVP Eddy Cue and Beats Music co-founder Jimmy Iovine, the leads behind the project. The music business “needs to get behind a paywall.” “Sources say Apple would like to make a splash by getting high-profile artists to distribute their music with Apple before it makes its way to other services,” the report says. The timing of the services couldn\'t have been more perfect. Sony Music, back in November, said they were reevaluating the free music streaming service. Warner Music Group CEO Stephen Cooper also noted that they were losing interest in the ad-based free music streaming industry. In terms of pricing, Apple will be providing a more affordable price point of $8 a month. In comparison, Spotify, Rdio and other similar services charge a $10 premium. The streaming service is rumored to become available as apart of an upcoming iOS 8.4 update, integrated directly into the stock music app.

‘Transynd’ Your Music Experience on Your iPhone

‘Transynd’ Your Music Experience on Your iPhone

Everyone has differing preferences for their music needs on their iDevices; some people are heavy audiophiles and have nothing but FLACs in their iTunes, others do nothing but stream with Pandora or Spotify, and then there are people who are about in the middle like me. If you don\'t need all of the functionality of the Music app then Transcynd is for you! It\'s currently $0.99 on the App Store but the developer, Darran Hall told me that he plans on making it free for the next update after he polishes a few features and squashes a bug or two. He\'s a great guy and deserves the money so I suggest you go buy it! Having a beautiful no nonsense card style interface it allows you to easily select a song and start playing it quickly. The control card colorizes itself with the colors of the currently playing song\'s album artwork, which makes it visually pleasing to play your music. It reminds me of the Control Center but with a more minimalist interface, when you swipe it up the album art slides down from the top as well as sliding back up out of the way when you slide it back down, the animations are quite nice.