Yeah, that’s a bit of sarcasm up there in the hed; there’s obviously no lack of choice regarding Bluetooth speakers. This year’s CES exploded with Bluetooth, and it doesn’t seem a day goes by that a manufacturer doesn’t release another model.
iHome is more about, well, more; so instead of releasing one, they’ve released four.
ABC, NBC, and CBS all have their own iPad and iPhone apps that will finally let you watch some of their shows for free. The catch with all of those apps is that you can’t watch a new show until 24 hours after it’s aired.
To take TV network apps to the next level, ABC is reportedly working on a new app that will let cable subscribers stream live network TV to their iPhone or iPad.
There are a ton of ways to stream TV shows to your iPhone and iPad, but CBS is ready to give you another. CBS just launched their new app that will let you stream some of their most popular shows, right to your iPad or iPhone, for free.
Google is preparing to take on companies like Spotify and Rdio with a new YouTube music streaming service, according to sources in the record industry, who have been speaking to Fortune. The service, which is expected to launch later this year, could be available for free, but there will be subscription options for those who don’t like to see advertisements.
If it seems like David Bowie hasn’t released a decent album in years, it’s because he hasn’t: his last album, Reality, came out in 2003. A few weeks ago, though, the heterochromic androgyne began teasing songs from an upcoming album called The Next Day, to be released on March 12.
Can’t wait to hear it, though? You don’t have to. Just load up iTunes and David Bowie and you can stream the entire album for free, up until The Next Day’s March 12 release.
Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust era Bowie fans, or even Labyrinth era Bowie fans, take note: this album is very definitely what one would characterize as “late Bowie.”
Source: iTunes
British carrier O2 has released a new app for Android and iOS called O2 Tracks, which allows users to listen to the U.K.’s official top 40 singles to their smartphone. It’s available to download now from the App Store and Google Play, and O2 customers can enjoy the service for just £1 ($1.56) per week.
If you’ve got your music stored in the cloud, then streaming it to your iPhone might be difficult. Depending on which service you use, you may need to find a third-party app — one that actually works well, and is designed specifically for music playback. AudioBox is exactly that.
Compatible with a whole host of cloud-based storage services — including Google Drive, SkyDrive, Box, and Dropbox — AudioBox ensures that you can take your entire music library with you on your iPhone.
If you’ve ever wished you could stream audio wirelessly to your car or home stereo, Blue Ant’s Ribbon ($69) might be just the gadget for you. Ribbon, tiny as it is, adds Bluetooth streaming to any set of headphones or any device with an auxiliary input. But, as you might’ve surmised from its unique shape, its abilities don’t stop there.
HypedMusic is a brand new app for the iPhone that promises to provide you with access to millions of tracks for free. Just like Spotify or Rdio, music is streamed to your device over the Internet, but there is no subscription fee — and no fee upfront for the app itself. It also offers support for online playlists, social integration, and more.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Y’know how we said something or other about how iHome had an avalanche of new products? Yeah, forget we said that; the amount of new products at the Philips fort (really, they had, like, an encampment) made the iHome avalanche look like a powder dusting. And amazingly, most of it is actually worth talking about. Here’re the highlights from our booth tour.
Netflix video streaming remains one of the largest sources of peak downstream Internet traffic in the US. With over 1 billion hours of Netflix being watched per month, it’s safe to say they have a pretty good idea of the strains their service puts on ISPs. In fact, Netflix has been keeping tabs and gauging these ISPs to see just how well they perform.
Word on the street has been that Apple is preparing to launch its own Spotify/Pandora-killer in the near future, and a new report today from Bloomberg claims that the rumored internet radio service will launch in early 2013.
Apple has reportedly been in talks with many of the major music labels for quite some time, and deals will hopefully be reached by mid-November. The details of the upcoming service remain a mystery, but it looks like Apple isn’t settling for the status quo.
Ouch. Not that it’s much of a surprise, but a little over twelve hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was going to create its own Pandora rival, prices of Pandora shares have tanked by over 18%.
It seems like the market is taking this as a very real threat, and no wonder: Apple has more to gain by entering the streaming music service space than you might think.
I listen to music from a number of places while I’m working. Most of the time it comes from Spotify, but I’ll also call on albums or songs I’ve purchased from iTunes, or check out songs Spotify doesn’t have on YouTube. It’s kind of a pain switching between the three, but there’s never been a better solution.
Until now. Meet CloudPlay, a fantastic little app that sits in your Mac’s menu bar and pulls music from all kinds of sources, including iTunes, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Internet radio stations.
FileBrowser, the – uh – file browser app for iOS, has gotten a slew of new features in a recent update, one of which will make movie-downloading iPad owners very happy: Now the app can not only browse network-attached drives (like the Time Capsule), it can stream movies of any format to other apps on your iPad.
After a day of dumb product names (Adixxion, Shoqbox), I’m glad to be able to bring you an app named Mc Loud. You’ll see how clever that name is when I tell you what it does: Mc Loud streams music and movies direct from your Dropbox account.
Apple is said to be preparing an iTunes overhaul that will deliver the largest change the online music store has seen since its debut back in 2003. Set to be unveiled by the end of this year, the refresh will reportedly bring better iCloud integration and file-storage for users with multiple iOS devices, as well as new features for sharing music with friends.
When connected to a Wi-Fi network, Tweetbot’s terrific streaming feature continually delivers new tweets to your timeline without the need to refresh manually. But did you know that the app contains a “Super Secret Settings” menu that allows you to activate streaming over a 2G or 3G cellular connection?
Here’s how to access it.
BBC has added “Live Restart” to its iPlayer app. This will let Brits hit a button to rewind live TV up to two hours. Thus, if you miss the beginning of a live show you can just skip back to the beginning.
This handily closes the gap between live streaming and the watch-later service that lets you go back and catch TV shows aired in the past two weeks.
We’re not quite sure how we missed this, but we did: in iOS 6’s first beta, iTunes Match has gone from a download-only service to a true streaming music service. It’s about time.
Netflix announced an updated version of its iOS app on Thursday for customers in the U.S. and Canada. The update is centered around improving the overall user experience while streaming movies and TV shows to an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. One important improvement beyond that, however, is the ability to control mobile data use and avoid expensive overage fees.
While newer iOS devices come in sizes up to 64 Gb, it takes up a lot of space to store a ton of videos there. Likewise, synchronizing the videos you think you might want to watch later can be an exercise in futility, trying to second-guess yourself and your future video-watching tastes. And let’s not forget the time consuming task of converting videos from a non-Mac or iTunes friendly format to ones that work a little better with our chosen OS platform. Today, however, we have an app that will help with these problems.
It’s been a long time coming, but Spotify has finally arrived fully optimized for iPad. But if you’re a newcomer to Spotify on iOS, be warned: you need a Premium account to really get the most out of this app.
Apple’s mythical, standalone TV set has been the subject of much speculation over the past several months. Rumors have been saying that we’ll see an Apple-branded TV set (dubbed ‘iTV’ in most cases) by the end of this year at the earliest. The TV is expected to feature Siri integration, IP-based streaming and even a gaming element.
On the streaming side of things, a new report claims that Apple has been in talks to secure the rights to stream Hollywood movies for its upcoming TV set.
You know how many tech companies strive to make our experience of their products easier and more transparent so that — in the case of things like the iPad — the product disappears and lets us enjoy whatever it is that it does?
Koss didn’t get that memo, and has launched Striva, an “initiative” which takes something as simple as a headphone and makes it as complicated as an old-school router.