Streaming music has gotten pretty popular among iPhone owners and today we’d like to introduce you to one more option, Lala.
Lala gives you the ability to listen to any song for free one time. If you happen to like the song you pay $0.10 for unlimited listening. And at $0.10 per “Web Song” you can pretty much purchase a full album for a single dollar. That may not convince all of you but Lala has one more trick up it’s sleeve — you can upload your entire music library from your computer to the cloud for you to stream back to your iPhone, completely free. Lose you data connection for some reason? No worries as Lala uses caching to save your music. Exactly how much is cached is not known just yet but it’s a nice feature regardless.
This is definitely an app worth taking a closer look at when it hits the App Store. It should be free to download and you can expect to see it available within the next few weeks.
The HP MediaSmart Server iStream app [Free - iTunes link] allows iPhone and iPod touch users to stream media from an EX485 or EX487 HP MediaSmart Home Server.
Supported media includes photos, music, and video (though HP says DRM’d video might not stream properly). Part of a much more impressive server package, Engadget has the details:
Dual Core processor, 2GB of RAM and up to four 2TB drives [...] The new EX490 and EX495 can handle up to 7TB of internal storage and up to 17TB pairing up internal drives with external hanger-ons. More interesting, however, are the new software capabilities built on top of Windows Home Server. Mac users now get admin features, media collection and bare metal recovery over Time Machine, and the servers have a built-in video converter for collecting and converting videos for a specific device.
They function as iTunes servers, with the Celeron bound EX490 starting at $549 for 1TB, the dual-core EX495 starting at $699 for 1.5TB.
By contrast, while Apple’s own Time Capsule has been rumored to be getting iPhone streaming functionality, nothing has thus far appeared.
If you try out HP’s streaming app, let us know how it works for you!
Rhapsody [free - iTunes Link] is now available in the iTunes App Store. It was less than a month ago that we told you about the submission of RealNetwork’s Rhapsody iPhone app, well Apple may have been scared straight by the FCC because it’s been approved and is now available as a free download.
Now don’t don’t forget there is a $15/month subscription fee you must dish out if you want all of that music streaming goodness over AT&T’s data network or Wi-Fi. Sorry folks, no off-line access like Spotify here.
In a strange twist of fate, PreCentral.net tells us Palm has rejected their first App Catalog app, NaNPlayer, a (superior according to PC) replacement for the built-in Pre music player. Why did they do this? The developer used an undocumented API and that violates the SDK agreement. Sound familiar, iPhone users? Will Palm now get the same grief Apple does?
Lars Ulrich rejoice, Napster will NOT be heading into Apple’s coveted App Store any time soon. Strange considering they once toyed with our emotions by mentioning an iPhone app was in the works? Sadly, unlike Spotify, it is just not going to happen anytime in the near future. Did Apple reject it? No, so do not go ditching your iPhone for a Android or RIM device just yet — Napster have scrapped apps for those devices as well.
One of the most common questions Napster receives is, “When will you offer an iPhone app?” Well, Napster has created an iPhone application that allows subscribers to stream music on-demand to their iPhone—including personal playlists, albums and radio stations. You can imagine the company is also looking at streaming applications for several other mobile platforms as well (Blackberry, Android). However, due to the high licensing fees for streaming to a mobile phone, Napster has not yet submitted the iPhone app to Apple for approval or attempted to bring the application to market.
Now let’s think about this for a moment, they put their iPhone application on hold due to “high licensing fees”. If Spotify and Rhapsody can pull it off why can’t Napster? Maybe it’s due to the fact those companies charge $10.00 more a month for their service perhaps.
Whatever the case may be, would you be willing for fork over some extra cash to get Napster on your iPhone?
Apple went ahead and gave the green flag for the music streaming service Spotify, whose biggest selling point is the fact you can create playlists in a free desktop app, and then listen to those playlists via your iPhone at any point in time, with or without a data connection. Apple told the developer:
“The current status as of right now is it’s been approved, and we hope to add the app to the more than 65,000 apps on the app store very soon, We’ve been in constant communication working with the developer and have already notified Spotify that the app will be in the app store very soon.”
The good news is Apple approving this application for iPhone owners. The bad news being it is currently only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Britain, France and Spain. The weird news is that we still don’t see it actually in the App Store in those countries?
Spotify’s popularity has grown to over 2 million subscribers in Britain and they hope to have their service available here in the US before the end of the year. Perhaps this approved iPhone app will help things move along quicker. Music lovers can only hope.
Would any of our readers be ready to lay down their hard earned money for a service such as Spotify?
Still searching for that perfect online music streaming application for your iPhone? Spotify may be exactly what you are looking for.
Spotify is a online streaming music service that gives you access to over-the-air streaming of their entire music library, as well as playlist access. Where this application has a leg up on the competition is that you’ll be able to cache playlists locally on your iPhone while in WiFi areas so that you’ll be able to play them back at any time without any data connection. Spotify will be available as a free app download but will only be available to premium customers who pay ÂŁ9.99 a month for the service.
Now comes the disappointing part of the story — Spotify is not available here in the United States or Canada due to licensing restrictions. Sorry folks, we will have to make do with Pandora, Pocket Tunes, etc…
How many of you, our valued readers, think Apple will let this one slip into the App Store? Will it get rejected for “duplicating functionality”? Or will it mysteriously disappear into the abyss like so many applications before it?
“The SIRIUS XM app will deliver an expanded programming lineup that includes SIRIUS XM’s exclusive sports talk, news, comedy, and 100% commercial free music channel, as well as new talk, comedy, and music showcase channels.”
Turns out the application will be free but — and that’s a big but — there will be subscription fees. You can either have a stand alone streaming subscription which is $13.00 a month or have a normal subscription with an additional $3.00 a month fee tacked onto what you are already paying. There is still no word on when the application will be released but our guess is you will see it around the time iPhone OS 3.0 drops this summer.
So there you have it folks… Excited? Disappointed? Let us know what you are thinking in the comments!
excellent understanding and knowledge of processor architecture, specifically ARM and its vector unit NEON. Additional Intel SSE or PowerPC AltiVec is also very helpful. Being able to use processor micro-architecture to write and deliver fast routines is an essential attribute.
Neon, they remind us, is the brand name for the ARMv7 Cortex, the next-generation of the processor Apple uses in the current iPhone and iPod touch.
What’s not yet clear is whether Apple will tap the multi-core potential of the ARMv7 Cortex to really shift multimedia performance into the mobile stratosphere. However, another tantalizing glimpse into the iPhone’s potential future is revealed in a second job listing, this one for an engineer with:
Experience developing embedded image and video processing solutions. Experience developing embedded image and video analysis solutions. Experience working on real-time media and networking applications (WiFi and cellular networks).
No, SlingPlayer Mobile is still not available in the App Store. Are any of our readers getting sick of hearing about SlingPlayer for iPhone and the numerous reasons/rumors on the applications delays in making it’s debut in the App Store?
Well maybe, just maybe we have a bit of good news for you today. Sling has recently updated their web page to give the iPhone world a little more insight on the status of their SlingPlayer Mobile.
“The team has been working hard to bring the SlingPlayer Mobile experience to the iPhone and iPod Touch. We’ve submitted the first release of our application to the iPhone App Store. We are in close contact with our partners at Apple and are optimistic that it will be approved soon. We hope the wait won’t be much longer.”
They “hope” [emphasis ours]? That’s not a very confident word. We don’t know about you, but TiPb will believe it when we see it.
Rumor is that Hulu is working on a application that will be available in the App Store sometime in the near future. Silicon Alley Insider has learned about it from a “plugged-in industry executive” and it is said that the application itself will be as slick as Hulu’s website and it will work on 3G as well as WiFi. Judging from the popularity of Hulu and their really cool commercials, this app could be a huge hit.
This app coming to the App Store may seem a bit hard to believe at the moment based on the whole ordeal with SlingPlayer. Although, there are other apps within the App Store, such as i.TV, that actually stream video, granted the quality is poor. But full length TV shows and movies? Unfortunately, whatever is holding up SlingPlayer from becoming available still remains a mystery. Whatever the case may be, what are the chances of this Hulu app seeing the light of day? And what are the chances AT&T will really let it stream over 3G?
