Apple slyly enables background iDisk music streaming in iOS 4
By Darren Murph 
posted August 4th 2010 4:14PM
posted August 4th 2010 4:14PM
posted August 4th 2010 4:14PM
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Very sneaky Apple!
@BharatiJanta
Very slick indeed.
@BharatiJanta
We are turning into an entertainment based economy. You know, first it was agricultural, then industrial, now services, it's going to be entertainment based pretty soon. Is that good or bad? I don't know .. maybe it's good .. produce entertainment for the rest of the world and they manufacture stuff.
@BharatiJanta Cool! Only $99/yr to use this feature! What a deal
@BharatiJanta Its been like this for a while?! Why is this news, I noticed this a month a go when they first updated the app.
@BharatiJanta
Hate to burst everyone's bubble but it's really not that amazing or sneaky. The iOS 4.0 SDK pretty much has a drop down menu where you choose whether you want fast app switching or some other form of backgrounding. As most any developer writing an that plays audio should, Apple choose the "app plays background audio" option. Voila. The option is there, you're intended to make use of it. I'm actually surprised it's taken Apple so long to get their apps updated like this.
@Brt312
its because apple look after all their favorite gadget blogs - you know, free retreats in the dominican republic, free iphones, free black jeans and turtlenecks for anyone who wants them ;)
@BharatiJanta connect 4
@lamerz
And you only get 20GB of total storage for $99. Apples site says you can upgrade a standalone account to 40GB, but doesn't mention how much that is.
@BharatiJanta 100/yr to do things that others do free? Simplify Media was FREE. Jukefly is FREE
Gee, thanks Apple. Now watch, They'll remove Jukefly from the app store.
@BharatiJanta Why are people still excited about programs running in the background. I feel like i am in bizarro world.
This was definitely mentioned openly in the release notes for the update when it came out. Nothing new or sly about it.
I wonder why you would sync music to the cloud though rather than direct to your device. Sure if the music just happened to already be on a remote server, it's fine but why would you purposely sync audio to an iDisk? You certainly wouldn't sync GBs of music to it.
I reckon it's one of those features that's better to have than not at all but ultimately doesn't have much practical use and certainly not compelling enough to pay for iDisk.
@BharatiJanta
hmm intresting, gonna check that out
@TinWard I have... I have the 50GB plan from mp3tunes and AirBand. Currently I have over 30GB synched with mp4tunes so I can have the music I listen to most on my device, and access to anything else I own any time. For $5/mo it's worth it. For $100/yr and only 20GB, not so much.
@JS
I agree, it is as if the court jester has become the king.
Literally just discussing this with a friend. Hes like my EVO is teh boss.
I'm like not for long my iPhone will have cloud music soon too!
@rmbrown09 wait a minute he doesn't have that yet at all! My iPhone is the boss. Hold on ima go tell his punk ass
@rmbrown09 Are you going to punk his ass by telling him how you only have to pay $99/yr to stream your music? Boo yaa, punk that dude.
@lamerz
Right, because you don't get anything else for that $99?
Oh wait yes you do. You're stupid.
@lamerz Your as bad as a ps3 user who says ha! You have to pay $50 a month :P to which we reply that it's not a big deal, however, $100 is a lot, but once a year isn't bad at all
@Jack Hey stupid - if you only want to stream music from iDisk, what do you pay?
There ya go......
@rmbrown09
"my iPhone will have cloud music soon too"
You mean like the various services ALREADY available for both the iPhone and Android already?
Spotify, mSpot, HomePipe, Orb, Imeem, MP3tunes etc...
@Tes
Damn you redundant "already", I shall have my vengeance!
@lamerz MobileMe provided the "Find my iPhone" feature and it saved my wife's iPhone. It was stolen on Monday in a mall. She called, left a voice mail on it and said I worked for DoD and that I was tracking her phone. She called me, I tracked it and sent a message telling them I was tracking their location (which I was), locked it, and made it beep continuously. They (perps) ditched it to a kid whose parents overheard my wife and the security guard and gave it back. I wasn't going to renew my MobileMe subscription, but this alone will make me. I have two kids that are always with her and it made me realize that if I ever needed to find her, I could. $99 (or $149 in my case) WELL spent.
@lamerz
Wow, your logic is impeccable. If streaming music was the only thing you get for $99 you might have a point, but since it's not, you don't. Was that not clear? Maybe I should try putting it another way, since you seem to be kind of dense: You're not paying $99 for streaming music. You're paying for a whole lot of other features.
If you're ignorant as to what those features are, maybe you could stop being lazy and go look it up yourself.
@Jack I know what the other features are, you condescending asshole. Tell me this ... if someone who doesn't subscribe to, nor want the other MobileMe bullshit wants the music streaming from iDisk (a lousy 20GB?), what do they pay? That's right, $99/yr. That was my point. Come on, refute that This should be separate at maybe $20/yr for 30GB or more. Hell, Windows Live gives you 25GB storage FREE. Just need a program to connect and stream the music.
Nice job being a prick from the first reply, dickhead.
Cool, a not-so-useless additional feature!
@LANmine Still costs too much for Mobile Me (and I pay it)
"play audio from your iDisk while using another app" - snappy.
Sweet, now make mobile me free
@That guy 2
Agreed, this needs to happen asap.
@That guy 2
As soon as they make Xbox Live Gold free, my friend.
@LinksAwakener What does Xbox Live have to do with anything?
@LinksAwakener I pay for xbox live, it's not a big deal, you can get it for $25 on amazon (1 year) my first year of subscription hasn't ended yet, so I haven't even thought about the fact that I paid for it a bit less than a year ago, btw refresh me on mobile me, I haven't researched it or paid much attention to it so don't laugh, is it $99 per month? Or per year?
@lamerz
What does the fact that you don't want to pay $99/y for MobileMe (hint: more than jus iDisk) have to do with anything? Go whine elsewhere.
@lamerz Ah I just saw someone made a sarcastic comment about something saying "greeaaat I only have to pay $99/year for this" per year isn't that bad, but that's still a lot of money, but as I said with xbox live, you forget about it about a month in, maybe a week in, but maybe that's cause it's only $50, $100 might take longer to forget about
@drange Whoa ... slow your roll there, Captain Bitter. First, are the services comparable? No, so why compare them?
Second, if you just want to stream music, you are still paying $99/yr.
kthxbai
@lamerz
Yeah but if the find my iPhone feature pays off even once I think it was well worth the $99....
@That guy 2 actually its 25 get it on amazon dude join the real world
@Ralven Oh so I was right that it's 25 on amazon? Cool, last I saw it was 40 or 30, I knew about it when I got my xbox, but I just bought subroscriptipn right from the xbox for $50, in a few months when it runs out for the first time I will get it from amazon, amazon is so awesome!
@Ralven
Ah, if only that was a) true and b) acceptable. Right now it costs GBP 37.29 on Amazon (so that's about $60) over here. However, I fail to see the justification for charging for a service that is worse than what you can get elsewhere for free. I wouldn't mind if MobileMe delivered a good service for the price (hey, I bought an overpriced Mac so I'm OK with paying for a better experience) but it is just rubbish in comparison to the best-of-breed free solutions. The iDisk is probably the worst part of the service simply because it is so slow.
Saying that MobileMe should be free isn't so much whining but rather stating a fact that is obvious to pretty much everyone.
Of topic, but could a kind soul please tell me where to find that awesome wallpaper? Thanks.. :-)
@Jakob
Type in "floating tree" on google image search, and it should be the 2nd and 3rd photo.
@Jakob
FloatingTree. It's at vladstudio.com. Highy recommend checking out his other wallpapers.
@BharatiJanta @ashwinkn Thanks guys :-)
I love Apple :)
Oh engadget... if a secret ios4 from a month back deserves to be hot news, surely you should just admit that theres pr after the break?
Do Apple give hacks spending money during publicity tours... no really?
@ftgeneral It did only just get found out about today in the main though, there are multiple sources who reported it today.
@d0mth0ma5
yes... *rubs hands together*... of course they did