Panning away from the Evasi0n Untethered iOS 6.1 Jailbreak madness, it’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything about Apple’s rumored radio music service on iOS. Back in October, Bloomberg reported that Apple was working on launching a similar radio service to Pandora Radio on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.
With the Evasi0n Untethered iOS 6.1 Jailbreak, some iRadio related files have been found hiding in the iPad Music.app file. We managed to use iFunBox to explore our iPad, finding some icon files under the title “radio-buy-button”. Now obviously the files related to this segment of iOS 6.1 are for the animation when the button is press, not available, or neutral.
The files also come with overlay icons, which are radio towers similar to the ones found in pre-iTunes 11. iTunes already has a Radio service, but the rumored iRadio for iOS would work a little differently.
Apple’s service is rumored to incorporate iAds, as well as a purchase button for radio stations wishing to tag music. Tagging songs that radio stations play would allow iRadio to leave a link to purchase the track on iTunes. These files found hidden in iOS 6.1 are currently only within the iPad and iPad Mini iOS 6.1 Firmware, meaning the radio service could be iPad-specific.
We think that Apple is very much in the testing stages of the rumored Pandora-competitor and that iPhone / iPod Touch testing will come later. The rumored service was previously speculated to arrive on iOS in Q1 2013, but we have a feeling Apple will unveil this along with iOS 7 at WWDC 2013 in June.
Thanks to iAutst1n for the tip!
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About Phil Synowiec
