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IOS Apple Entertainment

Hidden 'Radio' Buttons Discovered In Apple's iOS 6.1 101

Posted by samzenpus from the I'm-on-apple-radio dept.
tad001 writes "CNET is reporting 'Discovered last night within a freshly jailbroken iPad: a set of buttons and code references for "radio," a feature found in iTunes on Macs and PCs, but not on the iPad or iPhone.' ... 'The buttons hint at Apple's much-rumored radio service, a product that will let people stream music much like they do on the popular Pandora service, but with deep ties to Apple's iTunes library.' ... 'The discovery follows a high-profile jailbreak of iOS 6.1, the updated system software Apple released just last week. A team of developers came up with a tool that gives users deep system-level access to do things like install applications from third-party app stores, change the look and feel of iOS, and add new software features.'"
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Hidden 'Radio' Buttons Discovered In Apple's iOS 6.1 More

Hidden 'Radio' Buttons Discovered In Apple's iOS 6.1

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  • I predict the imminent retun of Slashdot Radio. (Score:5, Funny)

    by lxs ( 131946 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @05:35AM (#42818643)

    Because there are clearly radio buttons on the Slasdot poll.

    • It looks like you "whooshed" the moderators. Good job!
      • EDIT: OP was "+4 insightful" when I commented. At +5 Funny now. Someone got it.

        • Re:I predict the imminent retun of Slashdot Radio. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Vintermann ( 400722 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @08:45AM (#42819465) Homepage

          It's a thing on slashdot now, some newbies rate insightful instead of funny because they've heard that funny doesn't give karma.

          I infer that they are newbies from the fact that they want to give karma to me. It's really, really not hard to max out on karma on slashdot.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by alexhs ( 877055 )

      UIRadioButton, for when UISegmentedControl is not enough !

  • Radio buttons are the new swipe gestures

  • Another revenue stream for Apple's iAd Network? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Internal Modem ( 1281796 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @05:48AM (#42818683)
    This seems like another revenue stream for Apple's iAd Network, which can definitely use the boost. Advertiser-sponsored streaming radio stations (a la Pandora) with a paid option to remove advertising.

    These buy buttons seem like the obvious tie-in with iTunes to buy a song as it is streaming. This falls in with Apple's announcement that they will start separating software revenue from hardware revenue in quarterly reports. I guess they won't be propping up iPod revenue with iTunes anymore (since music players don't affect the stock any more).

    Apple's software is getting stickier. [slashdot.org]

    • Re:Another revenue stream for Apple's iAd Network? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Sockatume ( 732728 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @06:05AM (#42818749)

      Interestingly enough, iTunes runs at around break-even, with Apple using it largley as a way of getting people to buy iDevices by ensuring there is content available for them. I wonder if this means that the market has shifted and it now has to pull its own weight as a profit-making part of the business.

      • I know we've been told that repeatedly, but that was specifically in reference to music sales. I suspect it has also been somewhat of an accounting trick. Remember that the App Stores are part of iTunes...
        • Interesting. What data do you base this suspicion on?

          • Re:Another revenue stream for Apple's iAd Network? (Score:5, Informative)

            by Internal Modem ( 1281796 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @06:43AM (#42818929)
            Here's a story from 2008 where Steve Jobs once again repeated the claim that Apple didn't expect to make a lot of money through iTunes selling phone Apps. [nytimes.com] However, the author disagrees and compares iTunes to other e-commerce businesses like Amazon and eBay.

            In 2008, iTunes had "margins that are better than the best e-commerce companies around; no marketing costs and a built in audience; Sales of nearly $3 billion a year in its existing business; and a new $1 billion business on the way."

            In 2013, we now know the sales projections were conservative, and with a need to show revenue growth to investors, I'm sure Tim Cook would not announce that Apple would begin quarterly reports of software revenue (e.g. iTunes) without being certain he can produce big numbers.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              "I'm sure Tim Cook would not announce that Apple would begin quarterly reports of software revenue (e.g. iTunes) without being certain he can produce big numbers."

              Are you sure? This is the same guy who's overseen $280bn wiped off the market cap of the company in under 6 months, sacked some of the people who were important to the companies growth in the first place after allowing an abysmal mapping application to go live, and has pursued a regime of court cases where they've lost or partially lost just about

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

              2013, we now know the sales projections were conservative, and with a need to show revenue growth to investors, I'm sure Tim Cook would not announce that Apple would begin quarterly reports of software revenue (e.g. iTunes) without being certain he can produce big numbers.

              iTunes sales numbers are right there in their financials. It's marked as "online services" or somesuch, and it earns a few billion dollars in revenue annually (note timespan).

              Of course, those numbers pale compared to even Mac revenue numbe

        • Well, it was for the whole store, but it was for 2010 and I'm having a real problem pinning down the relevant quote to the conference call it supposedly came from.

      • How can a service that only provides other artist's content and takes 1/3 of the money not be turning a profit? What are they running on Apple Servers so their server cost is quadrupled?

        • Have you seen the licensing costs for Apple Server software? iTunes may barely break even, but their Enterprise Software division is doing great!

          Only half joking; that sort of accounting trick is common as muck, as long as there's an incentive for it. Not sure what that incentive would be in this case, but 5p on the side says that it begins with "T" and ends with "X", without much in the middle. See Starbucks and their "loss making UK division", with a surprisingly high, and highly circuitous, payment to li

    • The real question is whether Apple will ban other internet streaming apps from the app store once they release their service.

      • Arg, I meant music streaming apps.

        And I can't even blame this on it being late at night (or early in the morning for that matter).

  • What is this new thing called 'radio'?

    • It's kind of an analog wifi. I'm surprised they managed to make it work so soon, if you know how many engineers broke their teeth on analog computers. Probably not really analog then but with a digital machinery under the hood..

    • You joke, but my fairly recent Nokia N8 could both receive and transmit Analogue FM between around 88MHz and 104MHZ. I often wondered if I couldn't hack it into a smart tuner...

      Analogue radio is still around in many parts of the world and isn't going anywhere. However TFA is referring to the use of Wifi or (3rd gen) GSM radio to stream audio from a internet source...

       

    • That will be something like the Radio service I get on my Android, or something similar to the live streaming of broadcast audio I can also get on the same device ...

    • Conan O'Brien once quipped about TV : "You can watch videos, just like on your computer or phone, but in the comfort of your own living room!"

  • ... we'll even be blessed with 'Television' in iOS7?
    • I think they rather sell you episodes of TV shows through iTunes.

    • Woah, there, buckaroo. That's the kind of thing that will be rolled out over the next decade. Everyone else will have it first, but I promise you that when Apple releases (ahem, allows) it, it will be like a breath of fresh air and TV will not just be TV - it will be wonderful again.

      You'll have to excuse me. I need to go watch some youtube videos which are nothing but a fake staticy screen with the message that the content owner hasn't approved the viewing of the material on my device.

  • This is ludicrous! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @06:45AM (#42818939) Homepage Journal

    Ok Jailbreaking iPhones is news i guess - although why someone would buy an iPhone in the first place with the intent on jailbreaking it is a mystery to me - surely thats an admission that the phone doesnt check all your boxes. irritation aside ....

    they found some icons that arent currently in use by any apps. big f***king woop. Im sure you could find a bunch of unused icons on any windows , linux, amigaOS.

    Just because its Apple - this is some sort of game changing discovery that merits a wordy article on cnet - only to appear on slashdot hours later.

    Come on now are the moderators that bloody nerdy now that a glimpse of a new icon gives them a semi ?

    N.

    • Im sure you could find a bunch of unused icons on any windows , linux, amigaOS.

      So? There aren't many - or any - unused graphical resources in iOS. Each time Apple has added something and not immediately used it (such as double-resolution textures for the iBooks app) it has subsequently become part of an actual software release (iBooks on the iPhone 4).

    • Re:This is ludicrous! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gutnor ( 872759 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @08:35AM (#42819403)

      why someone would buy an iPhone in the first place with the intent on jailbreaking it is a mystery to me

      That's called expectations clash with real life. Other examples:

      Why would you buy an Android phone with the intention of installing cyanogen on it ?
      Why would you buy a Windows computer with the intention of installing Linux ?
      Why would you get your internet connection from an ISP and access content from censured source using VPN ?
      Why would you buy a flat with the intention of refurbishing it ?
      Why would you vote for a politician and then lobby to get some of his decisions overturned ?

    • Re:This is ludicrous! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sootman ( 158191 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @09:15AM (#42819695) Homepage Journal

      > why someone would buy an iPhone in the first place with the
      > intent on jailbreaking it is a mystery to me - surely thats an
      > admission that the phone doesnt check all your boxes

      I can't believe you got a +5 for that. You're not very imaginative, are you? Here's a possibility: maybe NO phone "checks all your boxes" but the iPhone comes closest? Maybe you like a competing phone a lot, but a jailbroken iPhone is even better?!? Maybe you like iPhones just fine, and jailbreaking them makes them even more fantastic?

      Have you ever in your life bought something and then changed it to make it suit you more? OH MY GOD!

  • Dev work done before a business deal (Score:3)

    by alen ( 225700 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @07:14AM (#42819031)

    Amazing that apple would develop a potential service to be ready to go the day a business deal is signed. And keep the code hidden until a deal is signed

    Simply amazing

  • What are the first three words? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07, 2013 @07:46AM (#42819143)

    "CNET is reporting..........."

    Radio buttons....really? CNET is like that retarded cousin who plays console videogames all day long, chats in Yahoo, and he thinks that makes him a computer haxor.

    • CNET is like that retarded cousin who plays console videogames all day long

      Like? You mean it is. CNET owns GameFAQs, and it bought Giant Bomb, which began as a purportedly more ethical competitor to CNET's GameSpot.

  • discovered by researchers who found repeated references to "Submit" in Apple script.

  • If I were Apple... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sootman ( 158191 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @09:20AM (#42819717) Homepage Journal

    ... I'd dedicate one measly megabyte of iOS to random icons and product ID strings just to fuck with people. Seriously, it'd be fun. For every one feature accurately hinted at there would be ten bogus ones.

  • First thing I thought after reading the header : "What ?! Didn't iOS already have radio buttons (the GUI element) ?".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by neminem ( 561346 )

      Yep, that was my thought. "How is it news that someone discovered iOS had a couple hidden UI elements? They must toggle on some pretty spectacular option...

    • Actually you don't have the Radio Button UI Element in IOS. You have to use third party ones like the ones from mobisoftinfotech.

      • Well, the segmented control, and the tab bar control are both types of radio button.

        iOS just doesn't have the vertically stacked circular radio button style.

  • Internet radio ? No thanks (Score:3)

    by ctrl-alt-canc ( 977108 ) on Thursday February 07, 2013 @11:08AM (#42820727)
    I tried it on my car: I don't have a iPhone but an android smartphone, but I guess the results shouldn't be that different. Consumption of bandwidth is huge and reception is crappy, since on my commuting path I don't have a reliable UMTS/GSM data coverage. Furthermore one hour of reception drains about 50% of the battery.
    On the other side, my Sony shortwave receiver needs 4 AA cells every two weeks, and can pick up plenty of stations. Unfortunately BBC, Voice of America and other broadcasters are shutting down their shortwave facilities, since they claim that internet is the future...sigh.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by isorox ( 205688 )

      I tried it on my car: I don't have a iPhone but an android smartphone, but I guess the results shouldn't be that different.
      Consumption of bandwidth is huge and reception is crappy, since on my commuting path I don't have a reliable UMTS/GSM data coverage. Furthermore one hour of reception drains about 50% of the battery.

      On the other side, my Sony shortwave receiver needs 4 AA cells every two weeks, and can pick up plenty of stations. Unfortunately BBC, Voice of America and other broadcasters are shutting down their shortwave facilities, since they claim that internet is the future...sigh.

      It' amazing how few people in target BBC areas have radios now, compared with access to smartphones and the internet.

      BBC R&D did a fair bit of work on DRM, which was obviously doomed to failure. All the downsides of shortwave, coupled with the fact noone has a receiver. And it's French.

    • Not sure if you are just pointing out that you hacked that together or not...but this isn't over the air radio either.

  • Here's a tutorial on how to create radio buttons on IOS. You can create as many as you want - and you don't need to jail break anything - http://www.mobisoftinfotech.com/blog/iphone/iphone-uibutton-tutorial-radio-buttons/ [mobisoftinfotech.com]

    • Well I was confused, as a non iphone user. I was thinking "how the hell can someone overlook a button, it's right there on the device that any fool can see". Had to read some confusing sites full of apple-speak before I realized that "button" meant "graphical icon". And the whole story is nothing more than "hey, some old cruft was left around in flash instead of being removed, news at 11!"

  • 'The buttons hint at Apple's much-rumored radio service, a product that will let people stream music much like they do on the popular Pandora service, but with deep ties to Apple's iTunes library.'

    So, it's not really like Pandora at all, and more like Google Play Music, which lets you keep your music in Google's cloud and stream it to your mobile device?

    Or are we talking something similar to an actual radio's function on your phone, letting you select your station and everything, like iHeartRadio does?

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