Do you like free tunes? Sure you do. Most major streaming services, however, refuse to give up their mobile music for a song, instead opting to restrict phone-based listening to premium subscribers, with Slacker and Pandora being the two major exceptions. Today, a new competitor is entering the ad-supported mobile arena: Spotify. Later this week, an update to Spotify's iOS app will bring you all the free, unlimited, ad-supported tunes your ears could ever want.
As it searches for a way to turn its fortunes around, struggling phone maker HTC is reportedly investigating the possibility of launching its own music streaming service. The client would be built into the default music app on all of HTC’s Android devices, and possibly as an add-on for Windows Phone. The company is, as expected, cagey about answering any questions at this point.
When Spotify arrived in the U.S., there was such fanfare that one part of the rollout plan was largely ignored. That free Spotify playback on the desktop enjoyed by so many users was only set to last for six months, and next week is Spotify’s six-month anniversary in the U.S. market. When that sweetheart licencing arrangement is up, free Spotify accounts are going to be much more locked down.
Listening to music over your computer’s stock speakers usually leaves a lot to be desired (at best). Today, Pioneer launched a pair of new audiophile-enticing networked audio players designed to wirelessly stream your digital tunes via Bluetooth A2DP, DLNA 1.5 and Apple’s AirPlay technology.
Spotify may be one of the more successful streaming music services around, but man, the company is tweaking and adding features like it has something to prove. Spotify’s only been available in the U.S. since this summer, and since then, they’ve added mandatory Facebook registration for rookie users (which kind of sucks) and six months of free, unlimited tunes for newcomers (which is awesome). Last week, CEO Daniel Ek promised a big change was coming to Spotify, and today, he unveiled it: external devs can now create apps that link in to the service using "The Spotify Platform."
When we wrote a streaming music services round-up on Maximum Tech, we only briefly touched on Grooveshark, the popular service based around user uploaded tracks. “And, um, we're still not completely sure that Grooveshark is legal,” was the extent of our coverage. As it turns out, newly revealed emails from Grooveshark CEO Sina Simantob prove that, well, the company’s entire business plan hinges on its dubious – at best – legality.
We never thought we’d say this again after last week’s horrify service outage, but it’s actually kind of a good week to be a Blackberry owner! When you’re done downloading free $100 worth of free apps to your Blackberry Curve, point your browser over towards Spotify, because the mega-popular music service just rolled out a long-awaited app to bring its tunes to RIM devices… kind of.
While everyone’s been busy raving about 
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