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

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.'"

Comments

Another revenue stream for Apple's iAd Network?

[Internal Modem]

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.

Re:Another revenue stream for Apple's iAd Network?

[Sockatume]

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.

If I were Apple...

[sootman]

... 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.