AppleInsider Staff
Over the past few days, Apple's iTunes Radio feature has been showing up on iOS devices in Australia, Canada and the UK despite being officially limited to U.S. users, suggesting an international rollout of the service may be coming soon.
Update: Reader Phil from the UK sent in a few screenshots of iTunes Radio as seen on his iPhone connected to O2's 3G network. In addition, we are receiving reports of sporadic availability in Australia. The following article has been updated to reflect this new information.
A number of AppleInsider readers in Australia, Canada and the UK have noted that iTunes Radio is now showing up in the Music App on both iPhones and iPads.
According to reports from Canadian users, the iTunes Radio pane is accessible but not usable. Graphical assets may be scrolled through and will pull up relevant artist or song information if tapped, but streaming is so far unavailable. One user from Australia saw the service appear briefly earlier this week, but it has since disappeared.
In the UK, iPhone and iPad owners are seeing a bit more luck and note iTunes Radio is active and streaming in the region. Graphical assets are non-functional in some cases, but the service is streaming music over cellular data networks.
First announced in June of 2013 as a cross-platform Internet streaming radio service, iTunes Radio was launched in September and has seen moderate success in the sector dominated by the likes of Pandora and Rdio. At the end of October, Apple announced iTunes Radio served over one billion songs to customers in the U.S.
Screenshot of iTunes Radio on iPad as currently seen in Canada.
While Apple has yet to give official word of an expansion, Bloomberg last year reported that Apple was looking to expand the service to Australia, Canada, the UK and New Zealand in "early 2014."
It should be noted that international users saw intermittent iTunes Radio accessibility late last year without the service coming fully online.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
22 Comments
I just emailed all my friends and family in UK with this good news. My wife and I love iTunes radio.
You know, you need only a US iTunes account to be able to access iTunes Radio from anywhere in the world. The service doesn't have to be officially launched in your own country for you to be able to access it.
[quote name="nikmanshah" url="/t/161749/users-report-itunes-radio-popping-up-in-australia-uk-and-canada-u#post_2462687"]You know, you need only a US iTunes account to be able to access iTunes Radio from anywhere in the world. The service doesn't have to be officially launched in your own country for you to be able to access it.[/quote] No, but you have to live with the ads and limited 'skips' which you won't when iTunes Radio comes to your country and you have an iTunes Match subscription. Personally I do as you suggest but as implied by the very word, a 'workaround' is a pain in the a.
[quote name="AppleInsider" url="/t/161749/users-report-itunes-radio-popping-up-in-australia-uk-and-canada-u#post_2462667"]While Apple has yet to give official word of an expansion, Bloomberg last year reported that Apple was looking to expand the service to Australia, Canada, the UK and New Zealand in "early 2014." [/quote] [COLOR=blue]Wow! That's the whole civilized world!!![/COLOR] /s
Ye[quote name="nikmanshah" url="/t/161749/users-report-itunes-radio-popping-up-in-australia-uk-and-canada-u/0_60#post_2462687"]You know, you need only a US iTunes account to be able to access iTunes Radio from anywhere in the world. The service doesn't have to be officially launched in your own country for you to be able to access it.[/quote] Yeah it's pretty good. Works over 3G too.