WWDC News: Apple Adds Siri Access To 100K Radio Streams In iOS 13

Nice, Round Number

APPLE's annual WORLDWIDE DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE, held today in SAN JOSE, offered over two hours of improvements to products such as APPLE TV+, the iMAC, iOS 13 and the iPAD, as well as the breakup of the iTUNES Store, but the following proclamation from a presenter onstage certainly perked the ears of the radio world: 

"Today we're introducing live radio, so you can ask SIRI to play stations from 100,000 radio stations."

(Photos courtesy of ARSTECHNICA.COM.)

Translation: Among the features in iOS 13 is the ability for iOS device users to call up audio streams from over 100,000 radio stations via SIRI voice command. The iPHONE voice command platform will access streams from iHEARTMEDIA’s iHEARTRADIO, ENTERCOM’s RADIO.COM, and TUNEIN.

End Of The iTunes Era

But that was far from the only big news of the day. APPLE also confirmed the demise of iTUNES in favor of separate music, podcast, and TV apps for MAC OS 10.15, and the podcast app will include search via machine learning to allow users to search the contents of podcasts for specific content. The search capability echoes GOOGLE's initiative to index podcasts for searching.

What Else Is New? 

The rest of the two-hour-plus showcase featured a bevy of improvements to their current product line.

* The APPLE Watch now offers more faces, more apps, better audiobooks and calculator, OS6 streaming audio, improved health data gathering, and can monitor environmental noise.

* APPLE Maps has finally been revamped and re-introduced, adding GOOGLE Maps-like extras such as favorite locations and interactive street view, which it calls "look around."

* The iOS 13 is offering an optional dark mode for its iPHONES, iPADS, and the iPOD Touch, where light text will be featured on dark backgrounds.

The other new advancements came fast and furious: a redesigned CarPlay, where Siri can now working with third-party apps such as PANDORA and WAZE; you can customize emojis to become memoji stickers; a new login platform, Sign in with Apple, that enables you to log in to outside apps with FaceID; and a dedicated operation system for iPADS, with improvements such as the APPLE Pencil.

Throughout the presentation, APPLE presenters drove home the privacy and security angle, including one visual that simply stated, "APPLE DOESN'T RECORD OR SAVE YOUR AUDIO."

Last but not least was the new MAC PRO, a top-of-the-line system that's geared for the well-to-do professional. The computer, display screen and even new stand (that can rotate the screen to a profile mode) can run over $10,000 total.

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