Apple has continued to develop and evolve its Beats 1 radio station with a new update that will surely appeal to lovers of the station. A new Replay feature has been rolled out as part of an apparent stealth platform update that lets listeners catch up on specific segments of broadcasts that may have been missed. As you know, Beats 1 is an “always on” radio station broadcasting around the world, so it stands to reason that certain users in certain territories will occasionally miss out on content that they would’ve loved to listen to. The Beats 1: Replay feature should go some way to resolving that issue.
Beats 1: Replay will allow for popular shows from DJs Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden, and Julie Adenuga to be listened to again directly from the DJ’s individual Connect page within the Beats 1 Radio section of Apple Music. Previously, if the listener had missed the initial show, and somehow managed to be unavailable for the second broadcast of it twelve hours later, then it was game over. The curated playlist of songs played throughout the broadcast could be viewed and listened to, but that was always without the DJ interaction and without the privilege on hearing any on-show guest interviews.
It’s as yet unknown if the Beats 1: Replay feature is the result of listener feedback or just something that was always going to form part of the evolution of the platform as time passes. It does however come with a few niggling downsides. However, listening to a full broadcast via the new Replay feature does mean that listeners can’t “heart” a song or add it directly to a playlist. It also means that the interface of the Beats 1 platform will negate to show the titles or artists of any playing songs due to it effectively being a streaming recording of the live show.
The Beats 1: Replay feature is accessible via the DJ’s “Connect” page. So, to access Zane Lowe for example, listeners would need to select Beats 1 from the Radio tab within Apple Music, select the Zane Lowe on Beats 1 page and then select the Connect segment in the segmented control under the main banner image. This then brings up a list of available replays. It’s worth noting that if you’ve previously replaced the “Connect” option on the tab bar with “Playlists” through the Restriction settings within iOS then this feature does not show up.
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the web.
