[UK] It’s probably tricky to time these things to perfection, since Apple pulls the strings.
The UK Spotify competitor, We7, has had its iPhone app approved and is now available to download from the iTunes App Store. The problem is that the associated premium music subscription service, needed to run the app, doesn’t seemed to have launched yet.
Or at least that’s how it looks.
Judging by the site’s subscription page and reviews published in the App Store, whilst you can download the app, since you can’t yet subscribe to the mobile version of We7’s music subscription service, it’s currently useless.
In fact, Musically reports that the premium plus version of We7 isn’t scheduled to launch until 1st of March.
Update: We7 CEO Steve Purdham has responded to this post in the comments. He confirms that the date for We7’s Premium+ (mobile) launch is still 1st of March, and that the delay between the iPhone app going live and the associated subscription service was intentional. “The time difference lets us check and test the service live end to end”, explains Purdham.
When it does launch, the app and subscription (costing £9.99 per-month) will enable:
– Unrestricted access to the full we7 library of music
– No adverts
– Player queue: see full list of queued tracks at a glance
– Full streaming @ 192kbps
– Sync playlists to any changes on the we7 website
– Offline playlists: enjoy playlists offline, when mobile connection is weak or non-existent
– Top Rated Tracks: constantly updated lists of all the most popular tracks
– Search: by song, by artist, by album.
That’s pretty much on-par with Spotify’s offering.