Android users can unofficially listen in to Apple’s Beats 1 radio (for now)

Apple is promising an Android version of its Apple Music app sometime in the fall, providing free access to its Beats 1 radio station and to its subscription-based streaming music service. But you don’t need to wait until then to check out Beats 1, thanks to the discovery of some unofficial web streams.

Developer Benjamin Rumble found an unencrypted HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) URL for the service and embedded it in a webpage on his personal site. You can also access the URL directly. Since then, others have found additional URLs … 

You can only access the streams from an IP address in one of the launch countries for Beats 1, but that’s quite a few.

You’ll need an app that supports the HLS protocol, which includes the stock browser in Android 4.1 and up – though Chrome is recommended. You can find a list of these here, but not all will necessarily work with any given stream. Apps successfully tested by Reddit users include Safari, Chrome, iTunes 11, Quicktime X and Media Player Home Classic.

Apple will probably change the URLs before long, but keep an eye on the Reddit thread: there is likely to be a cat-and-mouse game going on for a while, with new URLs discovered as old ones are closed down.

Beats 1 went live yesterday through the new Music app in iOS 8.4 and – some time later – iTunes 12.2.

Via TNW