BitTorrent Confirms ‘Bundle’ Is Coming To iOS

Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke just released a new solo album this morning. Instead of putting it up on iTunes or Amazon for people to buy, however, he made it available via BitTorrent—a file sharing technology where users share the hosting for uploading and downloading files.

Beyond any perception of piracy that BitTorrent conjures up, using the platform to legally distribute music still poses a problem in 2014—specifically for Apple’s iOS users. Mobile users on Android can download the album directly to their phones or tablets, but iOS users are directed to download it via a Windows or Mac desktop.

“This was an alpha product prototype, and it’s not unusual for Alphas not to be on all platforms,” says Matt Mason, Chief Content Officer for BitTorrent Inc. “The mobile world is dominated by Android (65% to 35% iOS in the U.S. and 78% vs 18% worldwide). So Android was a priority. As we continue to iterate we’ll be on all platforms. Bundle is very much coming to iPhone.”

The biggest challenge facing BitTorrent distribution on iOS is the way the OS limits apps from having free-range of the device. Sandboxing, which keeping apps from directly interacting with each other, is a blessing for users in terms of security, but it also severely limits features available for Android.

It isn’t clear yet whether Bundle will be an app that streams files to iOS users or whether they’ll be able to completely download them for offline use.

Since music is quickly moving from downloads to streaming, it’s also moving from the desktop as the hub to mobile being the hub. Yorke has the reasonable pricing for digital music at $6, the move of making it available upon announcement, and being forward thinking in distribution, the key now is just to make sure it’s available everywhere—because letting listeners grab an album on first impulse is an overwhelmingly important factor in making money with recorded music.