TIDAL gets refresh, gig tickets and student discounts

TIDAL has given their desktop app a spring clean and it now looks pretty much identical to TIDAL’s browser version. It also brings with it some new features.

TIDAL‘s new desktop app, of which I’ve been playing with the Beta, will feel very familiar to anyone who has accessed their account via the web browser version (that’s what I have to use at work) – but there are a few added bonuses which Jay Z and his crew will no doubt hope makes a difference.

Thanks to a partnership with Ticketmaster, TIDAL will now allow users to view their favorite artists’ tour dates and purchase tickets right from the app. The company also boasts access to exclusive pre-sales, giveaways and discounts for its subscribers.

To attract more subscribers, particularly the younger ones, TIDAL will also begin giving 50% discounts to students signing up with .edu email addresses starting next week.

Both of its payment plans will now be slashed in half for students: the ones regular folks pay £9.99-per-month for standard-quality sound (comparable to the quality other streaming services deliver), HD videos and curated content; and the £19.99-per-month tier for high-definition audio (comparable to CD quality or “lossless high-fidelity sound”), HD videos and curated content.

The desktop web player and mobile app will also come with updated features, including a more prominent offline mode bar, concert tickets via Ticketmaster, updated search, more personalisation options and a retooled menu for simplicity.

Unlike Spotify, however, offline mode is not yet available on TIDAL’s desktop apps – though TIDAL’s FAQ page states that this feature will be implemented “in the near future”.

Give it a whirl here.