Apple has been rumoured to have been working on a Pandora-like music streaming service for quite some time now, with the rumour mill gaining traction this year. According to earlier reports, the service was supposed to arrive much earlier, but has faced several roadblocks. Today Apple introduced its music streaming service called iTunes Radio.
The service was dubbed “iRadio”, so Apple surprised us by naming it iTunes Radio. The music streaming service demoed by Eddy Cue is built into iOS 7, works on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac and AppleTV, and it is free for all users. The service will rely on advertising support through Apple’s iAd team to generate revenue. However, if you subscribe to iTunes Match, you will have no ads.
With iTunes Radio, you can play the music you love, by your own rules. Apple now allows users to customize stations based on what you want to listen to. As soon as you pick up an artist, song or genre, iTunes Radio will build a station around it.
And while listening, you can make adjustments by tapping Play More Like This or Never Play This Song. You can even control the balance between playing the hits and discovering new songs. To add or delete stations, just go to Edit Stations. That’s also where you can select artists, songs, and genres you want to hear more of or none of, the iTunes Radio preview informs.
Siri is here to help as well: while driving users can ask Siri to play a song, and then ask her to “play more like this”. You can even get information about the artist by asking “Who sings this?”.
As we have previously mentioned, one of the main issues behind the “late” (compared to Google’s music streaming service) launch is that Apple has decided to “reinvent” the Pandora-like music streaming service, and made it according to the company’s benchmarks.
After long months of effort creating new service agreements from scratch instead of using an already established scenario, Apple has signed a streaming agreement with three major labels, Sony being the last one to happily say “YES” last week.
iTunes Radio is starting in U.S., with Apple adding more countries over time.
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My guess is that Canada will never see it. I hope I am wrong.
Sucks for us. I’ve been using Spotify while abroad, going to have to get something like unblockus when I get home. I assume this will be much like any decent service, unavailable without workarounds.
I’m sure that we will and this is not Apple’s fault. It depends upon how much more the RIAA and such want for expanded rights.
“I’m sure we will” – There is no way you can support that statement. Whereas examples of why we likely won’t are quite prevalent. Spotify, Pandora…
Has nothing to do with the RIAA. Try CRTC – that communist organization that prohibits Canadians from receiving too much non-Canadian influence.
There is always a delay with new apple iTunes services in Canada. There are different rights they need to negotiate, and apple’s priority is getting them done one country at a time. I presume Canadian companies may be more protectionist and want more of the pie. Apple may wait and show the success of it in the US, then come back to the countries that are asking for more money and show them.
I seem to have iRadio in iTunes, been listening all day. I am in Surrey, and only have a Canadian iTunes account.