Apple Music has just been announced, signalling Apple’s intentions to seriously rival Spotify as a music streaming service. The company unveiled Apple Music at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
The new app combines a streaming song and music video library, an internet radio station and allows artists to share unreleased tracks and other material. User input and computer algorithms will also be used to recommend songs.
The UK will be the first country outside of the US to get the Apple Music service. It’ll host several radio stations, one of which includes the Beats 1 radio station. Ex-BBC DJ Zane Lowe is amongst many big names who will be hosting on the station. You can also ask Siri to play a song from a movie soundtrack or year without needing to know the track’s name.
The team behind the Beats Music service built Apple Music. Apple acquired Beats Music back in 2014.
“2015, music industry is a fragmented mess. Do you wanna stream music? You can go over here. If you wanna stream video, you can check some of these places out. If you wanna follow some artists, there’s more confusions with that,” said Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine as he introduced Apple Music on-stage at WWDC.
“So I reached out to [Apple executives] Tim Cook and Eddy Cue and said: ‘Guys, can we build a bigger and better ecosystem with the elegance and simplicity that only Apple can do?’ … All the ways you love music, all in one place, and that place is in almost a billion hands all around the world already: one single app on your iPhone.”
The service will launch in over 100 countries on 30 June and would cost $9.99 (£6.50) a month for one person in the US – the same as Spotify. Families of up to six people can also sign up for $14.99. Users won’t need to pay a fee to listen to Beats 1.
Mac and iOS devices will be the first to get the service, with Android devices getting it later in the year.
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