Apple unveiled the highly-anticipated and rumored iRadio Monday at its World Wide Developer's Conference in San Francisco. iTunes Radio, a slight departure from the rumored nickname iRadio, the service offers users a Pandora-like experience for streaming music.
After months of negotiation and news that the company had finally reached a deal with long-time holdout Sony, Apple CEO called iTunes Radio "The best way to discover new music" at the keynote address, which kicked off Apple's 2013 WWDC."
The service offers featured playlists such as what songs are trending on Twitter and "Summer Music." However, the service lets its users create their own playlists. iTunes makes it easy to share stations with friends and save them for future use. Like Pandora, all radio selections are based on the user's personal music taste and preferences. Unlike Pandora, iTunes radio offers a history option so you can see what you have listened to. So if there's that one song stuck in your head that you just can't remember, you can just look up your history.
Users can skip ahead and see what's available next. Previous concerns were that Apple would lose money if it streamed music instead of finding new ways to incentivize users to purchase music on the iTunes Store. In response to that concern, iTunes Radio will come with a "wishlist" feature that will allow users to add songs they wish to purchase later or have purchased for them as a gift.
The new music streaming system is new territory for Apple Inc. who's founder, Steve Jobs, always believed people wanted to own their music - a philosophy he ran his company by before he passed away in 2011.
iTunes Radio sets its sights to be a direct competitor with Pandora's 70 million subscribers. The service is supported through Apple's iAds system and will roll out in countries besides the U.S. soon after its launch according to Eddy Cue's speech at the WWDC keynote on Monday.
