As expected Apple announced a new streaming music service, Apple Music, during their keynote presentation at their WWDC earlier today. Along with the streaming music service they will be launching Beats 1 Radio on June 30th. Beats 1 will be Apple’s first attempt to create a worldwide radio station. They have put together a team of DJ’s featuring Zane Lowe in Los Angeles, Ebro Darden in New York City, and Julie Adenuga in London.
Beats 1 promises the latest and best music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can listen to the radio station online through your Mac, PC, or iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod). Apple plans to release an app for Android in the months to come. Beats 1 will have studio locations in Los Angeles, New York City, and London. The radio station will be broadcast via the Internet and available in over 100 countries around the world.
Apple is striving to make Beats 1 Radio unique. They want to do something no one else has done before by offering a music experience to users around the world. While Internet radio has been around for years, Apple has the user base and advertising budget to push the new service. They question is whether or not users will be up to paying $9.99 a month for access to Beat 1 Radio and Apple Music. They will be offering a 3 month free trial when the service launches on June 30th.
Apple will be going head to head with streaming music services like Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music, and Amazon Prime Music. Apple acquired Beats a year ago and is looking to make their mark on the streaming music market. The growth of online subscriptions has Apple targeting 100 million subscribers. That would far exceed the existing market of those paying to stream music online. It seems like quite a lofty goal but Apple has surprised the music industry before so I wouldn’t count them out.