
Apple announced its streaming music service at WWDC this week after months of much anticipation. The service includes many of the features that our own Mark Gurman reported on months in advance. Earlier this year, I broke down my own thoughts on what features the service needed to have in order to convince me to switch from Spotify. Those requested features included excellent support for my previously acquired music; well-designed, cross-platform apps; exclusive content; competitive pricing; and a killer radio functionality.
In response to the requests for a killer radio functionality, Apple announced something called Beats 1. Beats 1 is a 24/7 streaming radio station that will be integrated directly into Apple Music on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple TV. World renowned DJ Zane Lowe will host Beats 1 from Los Angeles, Ebro Darden, a hip hop DJ, will broadcast from New York, and Julie Adenuga, a grime DJ, will host from London. This team together poses a serious threat to not only competing streaming services like Spotify, Rdio, Tidal, and Google Play Music, but also to traditional radio stations and SiriusXM.
No competitor to Apple Music has anything that even remotely resembles Beats 1. expand full story