After a bit of restructuring and some acquisitions to help accelerate development of its Beats Music streaming service, an executive at the company confirmed to TNW today that the service will officially launch on iOS, as well as on the web and Android, in the next few months.
President and COO Luke Wood also shared some details on how the service will work compared with iTunes Radio and other competitive streaming services. Wood says the service will “focus really heavily on playlists,” but also utilize a “a perfect harmony between the algorithm and human curation”:
Wood emphasized that Beats Music would be different and based around “a very specific idea”. The service is focused on curation, rather than forcing users to search blindly for new tracks or artists that they might like.
“We’re talking about real depth of personalization and knowing who I am, who you are, what we’re listening to, what we like, what we’ve listened to before and then offering up music that is highly relevant to our taste profile,” he added… “You need to start with a great editorial team that has a point of view, but we want to have a situation where we can really scale to the depth of your appetite,” he said. “If you really love music, we want something that can go deep with you for a really long time. And that requires a perfect harmony between the algorithm and human curation. Between the man and the machine.”
The mix of curated playlists and algorithm doesn’t sound unlike Apple’s own iTunes Radio streaming service launched in the US last month alongside iOS 7. Apple announced 11 million unique listeners in just a few days following the service’s launch, and will likely soon expand into other markets.
Beats Music, like iTunes Radio, will first launch in the US.
