Apple Reveals Music Streaming Service, Beats 1 Radio & Connect Social Media Feature

An announcement of the industry’s worst kept secret of 2015 was used to help wrap-up Apple’s opening keynote at WWDC: Apple Music is coming soon. Most of the rumors that have led up to this event have been proven true. Apple Music is a streaming service at its core, and costs $9.99/mo for unlimited access. While no mention was made of student discounts, the company did talk about a secondary option that would let households share an account with up to six people for $14.99/mo, which is an incredible value versus the competition. Also enticing: the first three months are free.

There’s a lot more to Music than just streaming, though. Long before this service became a reality, Apple knew that it was going to go up against some serious, well-established competition. So, the company’s analyzed every little aspect of competing services, and proceeded to one-up them in some way.

Take for example “Connect”, a feature that acts like a social network to allow artists to post updates and interact with fans. From within the app, fans could listen to a just-released track, or watch a music video. Apple touts that Music will have tens of thousands of music videos – all ad-free.

Another perk comes with radio stations and playlists. Apple touts the fact that all of the playlists (outside of personal ones, of course) will be human-curated. Apple believes that perfect playlists simply can’t be created with algorithms, and as Jimmy Iovine says, hand-crafted playlists could avoid “buzzkills” when working out, or doing some other activity.

Also interesting is the launch of Beats 1, a radio station that will be broadcast from three cities and hosted by well-respected hosts. From LA, BBC Radio 1 legend Zane Lowe will head up the mic, while HOT 97’s Ebro Darden will handle things in New York City. London’s post will be manned by Julie Adenuga.

What’s great about Beats 1 is that you will not need to subscribe to Apple Music in order to listen to it. That’s something I’m glad to see. You also won’t need a subscription to access the service’s Connect feature. Thus, the subscription fee is only required for the streaming service.

Overall, I am rather impressed with what Apple’s Music service brings to the table, even if none of it was a secret (outside of Ebro and Julie being hosts – that was an unknown, at least to me). Apple seems to have done things right here, so now we can sit back and see how things play out. If you’re intrigued and own an iOS device, mark the June 30 launch date on your calendar. Windows and Android users can get in this fall.