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Apple Near Deal For Radio Service
An anonymous reader writes "TechCrunch and The Verge are reporting that Apple is near a deal with Universal Music to provide a streaming 'iRadio' music service. 'Apple is expected to launch a web radio service similar to Pandora's later this year, provided that executives there can strike an agreement with Sony Music Entertainment as well as music publishers. Talks with Sony, which operates the third label, Sony Music Entertainment and Sony / ATV, the music publishing company jointly run with the estate of the late singer Michael Jackson, are said to not be as far along towards reaching a deal. ... As for the financial terms, Apple will not receive the steep discounts it had sought for the labels' music.' Apple's 400 million active iTunes accounts could give even Pandora, with its 200 million users, something to worry about. 'For startups and streaming music companies, this means looking closely at the competitive advantages offered by their own platforms and decided how best to position their own services. A key advantage, and one that will likely get emphasized by virtually everyone challenged by an iRadio, is cross-platform compatibility. Apple will likely be able to offer something along those lines through iTunes on Windows, but for the most part it'll be a strictly iOS/Mac affair. That, combined with personalization and recommendation engines, along with other value add features, will be the way to combat an iTunes streaming service, but no matter what, an Apple product will change the face of this market.'"
If their music choice that they'll give customers is anything like the choices given in phones, it will be more repetitive than the top 20 radio station. But less popular, and more hipsterish.
> an Apple product will change the face of this market
An Android product would make more of a difference, what with the current approx 2:1 ratio in favour of Android usage on smartphones.
iOS has almost 100% of the market that matters
No they don't. Lets be honest about Apples market share...Its a localised phenomena in US and UK, and its more about how the carriers expect users to pay for the phones. Apples market share is so low...even Windows phone brag about having larger market share. You can pretend the Apple has some kind of lead...and it did, but that was when it did have major market share, but today applications are developed first for Android, and in some markets where Apple is none existent...Apple Applications are not being developed at all...and the same goes for video; books; music :). Would you like be to show you recipts of my Play purchases :) I just bought NBA Jam :)