Over this last week there have been reports of Apple’s newest releases from their developer’s conference that ends Friday. Apple has been famously successful but reaction is mixed to Apple’s newest addition to the music market, iRadio.
iRadio seems to be the same concept as Pandora–a music curator developed off your listening habits. The advantage goes to Apple as iRadio will have access to your iTunes library (assuming you are using all Apple products) and will have the ability to see your music preference based on the songs you liked enough to buy or otherwise download. The trick will be to see if iRadio will be able to develop stations which mix the old favorites with new ones while exposing the listener to new, enjoyable songs without repeating tracks too often.
Apple has a lot to prove after the failure of Ping. Business Spectator reported that “Ping was Apple’s first real attempt post iTunes and the iTunes store to build something that could really provide value to music listeners–and it turned out to be a turkey that no one understood the point of.”
Apple may be able to negotiate better content acquisition costs since iRadio will be able to link music streaming directly to the iTunes store. And as the leader in digital music sales, Apple is in a better position to negotiate better terms than can Pandora.
The new iRadio will not premier until the new iOS7 does this fall.
Traci Oshiro