iTunes Radio

Apple today officially ended free streaming of its iTunes Radio channels worldwide, incorporating the catalogue of stations into its subscription-based Apple Music service. The change follows Apple's announcement earlier this month that its free radio-listening feature would be discontinued at the end of January but would remain available to Apple Music subscribers. As of this morning,...

As part of the winding down of its iAd platform, Apple today sent out a notice to customers who listen to its radio service letting them know the radio feature is being discontinued at the end of January. In the email, Apple says that Beats 1 radio will be the only free listening option available to those who do not subscribe to the Apple Music service. Customers who listen to radio stations...

Apple's much-rumored streaming music service is set to debut at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8 alongside a revamped iTunes Radio, The Wall Street Journal confirmed today. Apple's Beats-based streaming music service will not include a free listening tier like Spotify, but it will include unlimited on-demand streaming for $10 per month. Rather than offering its music catalog for...

Apple is in talks to sign Toronto-born rapper Drake, hip-hop artist Pharrell Williams and electronic music DJ David Guetta as guest DJs for a revamped iTunes Radio, according to the New York Post. The report also claims that Apple continues to negotiate with record labels for Apple Music and wants to offer a three-month free trial period for the $10-a-month streaming music service. Apple...

Apple's Beats Music and iTunes Radio streaming services are available in a limited number of countries, but Apple is working on launching its upcoming music service in a number of countries around the world. Previous rumors have suggested Apple's upcoming music service will launch in multiple countries when it debuts in June, and a new report from Billboard confirms that Apple is seeking to...

Ahead of the rumored debut of Apple's upcoming streaming music service, Re/code has shared several details on the initiative, sourced from industry insiders. As we've learned previously, Apple will charge $9.99 per month for the service and will not offer a freemium streaming tier as other music services like Spotify do, but the company is aiming to introduce ways to let people listen to some...

While Apple is still working to get key deals in place for its upcoming streaming music service, the company remains committed to announcing the service at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), likely during the opening keynote on June 8, according to 9to5Mac. Apple's streaming music service will reportedly launch alongside a revamped iTunes Radio in a "long list" of countries in ...

As rumors gear up surrounding the revamped Apple iTunes/Beats music service, a new report claims that the company will opt out of offering a free advertising-supported base tier for its upcoming streaming service (via Re/code). The company will allow customers an initial trial period of some kind, but following that users will have to pay to continue listening to music, the cost of which most r...

Noted DJ Zane Lowe, who has headed up BBC Radio 1's popular evening new music show for over a decade, is leaving the broadcaster next month to join Apple, reports BBC News. Lowe has won a number of awards for his radio show and other work over the years, and was nominated for a Grammy Award this year for his role in writing and producing Sam Smith's album "In The Lonely Hour." Zane said: "I...

Following a lengthy lawsuit that pitted Sirius XM Radio against members of classic rock band The Turtles in a fight over royalties for music recordings made before 1972, new class action lawsuits have been filed against Apple, Sony, Google, and Rdio over their streaming music services (via The Recorder). As noted by Law360, Beats Music has also been hit with a suit. According to the suits,...

A few weeks out from Christmas, Apple has turned on nearly a dozen holiday-themed iTunes Radio stations that offer a variety of genres from sing-a-longs for kids to old seasonal classics. The ten stations include: Children's Christmas Holiday Sing-Along, Country Holiday, Classical Holiday, Holiday Classics, Holiday Hits, Latin Holiday, Rockin' Holiday, Soulful Holiday, Swingin' Holiday and The ...

According to Apple's System Status Page, some users are unable to access the App Store, iTunes Store, Mac App Store, and iBooks Store. iTunes Match, iTunes Radio, and iTunes in the Cloud also appear to be experiencing issues. App Store users were also seeing problems accessing apps on Tuesday, making this the second outage the sore has seen this week. Problems appear to have began at...

Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats was finalized today, and as the two companies merge into one, the positions some former Beats employees will take on at Apple are becoming clearer. According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Ian Rogers, who serves as the CEO of Beats Music, will take Apple’s own iTunes Radio streaming music service under his wing, heading up both streaming ...

Apple has expanded the content available on iTunes Radio with a new ESPN Radio station and more than 40 local National Public Radio (NPR) stations. First noticed by AppleInsider, the new stations can be accessed directly within iTunes Radio on both iOS devices and desktop computers via a search, though the new stations may be available to some users in the Featured section. The ESPN Radio...

Engineers working on iTunes Radio prefer to listen to Spotify and Pandora because they were better platforms, according to a new report from Buzzfeed. It claims that not only did those employees prefer Apple's competitors over its own radio service, but it says middle management was willfully ignorant about how Spotify worked, thinking it was just another streaming service. It's "why they...

Apple has plans to add both targeted local advertisements and broadcast radio stations to its iTunes Radio music service in the coming months, according to a report from The Information. The move will boost its advertising efforts and introduce new content on iTunes Radio, better positioning it to compete with market leader Pandora. Apple is also expected to begin advertising its own iTunes...

London-based streaming music service Bloom.fm is shutting down following the withdrawal of its main investment partner, TNT, a Russian television channel. TNT withdrew its funding following an organizational change, said VentureBeat.In a blog post, the Bloom.fm team said the withdrawal of funding was a surprise and that the company has no time to find new investment.We’ll keep this short...

London-based streaming-music service Bloom.fm says it has been blocked from advertising on Apple's iAd network because it is a threat to the Cupertino company's iTunes radio, reports CNET. Similar to iTunes Radio, Bloom.fm offers genre and artist-based streaming radio stations with a library of over 22 million tracks. "We were surprised at Apple's decision to ban us from their iAd network as...

Apple's iTunes Radio streaming music service is expanding today with the addition of a new National Public Radio (NPR) channel, reports Re/code.NPR’s channel, which should be live today, will offer a free stream, 24 hours a day, which mixes live news with segments from pre-recorded shows like “All Things Considered” and “The Diane Rehm Show.” NPR officials say that within weeks, some of ...

Following its introduction at WWDC 2013, Apple's iTunes Radio music streaming service launched alongside iOS 7 in September of last year. The service is available within iTunes on the desktop and the Music app for iOS, allowing users create channels based on artists, genres or songs. To bring attention to the service and increase engagement, Apple may be spinning off iTunes Radio into its own app ...