Another View of What Apple is Trying to Do with Music
There’s iTunes, iTunes Radio, Beats and the much-discussed streaming service. What’s going on? Recode takes a look.
Apple wants people to pay for its streaming music service. But that doesn’t mean it won’t let people listen for free, too.
Apple is still negotiating deals for the streaming service, which it would like to announce soon. But it would like to offer several ways to let people listen to some music without paying, according to industry sources. Those include:
- A free trial period, which may range from one to three months, depending on the outcome of Apple’s negotiations with music labels.
- A feature that will let music owners upload a sampling of songs that users could listen to without subscribing to the service. Several sources describe this feature as something akin to SoundCloud, the music streaming service that describes itself as the “YouTube for audio.”
- A new version of Apple’s iTunes Radio, featuring stations programmed by human beings instead of computers, which could be localized for different countries. Apple hired popular BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe this spring and has subsequently wooed four top producers from the station, Music Business Worldwide reported.
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