Apple is reportedly set to launch a free ad-funded music streaming service at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Fransisco next week, billed as a rival to Spotify, Google Music and Pandora.
The Financial Times reports that Apple are keen to get the service launched as quickly as possible to gain back lost ground on Pandora – which now has over 60 million iOS users in the US.
According to the report, Apple iRadio will be a free music-streaming service that enables users to listen to music tailored to their tastes.
Adverts will be delivered by Apple’s iAds service , which will be the primary revenue source.
However, an add-free premium service is expected to be offered in the future, which will incur a monthly subscription.
According to a report in Business Week, Apple is shifting engineers and sales employees from its iAd business, which currently supports mobile display advertising run by Apple on iOS, to help improve its new music service offering
The publication cited ‘one former iAd member’ that the iAd group, which has more than 200 employees, have long sought tighter integration with iTunes so the group could sell ads to entertainment companies that would link directly back to iTunes.
The streaming selection will be based on a user’s tastes, Businessweek says, with users able to create a station based on a specific song or an artist, and it can pull from a user’s iTunes library to generate suggestions and also offer easy purchase of songs users like.
Apple will select a few specific launch advertising partners for the streaming service, and will also continue to use iAd to sell in-app advertising, too, according to the report.
Google recently launched its own music streaming service, while Youtube are also rumoured to be working on their own Android service.
