![]() Of course, you can upgrade to an ad-free experience on either service (via iTunes Match and Pandora One), but for those who don't want to shell out the cash, iTunes Radio will undoubtedly offer a less intrusive experience. Meanwhile, Pandora seems to bombard you with not only audio ads, but also pop-ups and full-screen interstitials that all inevitably get annoying. Every so often between songs, it will give you an audio ad accompanied by an image in the album art box. One thing I love about iTunes Radio is its minimally intrusive ads. And in case you're wondering, just like its competitors, iTunes Radio allows you up to six skips per hour, per station. Conveniently, you can even ask Siri to give you a song title or skip a song. If you're driving or otherwise unable to use these onscreen controls, you can also call on Siri to do things like pause and play a track. It's got a big piece of album art front and center, with all of the basic playback controls nicely laid out along the bottom. The Now Playing screen is where most of the magic happens. ![]() ITunes Radio's clean and intuitive layout makes it easy to control playback, fine-tune stations, and even make purchases. Of course, the folks at Pandora might argue that their library carries only the songs people want to hear, but I actually think it's nice to know that Apple's offering caters to niche listeners as well. In fact, as of today, Apple's radio service has approximately 27 million tracks in its library, while Pandora has a comparatively miniscule 1 million tracks. Altogether, I find Apple's Featured Stations to be more interesting and relevant than those of other services offering hand-picked streams.īecause Apple was able to strike deals with all the major record labels, iTunes Radio already has a sizable music catalog that audiophiles should find attractive. There are even stations dedicated to live events and music that's currently trending on Twitter. So far, I've found Apple's Featured offerings to be exceptional, as they range from simpler stations themed around popular genres to more nuanced mixes that combine the styles of a handful of hot artists. These blend the personal touch of a curated list with the scale and smarts of an underlying algorithm. One thing that clearly sets iTunes Radio apart from competitor Pandora is its Featured Stations. It is worth mentioning, though, that as of now, it's only available in the US. For a first attempt at a streaming-radio product, iTunes Radio definitely deserves kudos. ![]() And if you're using something else at the moment, you still might want to consider the switch. On Tuesday it closed at $20.35, up 1 percent for the day.If you're already using the built-in Music app as your mobile media player of choice, then jumping onto the built-in iTunes Radio ( new in iOS 7) is almost a no-brainer. ![]() Since news of Apple’s plans first emerged a year ago, Pandora’s stock has roughly doubled. So far Pandora’s investors have not fled. This week Microsoft expanded its Xbox Music service, which includes a radiolike function, to work on Apple and Android devices. That is more than Pandora’s current rate of 0.12 cents, and Apple will also pay music companies a portion of the service’s advertising revenue.Īpple is entering an already crowded Internet radio market, which besides Pandora includes Clear Channel Communications’ iHeartRadio app radio functions offered by on-demand services like Spotify and others like Songza that supply ready-made playlists for various occasions, like working out or hosting a dinner party. Apple’s deals with labels call for it to pay 0.13 cents for every song streamed on iTunes Radio during its first year of operation, according to reports in Billboard and elsewhere based on Apple’s licensing contracts. In the economy of digital music, one 99-cent download can be worth more than hundreds of streams. Subscribers to Apple’s iTunes Match feature, for $24.99 a year, will be able to sync both newly purchased songs and any other songs in their library, such as those imported from CDs, and use the iTunes Radio service ad-free. One feature of iTunes Radio that music companies are particularly grateful for is a prominent button to buy a song as it streams. Apple is the single largest retailer of music, its downloads providing labels a crucial source of revenue as sales of CD’s drop.
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