Apple entered the streaming music space this week with the free, ad-supported iTunes Radio, one of the many new features packed in the critically acclaimed iOS 7 on the mobile side and iTunes 11.1 on the desktop.
Anticipation for iTunes Radio ran high in the weeks leading up to its release, and the service is now live on mobile and the desktop. So how does iTunes Radio fare compared to its rivals? It's a very competent, but ultimately unexciting streaming music service, but its mere existence poses a threat to its iOS and desktop competition.
iTunes Radio, in short, is Apple's catch-up play in an extremely crowded streaming music space that features excellent services like Slacker Radio, Songza, Spotify, and a handful of others. Unlike those services that offer a wide array of interesting and useful features, iTunes Radio is a relatively basic product that seems to exist to push users toward purchasing tracks from the iTunes store by making the "Buy" icon, and listeners' song histories easily accessible. That isn't unexpected. Apple makes heavy coin by selling digital music.
Sure, iTunes Radio streams a wide variety of tweakable, themed stations, and lets listeners skip up to six songs per hour, but that's something that's nearly ubiquitous in 2013. What's notable about iTunes Radio isn't so much what it does, but what it lacks. No song lyrics. No artist biographies. No premium version that lets listeners cache songs or stream songs or albums on demand. There's no true hook in terms of exciting features that would propel someone to give it a go. Except one.
iTunes Radio is baked into iOS 7.
Every iOS 7-compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch now has iTunes Radio, which means that the service has an instant installed base in the millions. You can add a few more million on the desktop side, too. In terms of user base, Apple has the potential to snatch the streaming music crown. Potential. Diehard music fans who enjoy meatier apps won't dig the lack of premium features, but most listeners probably won't mind that iTunes Radio is missing, say, Songza's activity-based soundtracks—or even recognize that activity-based soundtracks are a thing. Apple may not snare those who live and die by Rdio, but casuals and new iPhone owners will have a capable music app just a finger tap away. Convenience is a helluva drug.
That's not to say that iTunes Music is without merit. I like iTunes Radio's quirkier themed stations such as Guest DJ (a station hosted by an artist who plays his or her favorite tracks), and App Gamer Radio (which plays music from popular apps and games). I'm not sure if I like them because they're actually good offerings or if it's a somewhat original offering in an otherwise ho-hum product. And if you're into buying music, that's easy to do, too.
It's surprising that iTunes Radio doesn't offer true stand-out features when you consider how Apple pushed digital music forward with the iTunes Music Store. Pandora, on the other hand, recently purchased a terrestrial radio station and plans to stream morning shows on demand. Turntable.fm has community-based DJing. Slacker has excellent human-curated stations and the most varied (and downright wacky) themed channels in the space.
iTunes Radio plays it safe. Maybe too safe for folks like me. I suspect, however, that millions of iPhone users will appreciate iTunes Radio's accessibility and simplicity—it lives in the iPhone's Music section and doesn't require a tutorial to get started. That's a very low bar to entry.
And, really, that's all that most people want when it's time to fire up some Bieber.