Sooner or later, Apple will go head-to-head with Pandora and other streaming audio services. In the short term, Tim Cook’s WWDC 2013 keynote will likely include an iRadio announcement, though the service itself might not launch until the Fall.
It has been rumored that Apple has signed streaming audio deals with Warner and Universal, and is still negotiating with Sony. Cupertino, of course, has or will soon ink agreements with scores of smaller music labels and publishers, too.
According to GigaOM, those efforts are about to flower if not bear fruit — music publishers themselves indicateApple will announce iRadio, or whatever it’s ultimately called, at next week’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC).
Again, however, most observers agree that iRadio will not launch until the later in the year, perhaps Fall, and likely be timed to coincide with the release of iOS 7.
iRadio: More Than Meets the Eye
When it comes to buying music digitally, the iTunes Music Store is utterly dominant with a greater than 70 percent share of all downloads. Further thereto, Apple dominates digital music revenues overall.
However, streaming audio — Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, etc — is where digital music growth is happening. Streaming may never supplant let alone surpass digital downloads, but Apple needs to be in the space to maintain its dominance.
That said, pundits believe iRadio brings together key services Apple needs to cultivate and grow in order to succeed going forward — iTunes, iCloud and, perhaps most important of all, Cupertino’s iAds mobile advertising platform.
Whereas iTunes is dominant, both iCloud and iAds are viewed by Apple insiders as under performers. And, by “under performer” it’s meant that iCloud and iAds are top five services, respectively, in a highly competitive marketplace instead of utterly dominant.
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