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Photo: Apple (Australia)
When you tune into iTunes Radio on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC or Apple TV, you’ll have access to stations ‘inspired’ by the music you already listen to, Featured Stations curated by Apple and genre-focused stations that are personalised just for you. iTunes Radio evolves based on the music you play and download. The more you use iTunes Radio and iTunes, the more it knows what you like to listen to and the more personalised your experience becomes. iTunes Radio also gives you access to exclusive “first listen” premieres from top selling artists, Siri® integration, plus the ability to tag or buy anything you hear with just one click.
iTunes Radio offers music fans access to thousands of new songs every week, as well as serving up exclusive music from new and popular artists before you hear them anywhere else. iTunes Radio will also be home to special events including live streams direct from the iTunes Festival in London and other exclusive iTunes Sessions.
In addition, if you’re listening to a song you like from iTunes Radio or your music library you will be able to have a station built around those. Apple says it will be easy to create and customise stations based on whatever you want to hear. Search for artists, songs, or genres, and iTunes Radio will instantly build a station around your choice.
Ask Siri “Who plays that song?” or “Play more like this” and Siri will make it happen. Say something like “Play Jazz Radio” or ask for any of your existing favorite stations and genres. Shape your stations by telling Siri what you like and don’t like, or tell Siri to pause, stop or skip. You can also have Siri add songs to your Wish List to download later.
iTunes Radio will be ad-supported and free for everyone. However, iTunes Match℠ users get iTunes Radio ad-free, so instead of hearing the occasional ad on iTunes Radio, iTunes Match makes your listening completely ad-free.
With iTunes Match, all your music—even songs you’ve imported from CDs—are stored in iCloud®. So iTunes Radio can use information about your entire music collection to make your stations even more personalised. iTunes Match costs USD$24.99 (in the US) for a year.
iTunes Radio will be launched first in the US later this year. No word yet from Apple when iTunes Radio will make it’s appearance in Australia and New Zealand.