Apple’s Streaming Launches Without Aus Plans

Apple has confirmed its much-rumoured iTunes Radio service this morning, with the streaming service set to utilise the catalogue of music from the iTunes store.

The service will roll out in the US this Australian spring and a local Apple representative told theMusic.com.au today, “We are working on additional countries but have nothing to announce today.”

With the service scrambling to thrash out deals with major labels, Sony/ATV publishing – which owns EMI Publishing – and Sony Music are believed to have finalised their deal over the weekend, providing the final piece of the major label puzzle for today's launch at the company's annual developer conference in the US.

The service will be available on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC and Apple TV, with streaming stations curated by Apple and others personalised to a user's listening and purchase habits.

It will be free, supported by ads, however there is an iTunes Match service which removes all ads and will collate all your music stored in the cloud into the personalised stations. That upgrade will cost US$24.99 annually.

Apple hope the platform will compliment their iTunes Store and not detract from it as an on-demand service, like Spotify, Deezer or Mog, would. Its main competition is perceived to be online radio service Pandora, whose share took a hit in anticipation of the announcement to the tune of 2.8 percent. Forbes points out that following the announcement they bounced back, ending Monday's trading day up 2.5 percent.

Apple's formalisation of the service follows Google's foray into the market mid-May, although there is still insecurity over the sustainability of streaming market models as a whole.