Apple on Monday introduced a series of new services, apps and software updates, including its hotly-anticipated music streaming offer, but despite its early success in the digital music space with the iPod, the vendor is late to the streaming party and some say it could find it difficult to compete with well-established rivals.
Apple Music will launch on 30 June at a cost of US$9.99 per month, or $14.99 for a family plan that allows up to six users. It includes more than 30 million songs, the Beats 1 radio station, and features that allow artists to connect with listeners.
"The jury is out on how good the Apple Music service really is but it will have to be superb in order to get paying customers to switch," said Radio Free Mobile founder Richard Windsor.
He concedes that Apple’s installed base of 330 million users, plus a three-month free trial period for Apple Music, does pose a threat to the likes of Spotify, Pandora and Rdio, but on balance believes Apple will face an uphill battle to take customers from those players.
"As long as the competitors can keep their users happy during the initial rollout, hype and free trial period, they should not be too adversely affected by the presence of this service," Windsor predicted.
Also on Monday, Apple presented its News app, which aggregates online news in a digital publishing format that, according to Apple, "allows publishers to create beautiful layouts."
The company has signed up 50 titles from close to 20 publishers so far, including Condé Nast, ESPN, The New York Times, Hearst, Time Inc., CNN and Bloomberg.
News will be available in the autumn through iOS 9, the new version of Apple’s iPhone and iPad operating system that it also previewed at Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC15). Amongst other things, iOS 9 brings updates to search and Siri, and new multitasking options for iPad users.
The firm also announced a Mac operating system update, OS X El Capitan; unveiled watchOS 2, a software update for Apple Watch, and revealed that Apple Pay, its mobile payment platform, will launch in the U.K. in July.
More than 250,000 locations will accept Apple Pay at launch and the firm has signed up big name merchants, including Boots, Marks & Spencer, Starbucks and Waitrose, as well as major banks.
