Saturday, January 23

The End of Free Listening on iTunes Radio

Katie Roof, reporting for TechCrunch:

iTunes Radio will no longer be free, as of January 28. In an email to customers, Apple said that the Pandora-like service will only be available for Apple Music subscribers, which costs $9.99 per month.

Most of the Apple TV users I know own the 3rd generation Apple TV, listen to iTunes radio a lot, and do not subscribe to Apple Music. I’m not an alarmist when Apple drops outdated ports or features, but if this move is intended to increase subscriber numbers for Apple Music1, it’s misguided. Hopefully this means that an update is coming for the older Apple TV that will finally add a Pandora app.

  1. I think this decision has more to do with the pending dissolution of Apple’s iAd service than anything else. As others have pointed out, Apple Music’s direct competition is Spotify, not Pandora.