WSJ: Apple’s $10 per month on-demand music streaming service launching at WWDC next week

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Contradicting a February 2015 report which asserted that Beats Music would get folded into a new on-demand streaming music subscription service, The Wall Street Journal said Monday that Beats Music will be maintained as a standalone service once Apple launches its new music $10 per month offering at WWDC next week.

Apple, the world’s leading music retailer, is apparently “prepared to cannibalize its download business in favor of streaming.” As part of an all-in bet, Apple may prompt people “who download a $10 album to instead subscribe to the streaming service for $10 a month.”

The new “set of music services” will cost $10 per month, like Spotify, and is said to include “augmented Internet radio” with DJs.

Citing people familiar with the plan, the financial newspaper claims that Apple’s new offering “won’t let listeners stream its entire music catalog on demand free of charge.”

Instead, the privilege of unlimited music streaming will set you back ten bucks per month. In addition, Apple plans to augment its free, ad-supported Internet radio service called iTunes Radio with channels programmed and hosted by human DJs.

Earlier this morning, The New York Post learned that some of these DJs are A-list names such as Drake, Pharrell Williams and David Guetta.

Unlike WSJ, The New York Post wrote that Apple wants to offer a three-month free trial but the plan may be put on hold as Apple is reportedly demanding that record labels give it rights for free during the trial period.

As WSJ reported, music industry executives reportedly see Apple’s upcoming service as “a watershed moment for streaming music that could move the technology from early adopters to the mainstream.”

If history is an indication, the new service could indeed hit the ground running in no time given Apple’s more than 800 million iTunes accounts with credit card on file.

If the company is going to take the wraps off the new service soon, the best place to do so would be its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off with a keynote next Monday.

Beats Music is available in the App Store at no charge.

Source: The Wall Street Journal