Last year, the first rumors appeared announcing the possible launch of a service Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), which would offer a functionality similar to that of a Pandora. The service was called generic iRadio by the people who obtained information about it and it seems that this year Apple would follow to launch it officially. Apple is in talks with major US record companies regarding the possible launch of the service, for now no agreement has been reached, but probably until the launch iOS 7 everything will be prepared to reach the users.
Consumer behavior (is) increasingly shifting towards access to a music catalog from ownership of specific songs. We expect iRadio to be incorporated into the iTunes iOS app with personalized radio functionality akin to Pandora, integrated with iTunes to purchase music and other music related content such as concert information/tickets/merchandise via Live Nation (Lyv) and Ticketmaster.
The service will not be free, but it will offer users the opportunity to stream audio by listening to radio stations with songs specially made according to their own preferences. At the moment Pandora is an extremely popular service, it is not available anywhere in the world and the same will be true in this case iRadio. There are very high chances that the service will not initially be available in Romania due to problems with song licensing, the same impediment underlying the postponement of the service's launch iTunes Match in our country.
