Apple Music The Big Announcement At Apple WWDC.

Apple Music is set to cost you US$9.99 a month with an
initial three-month free trial, which was developed in collaboration with
Beats, whom Apple purchased in May last year for $3bn, Apple Music will be
available for iOS users from later this month.

There is also a family plan that will charge US$14.99 a
month for up to six family members.

To kick off the new service Apple teamed up with rap
superstars Drake and Pharrell to launch the new music streaming service at its
annual developer’s conference in San Francisco overnight.

It is not known whether key retail partners such as JB Hi Fi
will sell the new service.

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“Music is such an important part of our lives, and our
culture,” said Apple chief executive Tim Cook. “Apple Music will change the way
you experience music forever.”

Apple has also announced a world-wide radio station that
will be called Beats1 and will allow listeners around the world to hear the
same programming at the same time. The new stations will range in genres, and
the company said that with membership, you can skip songs.

Music mogul Jimmy Lovine, who co-founded Beats with rapper
Dr Dre, called it a revolutionary music service manned by experts which will
benefit the up-and-coming artists in their bedroom as much as the established
acts.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Welcomes Jimmy Levine on Stage

“There is definitely an appetite among iTunes users for this
kind of service – over 20pc of them already stream compared to 14pc on
average,” said Andy Saxton, consumer retail analyst at Kantar Worldpanel.

“Yet with nearly three quarters currently using Spotify, the
challenge for Apple will be to convert these users to their own platform.”

The company also showcased its latest software developments
for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Macs, alongside the long-awaited launch date
for Apple Pay in the UK, which has been available for US users since last
October.

Apple’s head of e-commerce Jennifer Bailey announced Apple
Pay’s introduction to the UK but not Australia.

Apple also launched iOS 9, the latest software update for
iPhone and iPad, featuring significant updates to digital assistant Siri, which
now answers more than one billion voice requests per week. Asking Siri to
display ‘photos from London last June’ will instantly return all pictures
taking during this period, and returns search information drawn from news
publications, Wikipedia and content from your own device.

New app News collates content from multiple news sources
personalised to each individual users, allowing them to swipe between articles
embedded with videos and animations based on interests and personal preferences.

Senior vice president of software engineering Craig
Federighi introduced new Mac software OS X 10.11 El Capitan, which sported
advanced search capabilities and side-by-side window management designed to
enhance experience and performance.

Cook talked the crowd through WatchOS 2, the new platform to
help developers create native apps specifically for running independently on
the Apple Watch itself, instead of batting back to its paired iPhone. Users can
now set their own photos or time-lapse photography as watch face backgrounds,
and further customise their own background to include sports scores or other
bits of information.

The App Store has seen more than 100bn app downloads, with
the average individual downloading 119 apps, the company said.

Apple also showed off updates to the software that powers
its computers and mobile devices at their WWDC.

The company said the name of its newest operating system for
Mac computers will be “OS X El Capitan.” Its new features include, among other
things, improved search capabilities, increased screen management and faster
speeds.

Both El Capitan and the mobile operating software will be
available to developers this week, with public testing beginning in July and a
free upgrade “in September” The new operating software for Apple Watch also
will be available at no charge.

Apple said the new software for mobile devices will allow
for multitasking, or the ability to have more than one app open on a screen at
a time. Multitasking is especially important as Apple pushes iPads into the
workplace.

The new mobile operating software also has a feature-similar
to Google Now-that anticipates a user’s needs based on information in his email
and calendar.

In addition, Apple unveiled new software for its Watch that
will allow developers to create apps that run directly on the Watch and can use
the device’s sensors.

Currently, Apple Watch apps run on the iPhone, causing some
apps to perform slowly. The ability to access the Watch’s processing power and
sensors is expected to improve the third-party apps available for the Watch.

At the end of the first day of WWDC hares of Apple fell 0.5%
to $127.98 in midday trading.