Apple has reportedly secured a key licensing deal for its upcoming new “iRadio” streaming music service just one week ahead of its annual WWDC conference in San Francisco. Warner Music, which had been holding out for better terms according to earlier reports, has reportedly now agreed to license its catalog to Apple for use with its subscription music service. CNET broke the news on Sunday and it was later confirmed in a brief report from AllThingsD.
Under the terms of the deal, Apple will apparently pay Warner 10% of ad revenue from the service, which is apparently twice was popular online radio service Pandora pays.
Apple is expected by many to debut the service during the keynote at next week’s WWDC show, but an important question remains: With Spotify growing in popularity and a variety of similar services like Google’s All Access popping up, will Apple have a twist in store to help it outshine rivals or will iRadio simply be a “me too” offering?
