The competition between Apple and Samsung is widely known and when Apple launches something you know that it won’t be long until Samsung follow suit.
So it hasn’t been surprising to see Samsung launch their own version of iTunes radio. They gave it the name of Milk and are saying that it is a fresh take on music. But what everyone wants to know is whether Samsung have copied Apple or if they really are offering a fresh take as they say they are?
Apple and Samsung have now rolled out Milk and iTunes radio to their devices, but what is surprising is that Samsung are only allowing those with Samsung Galaxy devices to access their service. This means owners of such as the Samsung Galaxy S4, the S3, Note 2 and Note 3. When the Samsung Galaxy S5 is launched it will have support too. So this means that it’s not available for everyone who has an Android handset. This doesn’t mean that the developers have not found a way of getting it with rooting though.
Thanks to record labels being strict the services are not available world-wide. Milk is available to those in the US and iTunes radio is in the US along with Australia. Apple did say that more locations would be added, but Samsung haven’t said anything about expanding the service.
Those wanting Milk can get the app in the Google Play store, while iTunes radio comes built into the Music app on iOS 7 and on Apple TV.
iTunes radio is the perfect way for Apple to make use of the iAd platform as those who don’t pay a yearly subscription of $25 per year will get ads every 15 minutes and a video ad each hour.
Samsung are offering Milk without ads but you do need an account with Samsung. You can then steam unlimited music. However on the Samsung website is says that ad-free is for a limited time only.
The basics of both Milk and iTunes radio are roughly the same. They have a genre, artist or song and then offer similar tracks to suit your taste.
Milk has around 200 genre stations with 13 million Slacker powered songs. They offer nine genres by default on the dial, which users are able to change. Users just have to turn the dial or tap the circle to see lists of sub-stations.
Users are able to skip six songs in any one hour and you can choose to Never Play Song if you don’t want to hear that song ever again.
Stations can be set by release date, popularity and 500 songs can be saved in the history so that you can hear them again. Users do have to have an internet connection to listen to music.
Apple offers their users 200 stations which can be sorted alphabetically, by artist or song. iTunes radio lists the stations at the top and the ones you have chosen are listed at the bottom. When in a station songs can be put into favourites, paused, played or skipped. Tracks can also be bought and the user can create their own station based on the song or artist, unlimited skips are also allowed.
iTunes radio offers first play music from popular or new artists and the radio has been integrated into Siri. You can say Play Jazz radio for instance and Siri will play it. You can also tell Siri what your preferences are for music or get it to pause.
Both milk and iTunes radio come with interfaces that are great. The discovery and personal choice may not match that of Pandora, however this could improve given time. The design and integration are a nice touch on both platforms.
Milk is good for now as it doesn’t have ads and iTunes radio offers music that you cannot find in stores thanks to First Play.
All in all you cannot say that Samsung have copied Apple as Apple were never the first to make use of internet radio. More than likely both have copied Pandora.
