Apple announces Music streaming tunes and live radio.

Apple has finally taken the wraps off its long-rumored music service following the 2014 acquisition of Beats. It’s called Apple Music and it’s going up against the likes of Spotify, Google Play Music, and Tidal (kind of). To differentiate its new musical ambitions, Apple Music will have three main features. There will be a streaming music service with “expert” curation, a live internet radio service called Beats One, and an artist-centered social network called Connect.

The streaming part of the service doesn’t look much different than the competition on the surface. You open the app, select some genres and artists you like, and it builds suggested stations. You can also search for anything you want to listen to. Apple says the big differentiator here is that its expert curators will be able to build better suggested playlists than an algorithm ever could. This seems largely subjective, though.

Beats One might be the most aggressive move from Apple with regard to music. It has hired professional hosts and DJs to man Beats One 24/7 to make it a worldwide online radio station. Rather than just being a never-ending stream of songs as many internet radio services are, this will be curated and managed by personalities including Zane Lowe in Los Angeles, Ebro Darden in New York, and Julie Adenuga in London. Apple made several allusions to special programming and content that will be offered on Beats One, but the nature of the programming is still unclear.

The last piece of the puzzle is Connect, which will be a place in the Apple Music app for artists to share demos, lyrics, videos, and anything else they fancy. It’s sort of like iTunes Ping (remember that?) with more of a reason to exist. Its success will obviously depend on keeping artists interested in adding content to Connect. It could provide a good platform for lesser-known artists to gain a following, though.

Apple Music will be available on iOS, OS X, and PC devices on June 30 — and in 100 countries — with individual subscriptions costing $9.99 per month. That’s the same as most other streaming services, but Apple has one more trick up its sleeve. Leveraging what I’m sure are deep connections to the music industry, Apple will also offer a $14.99 per month family deal that allows up to six people to have their own distinct streaming profiles. In a few months, it won’t even matter which device everyone is using, because an Android version of Apple Music will be hitting the Play Store this fall. That’s also when the service will reach the Apple TV.