Apple is reportedly planning to unveil its new Spotify killer in June, despite reports that music deals are still in limbo
On Tuesday, Billboard's Glenn Peoples published a report that cited a source from a major music label who claimed "June won't be the release date" for Apple's overhauled Beats Music subscription music app, simply because "the deals aren't done."
Gurman's sources, however, claim that Apple still plans to unveil the new app in June at its Worldwide Developers Conference, though the app itself will officially launch "a few weeks following the announcement" as part of iOS 8.4 and the latest version of iTunes.
Interestingly enough, it appears Apple has been having trouble convincing music labels to allow it to charge consumers a flat subscription fee of $8 a month, and is now planning to launch the app with the industry standard $10 per month subscription.
Beats Music, which originally launched in January 2014, was lauded by Apple exec Eddy Cue as the "first subscription music service to get it right."
After Apple acquired Beats for $3 billion last year, Tim Cook told Charlie Rose in an interview that he couldn't sleep the first night he tried out the app. He highlighted Beats' heavy emphasis on curated content, saying that "they recognized that human curation was important in the subscription service."