Does iTunes Radio work like Spotify?

[LarmanF]

I understand and am looking forward to the functionality of the radio stations in iTunes Radio, but I was curious as to whether (like in Spotify), with iTunes Radio you can search up a song and listen to the whole thing for free? Or do you have to pick the artist and wait for the particular song to come up in the radio station?

I presume seeing as they have the button to purchase the song that's playing on the radio that you won't be able to 'save' the song in a playlist so you can keep returning to it and listening to it for free as with Spotify?

 

[Oppressed]

It is not like spotify but like pandora.

 

[freedevil]

Its quite good and plays songs similar to Pandora. I heard the same station on both and the bands that played where almost the same. The ads are better on Apple, less annoying. Usually its trying to sell me a song instead of playing a large voiceover ad.

 

[iBreatheApple]

The freedom of playing whatever is only available for premium spotify users on the mobile platform, I believe. iTunes Match members are entitled to ad-free streaming. The deal breaker for me, though, is that being a "premium" iTunes radio user does not give you unlimited skips. I'm betting this was one of the hold-ups in the agreements prior to WWDC and ultimately Apple caved because (one, they can afford it ) they wanted to start beta testing and that was a prime feature in the presentation.

 

[madsci954]

It's basically Pandora in iTunes/the Music app with easy access to a Buy Song button.