Apple’s first radio station Beats 1, which launched alongside Apple Music yesterday, has received a positive response from users and critics, despite its stream going down for a short period of time.
Beats 1 started streaming via the Music app on iPhones and iPads at 9am PST, shortly after the release of iOS 8.4, which put Apple’s heavily redesigned Music app (and its brand new streaming service) in the hands of users just an hour earlier.
Former BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe took the reigns for the first session and gave some insight on what the global 24/7 station would be playing: “Our genre is ‘great,’” he said. “That’s all we’re looking for.” It clearly resonated to those over at Cult of Mac, which gave this auspicious beginning a glowing review.
However, this broad reach must have held more users than expected and the service reportedly went down for around 35 minutes. Though 9to5Mac note that it could be due to an outage at Amazon Web Services.
Lowe is one of three of Beats 1’s main DJs. Based in LA, he’s joined by Ebro Darden in New York and Julie Adenuga in London. Other big names that will host shows include Beats’ own Dr Dre, as well as other musical acts such as Elton John, Josh Homme and St. Vincent.
iOS users looking to listen to Beats 1 will need to upgrade to iOS 8.4 (if they haven’t already) by going to Settings > General > Software Update, then open the Music app and heading to the ‘Radio’ tab.