Apple has announced the launch of its own music streaming service, Apple Music, at the company's annual developer conference in San Francisco.

The new service, which is a product of the company's Beats Music acquisition last year, will focus on three key features to try to beat competitors, including Spotify, Deezer and the Jay-Z owned Tidal.  

Complaining about what is currently available on the market already, Apple claimed its service will take a very different approach to what is already available.

"There needs to be a place where music can be treated like digital bits and more like the music it is... that would be pretty great," it said. 

Apple will offer access millions of tracks to stream, curated playlists, a worldwide radio station called Beats 1 that will be streamed from New York, Los Angeles and London and fronted and run by DJ Zane Lowe in Los Angeles, Ebro Darden in New York and Julie Adenuga in London. 

The system will automatically merge all your music sources together so they are in one place. A feature called "For You" will scan your music and then make recommendations on what it thinks you like.

The music also asks you to also tell it what type of music you like to help curate better playlists. Rather than just working from a computer algorithm it will have a layer of human curation too, in order to ensure that it remains relevant. 

The second element of Apple Music will be Beats 1. You'll be able to tune in and listen wherever you are and at whatever time. Apple has hinted to Pocket-lint that although not announced at WWDC, Beats 1 would be the first of many radio stations offered by the company over time. 

The final element of the offering is called "Connect". Artists will be able to talk directly to their fans and share exclusive content to users like song lyrics, behind the scene videos or recording studio footage. Artists already signed include Pharrell, Bastille, and Drake. 

A "what's new" section within the app will tell you what new albums and singles are available, as well as show you the top charts. And there will be tens of thousands of music videos as well, all ad free. 

The iPhone app will come with Siri support so you'll be able to bark orders at your phone - phrases like "play top ten" or "play born to run" and the device will do it for you. Alternatively you can ask it to play the top song from a specific time in the past. Other search requests include being able to simply say things like "play the song from Selma". 

You will still be able to buy tracks from the iTunes stores. 

It will launch in 100 countries later this month, 30 June. Apple has also added Android support which will launch in the fall.

It will cost $9.99 a month and will be free for the first three months. Plus, families of up to six users can subscribe for an all-in fee of $14.99 a month in the US. UK pricing hasn't been released yet. Users will have to have upgraded to iOS 8.4 on the iPhone or iPad to use it, but that will release at the same time.