Apple is making a major move by ending its free iTunes Radio online service by Jan. 29. The news was delivered to users via an email sent to them this Friday. Included in the email is a message that directs its users to use the Cupertino company's Beats 1 service instead. Beats 1 is a live radio station service launched last year, together with Apple Music.

Apple Music users can still continue to create iTunes Radio-like stations based on their favourite songs or artists, but instead of the previous free service, there will now be a standard membership fee of $9.99 USD per month. With this announcement, the only Apple streaming service that remains free will be Beats 1 music service.

The recent changes made by the Cupertino company could be seen as an effort to increase its music subscription business to have an edge over its main competitor, Spotify. With Apple Music, users will find almost the same services they have enjoyed with iTunes, as the service also lets its users listen to songs they would like to hear for a minimal fee.

The iTunes Radio, originally launched in iOS 7 in 2013, is a Pandora-like music streaming service. Its highlight mainly is that songs played on a user's station can be easily bought from the iTunes Store and added to the said library to play whenever they want to.

It also lets users skip as many as six songs per station per hour. iTunes Radio, though, was not meant to be an la carte unlimited music streaming service, like Spotify, Rdio, Google, etc. The iTunes Radio service is also only available in the U.S. and Australia.

Meanwhile, Apple Music has just been introduced into the public six months ago and already is reported to have attracted about 10 million paying subscribers.