Owners of PCs running Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system will be able to start an iHeartRadio music stream directly from Microsoft’s Groove Music app.
Microsoft announced the partnership with iHeartRadio this morning on its Windows Experience Blog. Groove Music is the audio streaming service built into the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and devices running Windows 10. Subscribing to the service costs $9.99 a month and unlocks digital downloads from Microsoft’s catalog and music video streaming.
Starting soon, Groove Music will feature deep links from its artist pages directly into iHeartRadio, cutting down on the time it takes to get a decent stream going. “This means you can jumpstart the iHeartRadio experience from right inside your music library to listen to thousands of endlessly, diverse live radio stations from across the U.S. – including pop, country, urban, rock, talk, college and more – or create a custom station based on a song you are listening to, right from the Groove app.”
Omitted from this post are the specifics on how the partnership works. Microsoft already offers radio streams through Groove Music with a subscription. It’s unclear if iHeartRadio is being positioned as another radio source or the default radio source. It’s also unclear whether the live traditional radio stations will be available through Groove too. To be clear, it seems users need to have both apps installed on their device to take advantage of the feature.
Hopefully, Microsoft plans to continue partnering with other companies that provide ancillary music features not essential to subscription music. A few weeks ago the company announced a partnership with Sonos. iHeartRadio is already available on Xbox One and Xbox 360.
