MUMBAI: IT giant Apple Inc is in talks with music labels for licensing deals to launch its custom radio-service.

The company’s radio service that will provide customized music via 'virtual station' will work on various devices, including it’s iPhone, iPad and Mac computers.

The virtual station will play music similar to a song or artist of the user's choice, either on web browsers or smartphone apps. Like traditional radio, it will be typically free for users, but incorporate advertisements. The between-the-music advertisements would be done in Apple’s iAd platform.

The service is expected to be compatible with Windows platform but not on its main rival Google’s Android operating system platform.

Apple plans to offer users more interactivity than allowed by the compulsory licenses used by Pandora, the leading player in the market. Pandora had 54.9 million active users, compared to Spotify's 16 million. Apple has more than 400 million iTunes accounts.

A recent Nielsen survey reported that more adults listen to music using Pandora than Apple's iTunes.