Apple Pay: Contactless System To Launch In UK

Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) has announced its long-awaited "revolutionary" music streaming service, Apple Music.

The big reveal came from CEO Tim Cook at the company's annual developers conference.

Apple Music will also feature a 24/7 global radio station broadcasting from LA, New York and London.

Former Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe is of the figures involved in the project.

Apple Music is seen as the company's belated challenge to the likes of Spotify.

The San Francisco event also saw Apple announce its Pay system is coming to the UK in July, meaning people will be able to tap their iPhone or iPad to purchase goods.

Over 250,000 individual outlets will support the system, including big names such as M&S, Costa, Waitrose, the Post Office and Boots.

The system will work with nearly 70% of UK credit and debit cards by the autumn.

HSBC, NatWest, Santander, TSB, Lloyds, Nationwide and Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) are among the banks on board.

Passengers on London's transport network will also be able to use their iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch to pay for fares.

Apple also revealed the new version of its Mac operating system will be called El Capitan and announced a raft of new features for its latest mobile operating system, iOS9.

These include split screen apps for iPad and a more intelligent Siri 'personal assistant' that Apple says is 40% faster and more accurate.

Apple's recently-launched Watch is also getting a boost.

Apps will now able to run 'natively' on the watch itself, rather than a linked iPhone doing most of the work.

The company says it will allow developers to come up with more sophisticated, powerful apps that take full advantage of the device.

Apple's news aggregation app was also shown off at the San Francisco conference.

It curates a personalised version of the news based on a user's interests and will launch first in the UK, US and Australia.

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