Given how great Spotify, Pandora and other streaming services are, iTunes Radio has to be more than good to carve itself a niche at this point. It has to be great. Apple great. The kind of great that makes you go zOMG how did I ever live without this?!

So far? Not so much.

I’ve set up some of my own custom stations, and also listened to the pre-packaged ones. In all cases I’ve heard songs repeated every single time I use the service. Not good to put it mildly.

Added to the fact that the Remote app still (!) hasn’t been updated to include control of iTunes Radio – which means I have to, gulp, use my iMac to select and play a station in my whole house music set up – this feels more like a half baked hobby than something Apple is taking seriously.

I find that stunning.