A few months back, Apple made a hearty $3 billion investment by buying Dr. Dre’s Beats service, gaining in the high-tech audio peripherals and music service that Beats had created. However, now that the acquisition is complete, Apple could be making changes to the Beats streaming music service, with integration into its current iTunes music program being likely.
A number of sources indicate that Beats Music will shut down. According to them, various engineers have already been moved off of it and onto other projects at Apple. However, a shutdown date hasn’t been given. It seems more likely that Apple wold bring the Beats music service into the iTunes brand rather than lose it entirely, as streaming music has become extremely popular.
When asked about the shutdown, Apple explained to TechCrunch that the story about Beats Music being shut down “is not true,” but said sources indicate that the service will be modified over time.
There are some indications that Beats Music will not play an integral part in Apple devices, as the recently launched iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus did not come with the application installed. It also wasn’t featured on the new Apple Watch, with only an iTunes music brand showing on the face of the watch. And the only time it was mentioned during the company’s press conference earlier in the month was when it confirmed that the new U2 album would be downloadable there.
Shutting down the service – or melding its audience into the iTunes fold – would follow the company’s mantra of following a singular Apple-based brand. Furthermore, the Beats label would still live on through the various products that the company picked up out of the deal, including the various Pills speakers and the deluxe headsets, which range in price from $50 to $300 with the current models that are available.
Brand integration is always a tricky thing, and the Beats Music streaming service is a new extension of the Beats brand with only about 250,000 users. Apple may well want to fold that into iTunes rather than pushing a completely separate entity, and it makes sense to do that while the brand extension is still very new. More importantly, perhaps, Apple’s business in selling music downloads is under pressure from streaming services, and having its own streaming service under the iTunes label should enable the company to minimize that impact.
Clearly Apple’s plans are not yet fully formed, which can be seen by the lack of announcements around the topic. We could well see more information come out at the (rumored) Apple event planned for October, where we will likely see now models of the iPad unveiled, and possibly new MacBooks or a new Apple TV, as well as the new version of OS X (Yosemite). A new version of iTunes with an integrated streaming music service would be a great thing to introduce right before the holiday season, before any more music fans wander off into the arms of Spotify, Pandora and others.
What do you think Would you miss the Beats Music label if it went away Or would it make more sense to fold it over into the iTunes service to expand its overall offerings
Source: TechCrunch
