Apple seems to be buying Shazam: what does it mean
Not so long ago, we have already discussed news related to Apple. Recently, the corporation gave another reason to talk about it in a “musical” way.
Sources close to the company say that Apple is close to absorbing the popular Shazam music service. Tell about everything in more detail.
TechCrunch reports that a deal could have been concluded this week — if so, it will probably be announced in the coming days. In 2015, in the framework of the last round of investments, Shazam was estimated at $ 1.02 billion. However, according to the same TechCrunch, the amount of the deal with Apple, most likely, is much lower and may be about 400 million dollars.
')
Throughout its history, Apple has acquired quite a few companies involved in music, audio, and speech processing. Among them are Emagic (developers of the sequencer and audio editor Logic), Lala streaming service, which anticipated Spotify, Swell Radio (a mobile application for streaming conversational radio programs), Novauris Technologies and VocalIQ, which developed speech recognition services, and, of course, Beats Music and Beats Electronics - for a record 3 billion dollars.
Many of these acquisitions are related to Apple’s own services and have helped improve them. For example, the technologies Novauris and VocalIQ improved the work of the Siri voice assistant (by the way, Siri itself was also not originally developed at Apple, but at Siri Inc.). As for Shazam, commentators to the news on TechCrunch rightly note that this service could improve the performance of the HomePod music column, which Apple postpones until 2018.
However, Shazam’s other capabilities may be potentially interesting to Apple — for example, Shazam’s image recognition development (“a good start for creating a version of Apple’s Google Lens”, according to The Verge), and Shazam’s functionality Acquire your favorite music through Spotify and Apple Music. Until the last moment, the Shazam service charged Apple a commission for users who switched to Apple Music and bought music there.
It is not known whether Shazam will continue to function as an independent application or (as before Siri and Swell Radio) will leave the App Store and other “stores”, however, just in case, the users are already saying goodbye to their favorite service.
Recode journalists, however, rightly believe that the once innovative Shazam developments are no longer a novelty - now another company can copy a similar music recognition project. Therefore, Apple probably appreciates the Shazam brand itself, and not just their technology - perhaps this will allow to “save” the application that many people know, and not just use its functionality in the new iOS.
Materials on the topic in our "World Hi-Fi":
Sources close to the company say that Apple is close to absorbing the popular Shazam music service. Tell about everything in more detail.
What (probably) happened
TechCrunch reports that a deal could have been concluded this week — if so, it will probably be announced in the coming days. In 2015, in the framework of the last round of investments, Shazam was estimated at $ 1.02 billion. However, according to the same TechCrunch, the amount of the deal with Apple, most likely, is much lower and may be about 400 million dollars.
')
Why did Apple need Shazam?
Throughout its history, Apple has acquired quite a few companies involved in music, audio, and speech processing. Among them are Emagic (developers of the sequencer and audio editor Logic), Lala streaming service, which anticipated Spotify, Swell Radio (a mobile application for streaming conversational radio programs), Novauris Technologies and VocalIQ, which developed speech recognition services, and, of course, Beats Music and Beats Electronics - for a record 3 billion dollars.
Many of these acquisitions are related to Apple’s own services and have helped improve them. For example, the technologies Novauris and VocalIQ improved the work of the Siri voice assistant (by the way, Siri itself was also not originally developed at Apple, but at Siri Inc.). As for Shazam, commentators to the news on TechCrunch rightly note that this service could improve the performance of the HomePod music column, which Apple postpones until 2018.
However, Shazam’s other capabilities may be potentially interesting to Apple — for example, Shazam’s image recognition development (“a good start for creating a version of Apple’s Google Lens”, according to The Verge), and Shazam’s functionality Acquire your favorite music through Spotify and Apple Music. Until the last moment, the Shazam service charged Apple a commission for users who switched to Apple Music and bought music there.
It is not known whether Shazam will continue to function as an independent application or (as before Siri and Swell Radio) will leave the App Store and other “stores”, however, just in case, the users are already saying goodbye to their favorite service.
Recode journalists, however, rightly believe that the once innovative Shazam developments are no longer a novelty - now another company can copy a similar music recognition project. Therefore, Apple probably appreciates the Shazam brand itself, and not just their technology - perhaps this will allow to “save” the application that many people know, and not just use its functionality in the new iOS.
Materials on the topic in our "World Hi-Fi":
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/374079/
All Articles