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Apple Buys Shazam To Boost Apple Music (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple agreed to acquire music-identification service Shazam, taking ownership of one of the first apps to demonstrate the power of the iPhone, recognizing songs after hearing just a few bars of a tune. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but a person familiar with the situation said Apple is paying about $400 million for the U.K.-based startup. That would be one of Apple's largest acquisitions ever, approaching the size of its 1996 purchase of Next Computer Inc. which brought co-founder Steve Jobs back to the company. That transaction would be worth more than $600 million in today's dollars. The Shazam app uses the microphone on a smartphone or computer to identify almost any song playing nearby, then points users to places they can listen to it in future, such as Apple Music or Google's YouTube.
"Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users," Apple said in an emailed statement on Monday. "We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today's agreement. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS," Apple also said. "Today, it's used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms." The acquisition would help Apple embed that capability more deeply into its music offerings. The company's digital assistant Siri gained Shazam integration in 2014, so users could ask it what song is playing in the background.
"Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users," Apple said in an emailed statement on Monday. "We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today's agreement. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS," Apple also said. "Today, it's used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms." The acquisition would help Apple embed that capability more deeply into its music offerings. The company's digital assistant Siri gained Shazam integration in 2014, so users could ask it what song is playing in the background.
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
Please get Sinbad on board.
How is it a startup if it was founded in 1999? I remember using it on my Nokia phone (dial 2580) back in the early 2000's
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
Their only real competition is SoundHound... I wonder what party will buy that company out.
Although I'm sure Apple does want Shazam for a number of reasons, one big one I could see is that now other companies and platforms will not be able to use Shazam.
Or maybe some other companies were thinking of buying Shazam, and then Apple would have been possibly in trouble without the ability for Siri to recognize songs (which has used Shazam behind the scenes for quite a while).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So Apple paid $400 million to purchase a company that won't add additional functionality to iPhones (as you could already use Shazam for free) compared to Google who wrote their own AI to do the same thing without sending any data back to Google. I'm not sure I see a reason behind that price tag.
Can someone explain?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. . . . . . . .
What about Beats for $3.2 billion? Makes a $400 million acquisition seem pretty small...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Google who wrote their own AI to do the same thing without sending any data back to Google
That's only true for 17,300 songs - basically the popular ones.. For anything else, it's taking a trip to the internet. Also just because it CAN recognize the song from the local database, does not at all mean it's not going to tell Google you asked and what it found.
If for no other reason than Shazam's really good and very through recognition database and machine learning expertise in processing audio, it's probably well worth a mere 400 million.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley