Rumor: Apple looking at buying Spotify... to incorporate it or close it?
Fans of streaming music service Spotify might not want to read this story. The last time Apple bought such a company, it lived on for about six months before being unceremoniously shuttered. Hopefully if a rumored buyout of Spotify does go through, the service will face a happier outcome than Lala did earlier this year.
The rumor of early stage talks between Apple and Spotify comes via Techcrunch, so it's probably worth grabbing a big hunk of salt to go with it. According to Michael Arrington's source, Google nearly bought the music streaming service last year for US$1 billion, but the parties couldn't come to terms on grandfathering the existing licensing deals with the music labels.
There have been rumors that Apple would add a music subscription service to iTunes for several years, and the imminent launch of the company's North Carolina data center have accelerated those rumors. Previously Lala was expected to be the basis of a subscription plan, but that has gone nowhere yet. Apple and Spotify apparently aren't even at the stage of talking price or terms yet, so this may not go anywhere... assuming that they are even actually talking.
[via Electronista]
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Fans of streaming music service Spotify might not want to read this story. The last time Apple bought such a company, it lived on for...
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There's a misconception at the core of this article.
Apple would not need a huge data centre for Spotify. Spotify uses peer to peer networking. Whilst you're listening to music on Spotify, it's streaming OUT to other users too.
Next we'll be hearing that Apple wants to buy Sony and Facebook. Jeez.
October 27 2010 at 7:44 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI have the Apple TV too... been a long time advocat of Steve's 'hobby device'.
Maybe with its new form factor it will have a second chance and take off. I think they iOS slant might make a big difference. Apple have a clear roll out strategy... they rarely put all of the functionality in the first or even second iteration of a device. So there lies my hope for Apple TV that one day Apple will push out the App Store and allow my other iOS devices to act as full on controllers. The Remote App is awesome on both iPhone and iPad since the update... it could conceivably take Apple into a Console gaming environment...
I personally have little issue with 720 over 1080. In most respects, the picture is fine on a good quality TV...
I am a huge fan of all things Apple and I buy all of my Films & TV from iTunes now that their prices are less horrendous for us in the UK.
Historically, I would spend around £20 per month on music from iTunes but that could easily rise up to £50 per month on an all too regular occasion.
Then I found Spotify. I now subscribe to their £10 per month package and make use of their streaming and off-line storage. I have an Airport Express and with Airfoil on my Mac I can stream to my home stereo. With my iPod Touch connected to the net by WiFi, I use a speaker dock in my little boys room and stream all manner of music for him from Spotify. I consume far more music, I learn more about new Music from Spotify and Last.FM but I do so for far less than it would cost me to do so through iTunes.
So - Apple please be nice to Spotify... please don't go all 'LaLa'.?!?
Totally agree, I consume much more music now I have Spotify premium and I'm much more likely to try out new bands know I'm not going to end up forking out for a dud album I bought on the strength of one song.
The only problem I have with spotify is it's music selection. It's missing lots of remixes on singles and bonus tracks on albums, and although iTunes also has missing artists, there are some glaring omitions from Spotify.
If Apple did subscriptions I'd happly pay £20 if it was the full iTunes catalogue, Music videos and Audiobooks.
If they extended it to TV & Films and AppleTV 1080p I'd seriously consider ditched parts of my Sky Subscription and picking up a AppleTV.
The music business is all about owning the delivery chain not, unfortunately, the delivery method. What we have seen in the last few years is a number of 3rd parties (Apple, Spotify, Amazon) take away the delivery chain from the labels.
The labels squark about this, but frankly do nothing to help themselves. They have sold there product down the river by permitting worse and worse quality in exchange for more and more quantity.
The CD was a label owned delivery chain, the internet and lossy compression changed that in two ways, it broke the ownership and it broke the quality.
Apple may have the idea to buy Spotify, after all it works well, but the audio quality is very poor (if you can just look at the audio spectrum of the music they stream, its much worse than old vinyl 78s).
So go ahead Apple, buy them, but do something to bring back high quality music, this is the way forward for an industry which has sold its soul.
I can't tell the difference but I do have high quality on premium spotify...
October 27 2010 at 5:37 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI don't think the quality criticism is true at all. They stream at 160kbps Ogg in ad supported free mode and 320kbps in Premium. Arguably higher than iTunes purchased tracks even.
October 27 2010 at 11:01 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe future of digital music is in streaming services, not paid mp3 downloads. So it's quite likely that Apple wants to buy into this. I can't imagine them just buying it and then shutting it down... then again we are talking about Apple.
October 27 2010 at 1:43 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyGeeks, analysts, pundits - imagine all sorts of useless crap. It's how you generate a certain amount of traffic.
Also undifferentiated between productive and useless.
We heard that same argument when Lala was acquired.
October 27 2010 at 11:18 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIt must be said, Spotify's UI does look very Apple-ish, even on the Windows platform...
It could be possibly part of an interim strategy to have a separate cloud / subscription offering side-by-side with the traditional iTunes-based download model.
Meanwhile, the humongous DataCentre (phase 1) prepares to rumble into life in short order.
Exciting times ahead. Hurry January; January I need you now...
If they are buying Spotify, it will be incorporated AND closed.
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