Apple has made a lot of high profile acquisitions in the past few years but if their current plan plays out it would be the biggest acquisition in Apple history. According to sources, Apple is planning to acquire music recognition service Shazam – an app used by over a billion users worldwide. Since it purchased Beats in 2014, it hasn’t bought any other popular apps which means that Shazam will be the first to enjoy a taste of Apple in quite a few years.
Shazam is a music recognition service that allows the user to ‘scan’ any song they hear and the artist name, song name, album name, and release date will pop up. It uses technology to listen to short audio clips from TV or radio. This enables the app to feed the information to the user. Shazam has been around since the beginning of the App Store and it was a great way to show what smartphones could do with demo apps. Ever since it has developed into what is now an app that many people cannot live without and it is available on different platforms and on different mobile phones.
Shazam operates as an independent app for iOS, macOS and watchOS but it has always had a close relationship with Apple. Since the release of iOS 8, Shazam has also been integrated into Siri. This forms part of the function that allows Siri to identify and recognize the song that is playing.
Shazam and Apple Music are also integrated. This means that Apple Music subscribers can simply use Shazam to identify a song then tap to play it directly through Apple Music. It can then also be added to the Shazam playlist. Shazam has also been upgraded with an augmented reality feature that enables the user to find musical content based on a picture captured on the Shazam app. The augmented reality feature is something that complements Apple and its products. Many Apple apps are based on augmented reality.
According to TechCrunch this deal could be worth nine figures. Another source claims that Apple might even pay up about $401 million for the acquisition rights of Shazam. These numbers might seem big and appealing but they are both much lower than the previous funding round Shazam received. In 2015 the funding round was a massive $1.02 billion! Apple might have to make the offer look seriously appealing if the deal is going to be successful. The rights to Shazam will, however, bring in a lot of revenue at the end of the day so it might just be worth pursuing.
And Android users need not worry: the app will still be available on the Play Store.
Sources have also mentioned that Apple plans on making the app ad-free which is going to be a huge improvement for users everywhere. So will there be an iShazam to look forward to? The deal is said to go through very soon and an announcement from Apple is going to follow shortly after.
December 8, 2017
