EU gives thumbs up to Apple's takeover of music discovery service Shazam

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited September 2018
European Union regulators on Thursday gave the go-ahead to Apple's acquisition of Shazam, by far the world's most popular music recognition app, already integrated into Apple's Siri voice assistant.

Shazam


The deal, announced last December, was held up over concerns by several E.U. member states -- such as Austria, France, Spain, and Sweden -- that it might violate antitrust rules by giving Apple an unfair advantage and/or severing links to non-Apple music services. In its current state the iOS version of Shazam can point users to Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube, not just Apple Music and iTunes.

An investigation concluded that the takeover won't harm competition in the E.U., according to Reuters.

"After thoroughly analyzing Shazam's user and music data, we found that their acquisition by Apple would not reduce competition in the digital music streaming market," said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

Shazam started life in the U.K. in 1999 as a product called 2580, named after the number users had to dial to reach the service via text. Since its debut on the iOS App Store, and subsequently Mac App Store, Shazam has evolved into a comprehensive audio fingerprinting service that allows users to identify songs, movies, TV shows, and other media by capturing short audio segments.

Skeptics of the takeover have worried that it could end usefulness for people who aren't fully invested in the Apple ecosystem.

It's not yet clear how Apple plans to expand Shazam's technology, or even what it paid for the firm. One estimate put the value as high as $400 million, though that would be below a $1 billion valuation.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    nunzynunzy Posts: 662member
    Go Go Apple!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 12
    Curious what Apple plan to do with this acquisition. Use some technique for Siri voice print?
    edited September 2018 watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 12
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member

    "After thoroughly analyzing Shazam's user and music data, we found that their acquisition by Apple would not reduce competition in the digital music streaming market," said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
    I assume that means Apple will not shut the Android app down anytime soon?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 12
    "Shazam started life in the U.K. in 1999 as a product called 2580, named after the number users had to dial to reach the service via text."

    for clarity, we used to call 2580, it recorded the snippet of audio over the phone and replied via text, the artist and song title and usually the option to BUY the ringtone version. ;)
  • Reply 5 of 12
    matrix077 said:
    Curious what Apple plan to do with this acquisition. Use some technique for Siri voice print?
    Who knows but pushing tag results to iTunes and Apple Music tracks is my guess. 
    watto_cobramatrix077
  • Reply 6 of 12
    JWSCJWSC Posts: 1,203member
    lkrupp said:

    "After thoroughly analyzing Shazam's user and music data, we found that their acquisition by Apple would not reduce competition in the digital music streaming market," said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
    I assume that means Apple will not shut the Android app down anytime soon?
    If they integrate Shazam into Apple Music for Android, then the Shazam app would likely go away.
    watto_cobraspheric
  • Reply 7 of 12
    matrix077 said:
    Curious what Apple plan to do with this acquisition. Use some technique for Siri voice print?
    Who knows but pushing tag results to iTunes and Apple Music tracks is my guess. 
    It already does this.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 12
    I hope they swap out the Connect function of AppleMusic with the Shazam version (can’t remember the name of it) as that used to be very well supported by artists. 
  • Reply 9 of 12
    lostkiwi said:
    I hope they swap out the Connect function of AppleMusic with the Shazam version (can’t remember the name of it) as that used to be very well supported by artists. 
    Interesting. I haven’t open Shazam much. Have to check this out. 
  • Reply 10 of 12
    matrix077 said:
    Curious what Apple plan to do with this acquisition. Use some technique for Siri voice print?
    Who knows but pushing tag results to iTunes and Apple Music tracks is my guess. 
    It already does this.
    Yeah but now they can remove others and push all of the business to AM and iTunes. I don't see a Spotify option any longer.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    JWSC said:
    lkrupp said:

    "After thoroughly analyzing Shazam's user and music data, we found that their acquisition by Apple would not reduce competition in the digital music streaming market," said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
    I assume that means Apple will not shut the Android app down anytime soon?
    If they integrate Shazam into Apple Music for Android, then the Shazam app would likely go away.
    It would be nice if they keep the standalone app. A lot of People don't use Apple Music.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    matrix077 said:
    Curious what Apple plan to do with this acquisition. Use some technique for Siri voice print?
    Who knows but pushing tag results to iTunes and Apple Music tracks is my guess. 
    It already does this.
    Yeah but now they can remove others and push all of the business to AM and iTunes. I don't see a Spotify option any longer.
    It's still in there, if you go to Settings and then "Connect" your Spotify account. I have no idea how long that will stay there, but it's there.
Sign In or Register to comment.