Last week, we reported that YouTube was gearing up to finally take a step into the streaming game with a new platform called Remix. Now, it would appear that YouTube has even more catching up to do, as Apple has acquired the music recognition app Shazam for the small sum of $400 million. Despite being a massive price tag, the $400 million value of Shazam is notably lower than in late 2015 when the app had its last round of funding, delivering a value of a staggering $1.02 billion.
In a statement, Apple expressed excitement about the pairing: “Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”
While it’s still not clear exactly what those “exciting plans” might entail, the addition of Shazam’s recognition services to Apple’s products would be a huge step forward for their music-loving customer base. An incorporation of Shazam’s product into Apple devices would assumedly allow Siri to recognize songs without the download of a third-party app. Additionally, Shazam has recently developed the ability to use audio or video clips to identify TV shows, movies, and even advertisements, opening up a whole realm of possibilities for seamless integration into Siri and other Apple offerings.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see exactly what this partnership might mean for the future of Apple’s music devices, especially while rumors are floating around that the iTunes Store might be on the way out.
