Apple To Drop Beats, May Roll In iTunes Streaming

All the lead-in to Apple purchasing Beats has since left us underwhelmed. Beats Music didn't quickly move to implement iTunes, and wasn't pre-loaded on the iPhone 6 or cobbled into iOS 8. Now sources claim that Beats Music isn't long for the world, and Apple will shutter it soon.

Let's be clear that Apple is discontinuing the Beats Music brand, not the technology, per se. According to sources speaking to TechCrunch, many of those working on Beats Music have since been shifted to other projects, including iTunes. This doesn't affect Beats' hardware arm, either.

We can also look to Beats' poor support among users. Indeed, their killer feature is the madlibs-style music query engine, but that's about it. The library is limited, and the interface is pretty basic. At $10, you can — and have — done much better.

You may be thinking "so, now what?" Apple is said to be considering rolling Beats into iTunes, giving it a streaming music offering it desperately needs to starve off slumping album sales. Apple is also believed to be lining up an announcement for early next year, which could be music-centric — and strongly tied to this news.

An iTunes streaming option would probably position Apple at the head of the streaming music service almost immediately. The deep iTunes library and vast iOS user-base is unmatched in tandem, and if the pricing is right — look out, Spotify, Google, et al.

Source: TechCrunch