On Monday, Apple announced that it was going to buy the popular song recognition service Shazam, which is used by Siri starting with iOS 8.With its help, the virtual assistant learns songs for you.
Representative Apple Tom Neumeir has officially confirmed the purchase in the following press release:
We are thrilled to have Shazam and his talented team join Apple.
Since its launch App Store, the Shazam app has remained one of the most popular. Today it is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world on multiple platforms.
Apple Music and Shazam are perfect for each other. They are united by a passion for finding new music and listening to it in complete comfort. We have some big plans in place and we can't wait to collaborate on Shazam.
This is likely the most expensive acquisition Apple since the $ 3 billion purchase of Beats in 2014.
Shazam spokesman Giovanni Bossio said the following:
We are pleased to announce that Shazam has entered into an agreement with Apple and become a part of it. Shazam is one of the most highly rated and reviewed apps, loved by hundreds of millions of users. There couldn't have been a better option for Shazam development.
None of the companies have disclosed the value of the deal.
It was rumored last week that the price was $ 400 million, far less than the initial cost of the service, which was over a billion dollars.
It is not yet clear if Apple the Shazam app will remove from the Play Store for Android. When the company bought Beats, it instead released an official app for Android.
However, Shazam does not have a subscription, so limiting access to the app only to users Apple would be an advantage for the company. Even if Shazam for Android disappears, the service has many different counterparts, including SoundHound and the recognition service Google on the latest Pixel models.
Shazam is associated with Apple Music and contains augmented reality features for photos captured in the app. Apple can take advantage of augmented reality capabilities with their new ARKit platform.
Shazam executives say the app has had over a billion downloads as of October last year. Users have found over 30 billion songs since the service was released 18 years ago.
Initially, Shazam worked through phone calls: you just had to dial 2580 and bring the phone to the music source, and in response you received a message with the artist's name and song title.
Shazam is used by virtual assistant Siri for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.