Apple rejects rumours that it is dropping Beats Music streaming service
Tech giant Apple has branded rumours that it will discontinue its Beats Music streaming service as “not true”.
The Californian firm, which already runs its own extensive iTunes music sales platform, was reported to be dumping the Beats Music service by TechCrunch.com.
The website's claim was later denied by Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr, who said the story was not true.
Despite the firm saying it would not drop the brand, it was hinted by Re/code that Beats Music, which offers subscribers unlimited access to its library for $10 a month, would instead be modified with the firm, with a brand change for the service purported to be on the horizon, furthered with integration with iTunes.
The service has only accumulated a few hundred thousand subscribers since it launched in 2012, a mere online minnow when compared with music-streaming site Spotify’s 10m worldwide users.
Earlier this year, Apple chief executive Tim Cook seemed pleased with the Beats Music brand, he told Re/Code that Beats Music was the “first subscription service that really got it right”.
Cook said: “They had the insight early on to know how important human curation is. That technology by itself wasn’t enough, that it was the marriage of the two that would really be great and produce a feeling in people that we want to produce.”
Apple acquired the headphones company for a staggering $3bn in May in a move which effectively saw musicians Dr. Dre and Jimmy Lovine join the company as well.