Apple Denies Reports Of Beats Music Shutdown

Should It Stay Or Should It Go?

While five separate sources told TECHCRUNCH.COM that APPLE is about to discontinue the streaming music service BEATS MUSIC, APPLE spokesman TOM NEUMAYR said rumors of BEATS MUSIC's shuttering were "not true" in a statement to RE/CODE's PETER KAFKA,  BUSINESSINSIDER.COM  reports. However, KAFKA noted that BEATS MUSIC may be rebranded in the future.

TECHCRUNCH reports that "many engineers from BEATS MUSIC have already been moved off the product and onto other projects at APPLE, including iTUNES. It’s not clear when exactly JIMMY IOVINE and DR DRE’s music service will be shut down or what APPLE will do with streaming, but every source with knowledge of the situation that we talked to agreed APPLE plans to sunset the BEATS MUSIC brand."

"The fact that the new iPHONES did not come pre-installed with BEATS MUSIC, while several other APPLE apps came loaded on the 6 and 6 Plus, should have been a red flag. There was also nothing said about BEATS MUSIC during the APPLE WATCH reveal, even though the service’s radio and fire-and-forget playlists could work well on a wearable."

On the other hand, BUSINESS INSIDER  reports that "It's more likely that APPLE will take the BEATS MUSIC technology and incorporate it into iTUNES or iTUNES RADIO. Shutting it down wouldn't make any sense, especially considering APPLE CEO TIM COOK recently told CHARLIE ROSE that he was so impressed with BEATS MUSIC that he "couldn't sleep" after listening to it for the first time. That doesn't sound like a product COOK would want to kill off.

"News of the shutdown is particularly surprising because APPLE just incorporated BEATS MUSIC into APPLE TV, its set-top box," the story continued. "That's not something you do to a product you're about to kill."

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