Apple to put Beats Music app on EVERY iPhone and iPad with software update
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Apple will bundle the subscription music service it bought from Beats into its iOS operating system early next year, the Financial Times has claimed.
The inclusion of the paid-for Beats service in an iOS software update, which would instantly make it available on millions of iPhones and iPads, could happen as early as March.
The service, which is likely to be rebranded under the iTunes label, will compete with music streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and Soundcloud.
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The move will pit Apple against Spotify, which has suffered setbacks following a spat with Taylor Swift and other artists who remain sceptical about the economics of streaming
'The inclusion of the paid for Beats service in an iOS software update could happen as early as March, according to people familiar with the situation,' the paper said.
Pre-installing apps on devices is seen as a fast way to reach new customers quickly- although the firm is still suffering from the publicity backlash earlier this year when it put a link to download U2#s new album for free onto every iTunes account.
The move will pit Apple against Spotify, which has suffered setbacks following a spat with Taylor Swift and other artists who remain sceptical about the economics of streaming, claiming the Swedish firm does not pay them enough.
The music streaming service responded by saying it it fights music piracy and had paid out $2 billion to the industry and artists since its launch in 2008.
The statement in a blog post by CEO Daniel Ek came a week after U.S. singer Taylor Swift pulled her entire catalog from the popular streaming site as she released her new album '1989', which immediately soared to the top of the U.S. charts.
Swift's label Big Machine has declined to say why it asked for Swift's albums to be removed from the free service of Spotify, which also offers a subscription service to users who want to eliminate advertising.
The app, available on iOS, Android and Windows Mobile, allows music to be streamed for a $10 monthly fee
But in an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal in July, Swift wrote that music was valuable and 'it's my opinion that music should not be free'.
'Taylor Swift is absolutely right: music is art, art has real value and artists deserve to be paid for it,' Ek said in the posting on the Spotify website.
He said Spotify was fighting back against music piracy on the Internet, which he said generated 'nothing, zilch, zero' revenue for artists, by offering a combined free listening and subscription service that compensates the music industry.
Its subscriber base has grown to 12.5 million, up from 10 million when the number was last reported in May, he said.
With revenue coming largely from advertising and subscriptions, Spotify had paid out $1 billion to the recording industry and artists from 2008 to last year, and another $1 billion since then, Ek said.
The Beats Music streaming service was acquired alongside the Beats headphone brand when Apple bought Beats for $3bn in May.
'And that's $2 billion worth of listening that would have happened with zero or little compensation to artists and songwriters through piracy or practically equivalent services if there was no Spotify,' he said, taking a swipe at competing Internet streaming sites, some of which do not charge users.
'We're working day and night to recover money for artists and the music business that piracy was stealing away,' he said.
Apple's new service will also go up against Google.
Google said last week that YouTube is rolling out a long-awaited paid monthly music subscription service called YouTube Music Key.
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