Apple has gone on the offensive after a report suggested the company is shutting down Beats Music. Now it has turned into a spat.
The news comes as a surprise to many in the music world, especially when Apple just paid 3 billion dollars for the music juggernaut.
However, Apple has called out Techcruch saying the report is false.
“It’s not true,” Apple Spokesman Tom Neumayr told USA Today.
Earlier on Monday, Techcrunch writer Josh Constine reported that, “Apple will discontinue the streaming music service Beats Music it acquired in May, according to five sources, including several prominent employees at Apple and Beats. Many engineers from Beats Music have already been moved off the product and onto other projects at Apple, including iTunes.”
After Apple dismissed his report, Constine updated his article, citing information from Re/code reporter Peter Kafka which states, “…I can elaborate a bit more, based on conversations with people familiar with Apple’s thinking: Apple won’t shutter the streaming service. It may, however, modify it over time, and one of those changes could involved changing the Beats Music brand…”
Constine feels the reports match up explaining, “This aligns with what my sources said, which is that the Beats Music brand will be shut down, but that it’s unclear what Apple wants to do in streaming music. It seems quite possible that the Beats Music product could be rolled into iTunes rather than being ‘shuttered’, but that’s semantics.”
But each story comes down to “sources”. The fallout has begun to spread to various news sites from The Verge to the New York Times. With no public confirmation coming from the spokesperson, and reporters working from protected sources, it’s unclear on whose information is correct. One thing is for sure, the source is Apple, and they’ve spoken.
So unless a source goes public from the company with the information, Beats Music is safe and here to stay.