Is Apple getting into the streaming music game? According to rumors regarding next week’s Apple event, yes. According to the rumors, Apple has spoken to the top four music labels about music streaming as a way to add value to the sales iTunes currently garners.
The rumors play off Apple’s purchase of Lala, a streaming music service. The idea is Lala would be the backbone of the iTunes streaming plan where users could stream their music (with an option to store music on iTunes servers) and listen to preset stations for free. This move has many of us asking, how would this affect Pandora?
Pandora, perhaps the most popular music streaming service, just recorded their first profitable quarter. It has been a long road for the 10-year-old company to profitability, but if CES showed us anything, it is that Pandora is now ensconced in the tech world. From new Ford cards, to Pioneer radios to Panasonic TVs, among lots others. Pandora is the cool app to have for your ecosystem.
How could Apple make iTunes streaming beat out Pandora, one of it’s most popular Apps? It is extremely likely that Apple will add iTunes streaming to it’s core applications that can be run in the background. One of the issues with Pandora on the iPhone is the inability to multitask while streaming music through the app. Apple could keep Pandora at bay by granting multitasking to its program.
Is it too late for iTunes or does Apple’s walled garden, that is the iPhone OS, present a captured market that need only one benefit (perhaps the ability to run in the background) to convert users? Or is Pandora’s head start combined with tech’s embrace of the app enough to compete? Time will tell.
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