Just like that, Shazam is now part of the Apple family! Rumors were churning yesterday that the deal was going down, and now it has been confirmed. Apple released a statement saying they’ve acquired the music detection service.
I wish Shazam was still a super hero!
According to sources close to the purchase Shazam was acquired for $300 million, a far cry from the $1 billion valuation obtained in 2015. It is unknown why Shazam decided to sell to Apply, however Apple has a huge hunger for any company with AI expertise.
Shazam and Apple have been cozy over the last few years as iOS8 featured full integration with music detection. For those of you living under a rock in the mountains, Shazam allows you to identify songs and other audio via your mobile device. The recent iOS integration allows you to identify a song with just the press of a button.
Shazam has a long history in music detection but it became widely recognized after the introduction of their iPhone app nearly 10 years ago.
For Apple the app itself might not be super valuable, and perhaps the app is indeed nowadays valued quite a bit less than it was in 2015, but I am sure Apple will put the technology to good use against Google, whose AI and machine learning prowess is arguably far above Apple’s.
Thank you for reading my blog,
-Joe