EU will review Apple’s acquisition of music discovery app Shazam

We reported back in December that Apple was set to buy music discover app Shazam. The tech giant reportedly signed a US$400m acquisition deal with the London-based company. And now it seems the European Commission wants to investigate the deal following requests from seven countries that fear the agreement will “adversely affect competition.” The seven petitioners include Austria, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. When Apple made the announcement last year, it said the deal will be less than the “turnover threshold” for the European Commission. However, it’s above the merger notification threshold for Austria, which is leading the quorum of countries worried about the deal.

This investigation forces Apple to let the EU authorities know about the deal and have to wait for the investigation into the deal’s implications. The EC has up to 35 working days for the initial investigations and another 105 working days if there are serious concerns that need to be looked into. Apple will then have the opportunity for approval by answering and addressing the concerns.

Source: The Guardian

Apple buys audio recognition service Shazam for $ 400 million

Shazam is a pioneering audio recognition service that can quickly listen to and identify music (as well as TV and likely other forms of media). The company and its employees were recently involved in a $400 million purchase by Apple who might look to integrate the service tightly with its iOS and Mac devices.

Shazam boasts more than 120 million active users, using the app 20 million times each day so giving this user base tigher integration with iOS devices will likely keep them longer. The Pixel 2 from Google has a feature that identifies music playing automatically and presents this information on the display.

Shazam can also be used to identify images, determine what TV show or movie is on and has some features related to QR codes and possibly AR (Augmented Reality) functionality. A quiet acquisition, Apple has yet to send out a detailed release about their plans for Shazam and what will happen to the app in other competing paltforms.

Source: CNBC

Apple reportedly buying Shazam, deal might be announced on December 11

Apple is supposedly finalizing a deal with the company behind the music recognition app Shazam to buy the latter for a rumoured amount of US$401 million. The deal will reportedly be finalized over the weekend with the deal being officially announced on December 11, Monday. Shazam currently already integrates with Apple’s Siri and Apple Music—on top of working with Spotify and Snapchat as well. Both companies haven’t commented on the report. What this potential deal could mean to the other services Shazam is available on we can’t say. For now, we just have to wait for confirmation that this deal pushed through.

Source: NME

Shazam makes it easier to identify unknown songs on Android

While the new Shazam update brings features to both Android and iOS. Android users seem to be getting more out of the deal this time. Android Nougat users specifically get a new firm-press shortcut that’ll instantly “shazam” songs for you—meaning it’ll start to identify the song you want it, too. As for other Android users and iOS users, you can now scan “Shazam Codes” with your phone’s camera. These will come in handy when you spot Shazam-branded codes out in the wild—everything from products to magazine ads. These’ll bring some “augmented reality experiences” to you. There’s a bug fix for the iOS version that messes with Shazam’s ability to identify songs when music is playing from another app.

Source: SlashGear