Apple Refutes Reported Plans To Shut Down Beats Music Service

Short and to the point, Apple says that reports claiming the company plans to shutter its streaming Beats Music service are "not true." Beyond that succinct statement, Apple had nothing else to say on the matter, so we'll have to draw our own conclusions on what's going on, one of those being that the Beats Music service may not be long for this world, at least not in its current form.

Let's back up a step. TechCrunch on Monday reported that Apple was discontinuing its Beats Music subscription service, adding that it received its information regarding Apple's plans from five sources, among them "several prominent employees at Apple and Beats."


Apple refuted the claim to Recode with the short statement above, but opted not to elaborate. However, Recode claims to have chatted with people in Apple's inner circle, and based on those conversations, the Cupertino company may modify its Beats Music service over time. That includes changing the brand -- perhaps rolling it into iTunes. If that ends up happening, then this really boils down to a matter of semantics.

The uncertainty over what to do with Beats Music is odd considering that Apple paid $3 billion for the subscription music service and Beats Electronics. However, some have speculated that Apple's motivation to make the deal came down to owning the headphones brand, and to bring Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine into the fold.