Apple Completes Shazam Acquisition, App Will Soon Become Ad-Free

Monday September 24, 2018 9:19 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple today announced it has completed its acquisition of music recognition service Shazam, after reaching a preliminary agreement in December. Apple says the Shazam app will soon become ad-free for all users.

Oliver Schusser, Vice President of Apple Music:

Apple and Shazam have a long history together. Shazam was one of the first apps available when we launched the App Store and has become a favorite app for music fans everywhere. With a shared love of music and innovation, we are thrilled to bring our teams together to provide users even more great ways to discover, experience and enjoy music.

Shazam is a popular service that can identify the names and lyrics of songs, music videos, TV shows, and more, simply by listening to and deciphering whatever is playing. Shazam has apps across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, iMessage, and Mac, and has been built into Siri since iOS 8.

Apple announced its plans to acquire Shazam in a statement provided to MacRumors and other media outlets back in December:

We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. Today, it's used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms. Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today's agreement.

Shazam issued the following statement at that time:

We are excited to announce that Shazam has entered into an agreement to become part of Apple. Shazam is one of the highest rated apps in the world and loved by hundreds of millions of users and we can't imagine a better home for Shazam to enable us to continue innovating and delivering magic for our users.

Apple completed its acquisition of Shazam just a few weeks after European regulators approved of the merger. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but a report from TechCrunch's Ingrid Lunden valued it around $400 million.

Shazam's app was optimized for iOS 12 on Friday.

Tags: Apple acquisition, Shazam

Top Rated Comments

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GrumpyMom

17 months ago

How do I know I have become old? I don't use Shazam any more. Why do I think that means I've become old? Because I don't really care about new music and finding out more about it. Add that to the list of things that change in your 30s. I'll likely listen to the same garbage the rest of my life now, except for maybe newer electronic music on the Monstercat podcast which I listen to when I need to zone out while programming or whatever.

Jeez how old are you? I’m 52 now and I still Shazam songs when I’m out and there’s music playing. I find a lot of stuff that was popular when I was in my 30’s but was too busy working to keep up with. Plus some current music is pretty fun. I also have the music identification feature on my Google Pixel that is always on and is pretty cool, too. I can’t imagine listening to the same music over and over for the rest of my life.

Rating: 7 Votes

Niklas_nick

17 months ago

Hope they keep the Spotify integration.

Rating: 6 Votes

djcerla

17 months ago

Nothing is free. If the ads get removed, that’s because you are the product (which is true in iOS and Android).

You got it backwards: you already paid for an hardware product and will get a better service with Shazam integrated at system level. You are not the product here.

Rating: 6 Votes

SkippyThorson

17 months ago

Very nice! Will be interesting to see how this shakes out in terms of integration.

All I can say, please don't bake it in to Siri, and don't remove its integration with Spotify! *

* at least I tried

Rating: 5 Votes

Pearple

17 months ago

Hope they keep the Spotify integration.

They will atomize this first. Sorry. But You can always cancel Spotify and join Apple Music.

That’s the whole point of buying Shazam

Rating: 5 Votes

Mefisto

17 months ago

I get where you're coming from, but I have to say for me it's the complete opposite. I've had more than 20 years to listen to my favorites, and while I still do, there are few better feelings than when I discover a new band or artist that sparks that excitement that pretty much only music can set off inside me. If it's of any importance I'm closer to 40 than 30, so by someone's standards I'm probably already ancient, but seeing as how listening to good tunes has a rejuvenating effect, I don't feel a day over 18!

I've noticed that I Shazam stuff about daily while watching TV and films for example. There's always music playing, and when something catches my ear it's nice to be able to identify it instantly and get to know the artist better.

Rating: 5 Votes

EdT

17 months ago

I’m a lot older than 30 and I still listen to new music. I haven’t used Shazam in a while because in a lot of the services I listen to I get the song and band name without needing Shazam. But occasionally I’ll hear a song on local radio and try to get my phone out and use it before the song is stopped or the dj talks over the end of the song.

I’ll listen to pop or rock or bluegrass and not just old stuff but current tunes. I listen to a lot of old big band and jazz from the early 1930’s on, I listen to some hip-hop, some rap, Standards singers like Michael Buble and Harry Connic Jr and classical music.

Modern country is about the only music I really don’t listen to, but there are probably songs there that I would like.

Rating: 4 Votes