Earlier this year, an interesting story surfaced alleging that Interscope-Geffen-A&M chairman and Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine spent years trying to convince Steve Jobs to do a subscription-based music service. Obviously, Jobs never succumbed.
But the conversation wasn’t over. Fast forward to today, a new report says that Iovine met with Tim Cook and Apple’s internet software and service guru Eddy Cue last month to discuss—surprise!—his new subscription-based music service…
Here’s Reuters with the scoop:
“Apple Inc has held talks with Beats Electronics LLC, the audio technology firm co-founded by influential hip-hop producer Dr Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, on a potential partnership involving Beats’ planned music-streaming service, three people familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Cook and Cue met with Iovine during a visit to Los Angeles last month to find out more about Beats upcoming streaming music service, “Project Daisy.” The report says that Cook was particularly interested in Daisy’s business model and rollout plans.
The meeting was apparently setup immediately after Beats announced Daisy back in January, despite the fact that the company didn’t explain publicly what the service’s business model will be, or how it plans to stand out in the crowded market.
But whatever ‘Daisy’ is, it’s turning heads. In addition to the Apple meeting, Beats also recently secured $60 million in funding for the music project, which will allow it to spinoff into its own company. That’s a lot of money for an unproven service.
Here’s part of the press release announcing the funding:
“Beats was always about helping people re-discover the magic in the experience of listening to music,” said Iovine. “ Now that we are well along the way to addressing the quality of audio playback with Beats headphones and speakers, Daisy allows us to re-introduce the same magic into the process of music discovery and consumption.”
Apple, for its part, has also been reportedly working on a Pandora-like streaming music service, which is what makes Reuters’ report so intriguing. Although it was rumored to launch earlier this year, negotiations with record labels are said to have stalled.
We’re sure Jimmy Iovine of Interscope records, or perhaps his good friend Dr. Dre, could probably help with that.
What do you make of all of this?