Apple’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Beats has been mostly panned by analysts so far and even high-profile Apple fans are having a hard time making sense of it. @SammyWalrusIV, a well-known Apple fan and analyst mostly communicates anonymously through his Twitter account, has written a post over at AAPL Orchard explaining that one reason Apple decided to shell out so much money is that it is flat-out scared of losing its clout in the music business.
“Apple is afraid,” he writes. “I suspect Apple feels threatened as its mind share for music is declining. The iPod died on behalf of its older sibling, the iPhone, and following its death, the grip Apple had on music has started to slip. Think of digital music, and Pandora or Spotify may come to mind. Beats could very well be on the same path of music stardom.”
If Apple is already willing to make such a drastic move to shore up its position in the music world, then that doesn’t seem to be a good sign for iTunes Radio, its music streaming service that debuted less than a year ago and that has so far decidedly not killed off Pandora, Spotify and other music streaming services. In fact, a survey conducted late last year showed that Pandora holds a commanding lead over iTunes Radio, although Apple’s streaming service has grown pretty quickly despite coming so late in the game.
