Apple adds Shazam to the family

The announcement that Apple is to acquire Shazam, the UK-based company that is responsible for the app which can identify a song by pointing a smart phone at the music source, really isn't that surprising and for me it's more a case of why they haven't announced this deal earlier.

Shazam launched in the UK in 2002 and was based on the concept that its users dialled a number, played a song and then received a text message with the name and artist. It was included as an iPhone app in the launch of Apple's app store back in 2008, with an android version following soon after.

According to the company's website it took them "10 years to reach 1 billion tags, 10 months to reach 2 billion, 3 months to go from 10 to 12 billion" and back in 2011 Apple announced it was the fourth most downloaded app of all time.

Apple is reported to be paying around USD 400m for Shazam and this would be the company's largest deal since August 2014, when it acquired Beats Electronics, the manufacturer of Beats Headphones.

It is believed that this is not a deal about technology for Apple but more about the listening habits of Shazam's millions of users and the ability to further integrate these Shazam users into the Apple music ecosystem.