Beats Comes To Apple’s Store

Beats’ new streaming service has, for the most part, stayed clear of traditional app stores. Today, though, they’re reversing that policy in what amounts to a concession that Apple’s app store has a reach beyond that of Beats’ present capabilities. With that reach and power, though, comes a hefty fee: Apple usually keeps about 30% of the purchase price on whatever users buy. For Beats, whose subscription is $10/month, it means giving $3 of that fee to Apple every month for every subscription sold through iTunes. Nonetheless, it opens Beats up to a market presently occupied by Rdio and Rhapsody, and to an app store that attracts millions of eyeballs and potential customers. The goal, here, is clearly to boost subscriber numbers as quickly as possible. It’s not to ultimately say that Beats music is failing, or that streaming music is going downhill – it’s simply to say that Beats is looking to expand its numbers to compete with bigger competitors like Spotify.