Over the summer a report surfaced that Apple had acquired Omnifone, a music streaming company that provided Samsung’s defunct Milk Music service, but it was quickly debunked. Today a new report claims that Apple later acquired some technology from Omnifone, which went bankrupt in May, and hired some its ex-employees, stopping short of a full acquisition.
TechCrunch reports that “there was some technology picked up” by Apple from Omnifone following the streaming music company’s bankruptcy early this year, although there are no specifics.
Omnifone is described as an “independent provider of cloud-based unlimited music services to consumer electronics vendors,” so the idea is that some underlying technology was purchased that could be used to improve Apple Music.
The new report also adds that several Omnifone employees now work at Apple:
Apple hired at least 16 employees and purchased select technology from Omnifone, an early player in streaming music services that filed for bankruptcy this summer.
While Apple seems to have stopped short of fully acquiring Omnifone, its Apple Music streaming service was notably based on its acquisition of Beats Music.
Recent known Apple acquisitions have mostly been around artificial intelligence and machine learning; Apple recently denied earlier reports that it was interested in buying Jay-Z’s Tidal music service.
As for Apple Music, the company recently announced that the service is up to 17 million paid subscribers so far. Apple Music got a major redesign with iOS 10 back in September, and a rumored price drop could see its $10/month rate drop down to $8/month.
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