Apple’s much anticipated purchase of headphone maker Beats is going ahead.<br /><br />The iPhone maker is paying the relatively high price of $3 billion (2.2 billion euros).<br /><br />For that it gets a line of “cool” headphones popular with young urbanites. <br /><br />But in the industry the feeling is what it really wants is Beats’ five month-old music streaming service.<br /><br />Beats co-founders – recording mogul Jimmy Iovine and rapper Dr. Dre – are considered to be key in Apple forging better relations with the music industry in the notoriously difficult licensing negotiations for streaming. <br /><br />Apple has to address the fact that sales of its iTunes song downloads are declining as the popularity of music-streaming services soarsing. <br /><br />Streaming subscriptions jumped 51 percent last year, downloads slipped 2.1 percent.<br /><br />The likes of Pandora and Spotify have raced ahead while Apple’s eight-month-old iTunes Radio has not made much of a dent.<br /><br />Record companies have also put pressure on Apple to get its act together on streaming. <br /><br />Reportedly they are helping that Apple can turn Beats Music into a strong competitor to Spotify and its rivals. <br /><br />with Reuters
