Apple-Shazam song ID for iOS8

HEY SIRI, NAME THAT TUNE: You may have downloaded Shazam to your iPhone, but four out of five iPhone users have not, according to a 2013 estimate. And when you Shazam a song, you may not tap “Download on iTunes,” but many of the app’s 90 million users do. There, in a nutshell, is the rationale behind Apple’s decision to partner with London-based Shazam on a song-identification feature to be incorporated into the upcoming iOS 8 operating system. Bloomberg broke the news, citing people familiar with Apple’s plans. The addition of song identification would be a boon for iTunes Radio's digital track discovery, which in turn drives sales from the iTunes store, the report notes, so it could meet several needs at once. According to a Bloomberg source, Apple has also built that anticipated subscription-music service internally, but has held off on releasing it to avoid slowing download sales. What’s more, the company has been mulling making iTunes Radio a stand-alone app instead of including it as a feature inside the iTunes store. Apple is expected to preview iOS 8 at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, set to start on 6/2. (4/17a)