Apple completes Shazam acquisition and removes ads from app

Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam. Earlier this month, the European Commission gave the American company permission to take over the music recognition service. The app will continue to exist for the time being and will be ad-free.

Apple does not say why it is removing the ads from Shazam, but states that users can use the service “undisturbed” from then on. It is unknown whether the ads will disappear from the version for iOS and Android, although that is obvious given the announcement. Shazam used advertising as a revenue model, but Apple probably doesn’t need that revenue.

The app will continue to exist for the time being. Often after a takeover, Apple takes a company’s app offline, temporarily or otherwise. This happened with Siri and Workflow, among others, which later came back under Apple’s own name. In other cases, the app disappeared from acquired companies and a technology returned as a feature later. It is obvious for Apple to integrate Shazam into streaming service Apple Music, but the manufacturer does not disclose anything about it.

Apple confirmed in December last year that it plans to acquire Shazam. An acquisition price was not disclosed at the time. According to an earlier rumor, Apple is willing to put about 341 million euros on the table for Shazam.