Apple Inc will purchase Beats for about $3 billion and bring recording mogul Jimmy Iovine into its ranks, hoping to win points with the music industry and help it catch up in fast-growing music streaming.As expected, Beats co-founders Iovine and rapper Dr. Dre will join Apple as part of the acquisition of the music streaming and audio equipment company. They should prove key in forging relationships with an industry that historically viewed Apple with suspicion but in recent years has pressed the iPhone maker to do more on subscription services, a market expected to eclipse song downloads in the long run.Iovine's music industry relationships could ease notoriously difficult licensing negotiations for a future streaming service, recording industry executives say."The ugly truth is that there is such a Berlin Wall between Silicon Valley and LA," Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. "The two don't respect each other, don't understand each other."
Apple Inc. (Apple) designs, manufactures and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players, and a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. Shares of AAPL fell by 0.26% or $-1.62/share to $624.01. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $388.87 and as high as $625.86. On average, 9535790 shares of AAPL exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 11268510.
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