Apple is expected to include the Beats music service into iOS devices as a pre-installed app starting next year, reports FT.
The bundled app, if Apple pushes through with the plan, will make Beats available to millions of iOS device owners and put more pressure on Spotify, currently the leader in music streaming services.
Bundling the music service as a pre-installed app will be Apple's "first attempt to capitalize on Beats" after the tech giant acquired it for $3 billion, writes Garrahan/Bradshaw of Financial Times.
The move could also be a way to quickly gain new customers for Apple, as well as providing an opportunity for the company to enable one-touch subscription to Beats through its mobile payment system.
The Beats headphones have already been proven to be a hit, according to TIME's Victor Luckerson, but the same couldn't be said for the music subscription service, as founder Jimmy Iovine estimated their customer base at around 250,000 in May this year.
Spotify, on the other hand, can boast of 50 million users, of which 12.5 million are paid subscribers.
Luckerson says, however, that while bundling Beats could give the service a lot of exposure via the millions of iOS device owners, it still wouldn't be a guarantee that it could succeed as the leader.
"The strategy isn't fool-proof - iTunes Radio is now a default offering in iOS, but it's done little to upset Pandora as the king of Internet radio," writes Luckerson.
Pre-installing the Beats app also serves notice that Apple is accepting the streaming music subscription service as a legitimate business model, says Roger Cheng of CNET.
The late Steve Jobs originally rejected the idea of music subscription services being successful, and stated in a Rolling Stone interview back in 2003 that he had told music recording companies so.
"We (Apple) told them the music subscription services they were pushing were going to fail. MusicNet was gonna fail. Pressplay was gonna fail. Here's why: People don't want to buy their music as a subscription."
"The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model, and it might not be successful," Jobs had added.
