Apple Acquires Lala: Web-Based iTunes Service In The Pipeline?

Apple has recently acquired Lala — a web-based music streaming startup that saw a lot of success. The official word from Apple is that they do these things from time to time and they usually they do not comment on their reasons or plans around the service. And now let the speculations regarding the implications begin.

Apple has been changing the face of the music industry as we know it for quite some time now. They are the ones who finally pulled the music industry from its downward spiral and ushered it into the digital age with the iTunes store. The iTunes platform itself was thus a revolution to begin with and now with the App Store being a part of it — it is beigger than ever. But the times — they are changing.

Apple has always been the forerunner when it comes to the new. Heck, they are quite often responsible for the new! So when people are really enjoying services like Last.fm, Spotify and Lala, Apple cannot choose to ignore it. It cannot do so without harming its business and innovation. So it is entirely possible that iTunes is going online as a web-based application/service. And that would have some serious repercussions all across the web.

Apple, through the iTunes Store, is already the largest vendor of digital music in the US and probably the world as well. In the US they hold a whopping 70% or so of the entire market. That means they already have a lot of customers just waiting to hit the buy button. If they start a subscription-based online music streaming service (be still my beating heart), it will undoubtedly become an overnight sensation. It would also kill off the competition in about the same time frame.

No one really wants a company to have monopoly over anything, history has taught at least that much. Repeatedly. And it won’t happen as long as the Microsofts of this world are alive. But it will again be a landslide victory for Apple, especially because users are likely to get a experience that is as seamless as can be.

OS X is already pretty well synced up with everything Apple and the users on this platform will probably be able to use the online service through both iTunes and a web browser. And the beauty of the matter is that they can finally carry their entire collection with them to anywhere and also be able to play it anywhere. That’s because the cloud has all your favorite tracks and all you have to do is login and hit ‘play’. Now that’s music to my ears.