Following a TechCrunch report last Friday which claims that Apple has recently acquired data-style book analytics services BookLamp (basically a âPandora for booksâ) to beat Amazon at its own game, Re/code is reporting early Monday that the Cupertino firm has another acquisition target in its crosshairs â" a radio/podcast app Swell (âPandora for talk radioâ) which raised $7.2 million from investors including DFJ, Google Ventures and InterWest Partnersâ¦
Liz Gannes, reporting for Re/code [1] :
Apple is close to buying the Pandora-for-talk-radio app Swell, according to multiple sources. The deal is worth about $30 million, these sources say.
Apple should officially confirm the deal soon, but donât count on it explaining its reasoning beyond standard boilerplate text saying âApple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.â
Swell is both talk radio and podcast app with a minimalist interface which lends itself to in-car listening.
At the time of this writing, Swellâs free iOS app [2] was still available through the App Store. But not for long, as Re/code claims itâs to be shut down this week as part of the deal.
Much of the Swell team is to join Apple. CEO Ram Ramkumar and other members of the Swell team previously sold their image-recognition startup SnapTell to Amazon.
Named one of TIMEâs â50 Best iPhone Apps of 2013,â Swell has an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 436 reviews. Compare this to Appleâs oft-critizied Podcasts app which has only a rating of 1.5 out of 5 stars [3] in the App Store.
According to release notes, Swell lets you listen to personalized audio news and information from iTunes, NPR, ABC, ESPN, BBC, CBC, TED and more.
How does it work? Listen to what Swell plays. If you like it, keep listening; if not, just swipe to move on. Swell learns what you like as you go and will continue to deliver the content most relevant to you.
My guess is Apple is going to leverage this acqui-hire to bolster up its in-house iTunes Radio and podcast app teams.
Tim Cook said during last conference call with Wall Street analysts that Apple has acquired five companies in the last four months, not including Beats electronics â" Spotsetter , LuxVue , BookLamp , Swell and a fifth mystery purchase that has yet to be identified.
Links
- ^ Re/code (recode.net)
- ^ Swellâs free iOS app (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ 1.5 out of 5 stars (itunes.apple.com)
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