Apple is after Beats for its streaming music expertise, not the hardware that most find mediocre at best, according to a new Bloomberg report on the deal, which is expected to be made official later sometime this week according to earlier reports.
Some have suggested this expertise in online storage and streaming could be something Apple wants to use in iTunes.
Its USP over other streaming services is to be its use of human expertise – Reznor believes existing music services rely too much on computerised recommendations and there aren't enough human beings advising users what music to buy.
Another source, interviewed by Josh Constine, also believes this musical expertise will allow Apple to run a streaming music service concurrent to its iTunes sales.
New businesses are springing up to provide the expertise to help others get the maximum quality out of streaming technology.
DtecNet brings technology and expertise in pinpointing and monitoring illegal download activity on P2P networks, blogs, video streaming sites and Usenet services, the company said.
Sony is relaunching its streaming music service for PlayStation Network, and this time it's bringing in a partner with ample expertise in streaming music services: Spotify.
And due to the complexity of streaming and its billions of lines of royalties, an auditor also needs to have the technical expertise, staff and systems to manage enormous volumes of data.
In theory, digital health can sidestep that process by putting the same clinical expertise on a device that sits in your pocket or on a smartpatch attached to your skin and streaming the data wirelessly to your "care provider network".
