Having sucked the last of the juice from a desiccated husk that was once a reasonably proud (if minor) competitor to Spotify, Apple has announced that it’ll be discontinuing the Beats Music streaming service on November 30. The tech giant acquired the service early last year, as part of a multi-billion dollar deal with co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre.
Since then, Apple has used Beats as the template for its own Apple Music service, repeatedly encouraging existing users to make the switch to the new, shinier service. But Beats held on for a few more months after the Apple Music launch, largely due to its extant Android application, which Apple had yet to emulate.
No longer, though; Apple infiltrated the enemy camp earlier this week, releasing an Apple Music app for the Google-developed platform. Now, with the last of Beats’ utility drained away, Apple is ready to cast it aside like an old piece of fruit, leaving the old service behind as it prowls forward, looking for the next cool thing to buy.