One report yesterday suggested that Apple doesn’t have all the necessary licensing deals in place to announce its relaunch of iTunes and Beats Music on 8 June at its WWDC event. Another report yesterday claimed that the announcement will nevertheless go ahead as part of the WWDC keynote speech. In other words: business as usual. We’ve been here before with iTunes Radio, where mopping up the final licensing deals becomes (a bit) a big game of chicken,
with holdouts effectively daring Apple to announce its big new thing without all the deals in place, and Apple daring them right back to conclude their agreements rather than miss out on the big reveal. “June won’t be the release date. The deals aren’t done,” claimed one of Billboard’s sources, sagely. There may not be a contradiction here: Apple can unveil the new service on 8 June at WWDC, then actually launch it once the deals *are* done. 9 to 5 Mac’s rebuttal of Billboard’s story claims the launch will be in late June. Either way, expect more leaks from all sides as the dealmaking enters its crucial stages.
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