Apple buys podcast search startup Pop Up Archive

Apple’s contend a central role in podcast since its earliest days — euphemism, even the term was borrowed from its massive hardware product at the time. however the company’s marketshare seems to own scoured somewhat as players like Google and Spotify have entered the market, reportedly down from 70-percent of podcast downloads in 2015 to 55-percent in 2017.

That’s still not a foul place to be, however the additional podcasts become legitimized through celebrity shows like Serial, the additional the corporate can need to bat back the competition. In lightweight of all this, Apple might be planting its flag within the sand. This morning, the new Pod report reportable that the corporate had picked up atiny low Bay Area-based startup known as appear Archive in what seems to the be a shot to make up its in-house podcasting tools.

The company offered TechCrunch a followup, noting, “Apple buys smaller technology corporations from time to time, and that we usually don't discuss our purpose or plans.”

As for what those plans square measure, keeping appear Archive in operation as is doesn’t seem to get on the list. The startup suddenly closed up search late last month, on a daily basis once posting message on Twitter asking users to transfer all of their content before then.

You’ve probably not detected of the corporate, unless this is often a world you follow closely. appear Archive was supported back in  2012 and has remained pretty tiny since then. we have a tendency to initial caught wind of it back in 2014, once it appeared at the five hundred Startups Demo Day. At the time, the corporate was demonstrating a tool that tags audio sometimes transcribed matter information. A user uploads a podcast and it offers tags.

Sounds like atiny low issue, sure, however it’s a probably vital one once you’re coping with long audio files. iTunes and also the iPhone Podcast app may greatly enjoy extra discourse search. it might go an extended method toward finding and recommending content via the service. At the instant, Apple’s recommendations square measure restricted to similar shows. Pop Archive conjointly maintained Audiosearch, a podcast program that conjointly closed up search on Gregorian calendar month twenty eight.