Post-Apple Buy, Beats Music Will Still Be on Android, Windows Phone

Usually when Apple buys a new company, you can kiss any Android apps goodbye.

Not so with Beats Music. After announcing its plans to buy the company for $3 billion, Apple said it plans to keep the Beats Music streaming music service app available on Android and Windows Phone.

“It’s on Android now, and we want to keep it that way,” Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue said at the inaugural Code Conference on Wednesday.

That’s in stark contrast to Apple’s modus operandi, including a purchase as recent as app testing service Burstly, which shuttered its Android offering in March. And as Re/code’s Walt Mossberg noted, most of Apple’s software and services — like iMessage or Apple TV — are meant to be used on Apple hardware, not on others’ devices.

It’s not likely that Apple is just feeling benevolent. As my colleague Peter Kafka notes, Apple would almost certainly be wary of regulatory issues in closing the Beats deal if the company took Beats Music off of the Android platform. (Oh, and it’ll stick around on Windows Phone, too.)

But of course, Apple still has its favorites. “Everything is better on iOS,” Cue said.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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