Lala bought by Apple, streaming iTunes Store around the bend?

Earlier today, Greg Sandoval at CNET reported that Apple was in talks to acquire discover music-streaming assist Lala; his piece suggested that these talks were in modern stages, and a care could hap at any time -- Apple just necessary to clew on the dotted line.

As of this evening, Sandoval's rumor is hunting a lot more same a done deal. The Wall Street Journal and the NY Times are both confirming that Apple has pulled the causing and spent a small fraction of those zillions in cash on Lala. No numbers were announced, but the WSJ notes that an investment of $20 meg in Lala from filmmaker Music Group was cursive down by more than 50% early this year.

Why Lala for Apple? The AP noted that Lala co-founder Bill Nguyen demoed an iPhone app in October that allowed 'intelligently cached' songs to be streamed to your iPhone, with the recently-streamed songs replayable even right of cell coverage areas; Wired suggests that Lala's bundle-payment setup, where users acquire course credits, could save Apple's iTunes Store jillions in assign bill consummation charges. The care is expected to put Nguyen and the Lala engineers on Apple's payroll, though the Times notes that Lala's agreements with the labels to course penalization are non-transferable.

Lala's help for penalization moving is an engrossing one; the assist scans your hornlike intend for songs you already possess and lets you course them at will, taking the concept Apple's also providing with Home Share to the Web (other services also permit you deal media between iTunes instances). You crapper also choose to course songs you don't already possess for $0.10 a piece, and 'upgrade' to a downloadable edition at will.

Lala also recently prefabricated an agreement with Google to offer penalization previews in Google searches, greatly expanding Lala's reach. It's not clear whether Apple's acquire module hit any change on that arrangement

Is this a moving assist you would same to wager come to iTunes? Leave a comment beneath and permit us know!