Apple and its latest acquisition will make AI music together

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StaffPad being used on iPad
Soon your iPhone can write music just for you.
Photo: David William Hearn

Apple reportedly bought AI Music, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to create songs in real time.

The technology will most likely be integrated into the Apple Photos application for creating background music for slideshows and video montages.

AI Music will use artificial intelligence to create music for Apple

Bloomberg was the first to report on the acquisition. AI Music’s website has disappeared, lending credence to the report.

But the Wayback Machine has it archived, showing that AI Music promised it could deliver “Royalty Free adaptive music solutions for innovative sonic adventurers.” The technology “enables users to create on-demand royalty-free music that can be used and shared anywhere.”

That makes it ideal to produce background audio for the montages that the Photos app generates. These are called “Memories” and coming up with royalty-free music for them must be a challenge. Especially as users want to share these with their friends.

It’s not known what Apple paid to acquire AI Music.

A focus on AI

The iPhone-maker buys a lot of small companies that focus on artificial intelligence — the total of its AI-related acquisitions reached 25 between 2016 and 2020.

And all Apple’s computers use processors that includes a neural engine designed specifically to handle artificial intelligence software at high speed.

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