Apple CEO Meets with Beats Boss, But for What Reason?

When is an Apple executive meeting with a music mogul a big deal? Apparently, when Reuters says it is, although the details of what exactly was discussed remain a bit unclear. Reuters filed an "exclusive" Wednesday morning, reporting that Apple CEO Tim Cook recently met with Beats Electronics LLC chief Jimmy Iovine, presumably to discuss a music streaming partnership. The so-called "Project Daisy" is not the long-awaited music subscription service from Apple, but rather the brainchild of Beats, first announced in January with few details on exactly what it would involve. According to three people "familiar with the situation," the meeting between Cook and Iovine was "informational" in nature and "covered a broad range of music-related topics" -- hardly a surprise, given that Iovine is also chairman of music label Interscope-Geffen-A&M. So the real question is: Will Apple have something to do with "Project Daisy," or was the meeting completely unrelated? The timing seems suspect, given that the pow-wow went down in January, right on the heels of the Beats announcement. The report also noted that Iovine was "one of the first music industry executives" to jump on the iTunes bandwagon when it debuted in 2001, and claims to have pitched late Apple co-founder the idea for a subscription-based music service in 2003, which has yet to materialize. Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter