Apple still makes a lot of money selling tracks on the iTunes store. My guess would be that it's going to roll out a streaming service, but on its own terms. Th

Apple still makes a lot of money selling tracks on the iTunes store. My guess would be that it's going to roll out a streaming service, but on its own terms. This probably means renegotiating a lot of the music rights previously negotiated by Beats, and starting with a clean slate. Apple probably figures it can get better terms from the labels than Beats did. Part of me thinks that the only reason a la carte purchasing still exists is because there is no way to get everything from one streaming service. To use a TV example: I can't get most HBO shows on Netflix; ergo, I use Netflix and HBO Go. Same thing with Showtime, so I use Showtime's app as well. And some things I can't get anywhere through a streaming service, so I buy them. I'm not buying a la carte because I feel the need to "own" things. I'm buying a la carte because the fragmented streaming landscape has significant gaps in its coverage. What I'm really doing, when I buy, is covering those gaps and/or hedging against the risk that something I love might go away on my streaming services. My wild hunch is that Apple realizes as much, and it's moving to get as much content as possible under new license before it reveals its streaming service. It knows that a streaming service, in 2014 or 2015, needs to be as selection-complete as humanly possible. And anything not on its streaming service needs to be for sale on iTunes. It's very hard to thread that needle when you're working with legacy licenses under two different entities, presumably applicable only to those individual services.