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Ever since the announcement of Jay Z‘s TIDAL music streaming service, the criticism has been nearly relentless. It is now emerging from insiders that tech giant Apple might be attempting to sabotage TIDAL in a bid to crush the service ahead of the release of its own streaming service, Beats Music.

Page Six digs in deep into the whispers from within the music industry of Apple pulling some sneaky tricks to make TIDAL look weaker in the marketplace. Beats Music is set to be released this June, giving a slight bit of credence to the fact Apple wants to win by any means necessary. While it can’t be totally proven that Apple is going forward with its plans of high-tech warfare, some of the signs are glaring all the same.

From Page Six:

Last week it emerged that Tidal, following its March 30 launch, has fallen out of the iPhone top 700 apps. But positioning in the app charts is driven by downloads, and according to our source, Apple “deliberately took a long time to approve Tidal iOS app updates. Tidal had a new app on Android on April 15, but still hasn’t received approval for Apple’s iOS app store.”

Robert Kondrk, vice president of iTunes Content, has also declared war on artists who sign up with Tidal. A source told us, “Robert told execs at Universal Music Group that Rihanna and other Tidal artists’ music would not be promoted as featured artists on iTunes if they put exclusive music out on Tidal.”

The source added that after Rihanna’s song “American Oxygen” debuted on Tidal, there were technical problems with her music on iTunes. The source explained, “Rihanna’s songs were scrambled and were out of commission for periods of time.”

Naturally, Apple is denying such claims that Rihanna’s music was tampered with while adding little else in way of a retort. Page Six was able to confirm the rumor that TIDAL artists will not be promoted on iTunes but says its part of a “normal operating procedure” if an artist decides to market their content with a rival service.

What do you think? Is Apple trying to get the one-up on Jay Z? Let us know in the comments.

Photo: Instagram