The move is explained by TechCrunch as the result of a bid to improve imeem's initially struggling financial performance by negotiating download rights with labels and receiving larger cut of each download. Under the dominant existing system, it only gets the 5 percent affiliate revenue that comes from buying at a third-party store and consequently leans more heavily on the revenues from ads displayed on each page. Switching to a classic direct model gives it as much as 30 percent of every download without having to adjust prices or lose existing customers.

Expanding in this way creates a form of end run around Apple. Like Last.fm or Pandora, imeem runs its own Internet radio app for the iPhone but is unique for selling its own content on the desktop, letting users listen to the same tracks on either platform. Nonetheless, it's unlikely that imeem will completely abandon its iTunes connection. as Apple's current iPhone SDK rules prohibit apps from writing directly to a device's music library and would limit any permitted downloads to just the imeem app itself.