Apple unexpectedly puts the brakes on its ‘Carpool Karaoke’ launch

Apple’s Carpool Karaoke show for its music streaming service looks to be stuck in the parking lot, at least for the time being.

The tech giant has reportedly delayed the launch of the show, a spinoff of the segment made famous by James Corden on The Late Late Show where the host drives A-list celebrities around while singing their hearts out to famous tracks.

The debut episode was was meant to hit Apple Music this month, but has been pushed to “later this year,” a spokesperson for the Cupertino-based company told Reuters on Monday. Indications of issues with the show first surfaced in March when Apple suddenly postponed a premiere party without saying why. The event was rescheduled for Monday, but then postponed again.

The road map for Apple’s version of Carpool Karaoke seemed all set as recently as February when the company released a 60-second teaser (above) promising big-name celebrities and “surprises every week.” But the only surprise at the current time is that it won’t release within the originally expected time frame.

We can see from the trailer that Apple already has plenty of segments in the can, so it’s unclear why it’s made the decision to push the launch to later in the year.

Spotify’s Traffic Jam

News of Apple’s Carpool Karaoke rescheduling comes a month after rival Spotify announced its own take on the show. Traffic Jam debuted on the music streaming service a few weeks back and pairs a rapper and a producer — in a car — who have to “create an original song while stuck in LA traffic.” They then have to perform it live to fans just a few hours later.

Apple Music launched nearly two years ago and reached 20 million paying subscribers toward the end of 2016, while Spotify revealed in March that it now has 50 million paying subscribers.

Both charge users $10 a month for access to their huge libraries of music and offer identical deals for students ($5 a month) and families ($15 a month). But while Spotify offers a free tier with ads and several limitations, Apple Music has no free offering at the current time.