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Apple Announces $3 Billion Beats Acquisition, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre Joining the Company

macs4nw said:
Think positive. We are talking about future growth potential here. The fact Apple went thru with this deal, despite some premature leaks by the 'acquisitees', kind of indicates that this was a well-thought out strategy, that Apple was fully intending to carry out despite possible roadblocks.

I trust Tim and the executive team to know what they are doing.
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I've thought about it hard for the last 10 minutes or so. And I was wrong. This isn't a bad deal at all. Firstly, Apple can buy who they want so we should all stop moaning and secondly, both companies (well, one now) provide products that are extremely popular and hyped.

Here's something from 9to5Mac "The press release noted that Apple will keep Beats around as a separate brand, including Beats’ hardware."

At least they are keeping it separate.
 
DudeDad said:
Apple's short-cut to a subscription service...the mediocre headphones come with it...
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Correct. Stop focussing on headphones, you either like them or you don't, they sound great or not - this is about the technology of the headphones and their pipeline and more importantly the subscription service.
 
Rogifan said:
Since Apple is keeping it as a separate brand my guess is they will be hands off on the hardware. Which is fine with me. Don't need Apple engineers and designers wasting their time on Beats headphones.
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Perhaps Beats engineers can now help with iOS 8 development?
 
brendu said:
I understand that argument and I agree the headphones are over rated but I don't think apple bought Beats for their hardware. I believe they bought it for their talent. Apple may end up improving the beats hardware while retaining the popular brand.
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Here's to hoping that's true! :)
 
Ryth said:
How long till the black community called Dre a sellout, uncle tom, etc?

You KNOW it's going to be coming.
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How long till the white community calls Tim a sellout? Oh wait, it has already happened on Macrumors. :D
 
GeneralChang said:
What? Can I just… hold on a second… what? Tesla? Why in the ever-loving cheese-wads would Apple buy a car company? Tesla makes a great car, sure, but what would the Model S bring to my next consumer electronic device?

I don’t have anything approaching a business degree and I can see that buying Tesla would have been a terrible idea. Why would you even suggest that?
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There was a rumor a year ago that Apple was talking about buying Tesla, and the Tesla founder even said he had discussions with Apple but not about selling. I think it had something to do with battery technology if I recall correctly. I can't remember it all.
 
HTC announces Beats partnership.

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HP announces Beats partnership.

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Hmmm, results inconclusive I guess.
 
Rogifan said:
Since Apple is keeping it as a separate brand my guess is they will be hands off on the hardware. Which is fine with me. Don't need Apple engineers and designers wasting their time on Beats headphones.
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Scratch that....this gets even weirder. Phil Schiller is going to oversee Beats Electronics. So Apple's head of Marketing is going to oversee the design and engineering of Beats hardware?

Beats Electronics has become the brand of choice for headphones and speakers in both the music and sports world, just five years after its launch. They are among the most popular and highest-rated third-party products sold today in Apple’s retail and online stores. We see an incredible opportunity to bring Apple’s legendary design and engineering capabilities to these popular products under Phil’s leadership.
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GeneralChang said:
Because Apple’s earbuds are all about audio quality. :rolleyes:
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Of course they're not. But going down the route of using Beats is like building a skyscraper out of what our ancestors used -- mud. It's devolution, and I thought Apple had a much better mentality than this.
 
TC said: "You don't build everything yourself. It's not one thing that excites us here. It's the people. It's the service."

At the rate $3B per two employees Apple has enough money to build a solid 60 men team.
 
chrmjenkins said:
This is the first time I think the cliche is actually true. I don't think this would have happened under Jobs.
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Well, Jobs is dead, and neither you nor I can really say what he would've done. Fortunately, he made it clear before he passed away that "what would Steve do?" shouldn't be the order of the day at Apple. Jobs understood this and made clear he wanted others to understand this. So should you.

In any case, BOTH Iovine and Dre have had dealings with Apple before, particularly when Jobs was actively involved in launching iTunes and signing the initial distribution deals. Jobs spoke to them both, personally, back then. So to say this is a huge culture shift isn't exactly right. These guys have been around before. They're just much, much closer to the fold now.

I will say this though: Beats headphones are horribly overpriced for what they deliver. Apple needs to fix that.
 
WOW i just installed the new beats app and it is great! i like that you can see and choose the song you want, much better then being stuck with what iTunes Radio decides!! they have pre-made play lists for the genres you like, what a great idea.
 
Enabledobject said:
I just can't subscribe to streaming music. You pay for it, twice, and then you have nothing tangible in your hands. You can't store it, and take it with you.
You pay for it twice by paying the subscription, and also paying for the data to stream it if you're not on wifi.
Not a fan.
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Of course you can. It's called offline sync.

That's how I subscribed to Spotify and later to Deezer. I would never stream, even with a free subscription.
 
Bathplug said:
Nice I hope they bundle beats with iphone.
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You know that this has zip, zero, nada, NOTHING to do with headphones right?

Beats will still Beats headphones. There may be some Apple branded ones - but beat will still exist all red and black.

Apple just wanted the Music subscription deals and the technology. That is all
 
I'm not sure what most of you guys are smoking thinking that this is a bad deal. Let me bring in some facts....

Beats Music has the largest selection of music outside of Spotify. And as we know, Pandora is very limited. Beats music is a lot like Google Play Music in terms of the features like radio, creating playlists, libraries, off-line listening, etc. Google Play music offers you to upload 20000 songs (regardless of bitrate) which is the one major benefit that it has. But more and more record labels have been going to Beats first over any of the other services.

Now, combine that with the capabilities of iTunes, and you have one massively powerful music service.
 
Look, Its the odd couple...

Maybe be the largest, but how many people actually listen to beats over all others ?

My guess is its not exactly top pf it's game.... unlike iTunes..

If beats makes itunes much better, what was it before ? a piece of crap ?

No way. i need proof to see what music is out there on beats, most other services DON"T have before i'm convinced.
 
kaltsasa said:
Fur sure, the thing that has gotten me irate for years is not 200 dollar headphones. It's that people spend 200 dollars for bass heavy, unbalanced headphones when they could get some damn nice sennheiser's for the price.
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I think this all goes to show the power of effective marketing. That crap works.
 
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