That is a pretty complicated explanation. If you asked your average consumer what Beats Music is they would say it is the same as Spotify, Pandora, etc: place to stream music.
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Beats Breakdown: Apple Paying $2.5B for Beats Electronics, $500M for Beats Music
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That is a pretty complicated explanation. If you asked your average consumer what Beats Music is they would say it is the same as Spotify, Pandora, etc: place to stream music.
But with that being said the value lays with the licence agreements - IIRC they're transferrable where as the licences that Pandora and Spotify have aren't. It will be interesting to see whether having Dre and the other guy on board allows them to get back into the 'good books' when it comes to the music industry - as much as I'd love to see Tim kick ass and bash heads together one also has to acknowledge that it sometimes requires having to give into the media interests in the short term as to win the long game.
I'd take Bose engineers- but their products are unfortunately garbage, but that's not their fault. They are a marketing company.
Super crazy. The valuation of the streaming service makes a lot of sense. But wow, 2.5B for a hardware company that apple does not need... unless that was the price to get Iovine on the roster.
johnnyturbouk
macrumors 68000
Is this crap still going on? lol
Why would anyone think the sound quality of Beats cans has anything to do with the quality of their engineering? Their sound is tailored to their target market and they are hugely successful. Do people really think that they could not released a more natural headphone if they thought it would sell as well as their current line? They hold tight patents on their technology to get that bass sound out of headphones and frankly, that is MUCH harder to do than get the rest of the range.
Let's see, I can get the two execs we want as industry insiders along with their hugely profitable hardware business, patent portfolio, AND their streaming business. which immediately makes us a player in a market that we frankly have not had a clue how to enter for the past five years. (one of the few areas where Mr. Jobs just simply got it dead wrong)
As a shareholder, seems like a no brainer to me.
BTW, as MOG and now Beats subscriber, I've been hearing all this since Beats bought MOG long ago, yet everything I listen to on MOG and now Beats has not changed, my favorite Mark Knopfler albums clarity haven't become a house shaking, booming bunch of mud. In fact I could swear that it's just as it always was.
Why would anyone think the sound quality of Beats cans has anything to do with the quality of their engineering? Their sound is tailored to their target market and they are hugely successful. Do people really think that they could not released a more natural headphone if they thought it would sell as well as their current line? They hold tight patents on their technology to get that bass sound out of headphones and frankly, that is MUCH harder to do than get the rest of the range.
Let's see, I can get the two execs we want as industry insiders along with their hugely profitable hardware business, patent portfolio, AND their streaming business. which immediately makes us a player in a market that we frankly have not had a clue how to enter for the past five years. (one of the few areas where Mr. Jobs just simply got it dead wrong)
As a shareholder, seems like a no brainer to me.
BTW, as MOG and now Beats subscriber, I've been hearing all this since Beats bought MOG long ago, yet everything I listen to on MOG and now Beats has not changed, my favorite Mark Knopfler albums clarity haven't become a house shaking, booming bunch of mud. In fact I could swear that it's just as it always was.
Damn straight! And the big flat plastic band they have around the top feels so brittle. I've heard from Beats owners that it's the first part that breaks on the headphones.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/29/mainstreaming/
Interesting take - as a music buff I find that often, its not that I don't know what I want to listen to but that I want to discovery new stuff that fits my likes.
As the article states, algorithms only go so far.
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An "awful" hardware division that pulled in over $1.5 billion in revenue last year....
Interesting take - as a music buff I find that often, its not that I don't know what I want to listen to but that I want to discovery new stuff that fits my likes.
As the article states, algorithms only go so far.
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2.5Bn for that awful hardware division?
Please tell me this is some kind of bad joke!
An "awful" hardware division that pulled in over $1.5 billion in revenue last year....
Anyone know how to enable explicit lyrics on this Beats app? I thought I would try it for the 14 days and it's annoying the hell out of me that I cannot find how/where to enable explicit lyrics.
There's nothing like jammin' out to edited 2PAC....
There's nothing like jammin' out to edited 2PAC....
I'm limited with what I can see at work, but just google Beats Music Explicit and two support articles popped up.
I'd try there.
Haha how dumb! They mix in explicit content with non and its just random. There is no setting in the app anywhere to turn on/off explicit content like on iTunes Radio, how pathetic.
This is a major complaint from users and there are the two support threads that come up first when I did the google search you recommended and when I did a search direct on their site. PATHETIC.
Ahh gotcha - ya seems a little odd they wouldn't simply allow for all explicit or none.....
But since the playlists are curated by actual people and not computer algorithms, perhaps they simply decide to mix instead of creating two separate playlists?
I'm sure its something that will be addressed. The service is still pretty new.
that's the trouble with these numbers..
People only look at the figures for the county their in, and not global.. which only sounds like a good idea..
I knew Beats wouldn't be that popular over-all, still less than $500 million is better than a kick in the teeth.
they did forget to mention one thing: Not everyone listens music on iTunes.
People only look at the figures for the county their in, and not global.. which only sounds like a good idea..
I knew Beats wouldn't be that popular over-all, still less than $500 million is better than a kick in the teeth.
they did forget to mention one thing: Not everyone listens music on iTunes.
Yeah well that was an unfortunate viewpoint because it was never founded in how and why companies are valued and bought. You certainly were not alone with your ignorance on that issue.
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Well it means they will have an extensive group of people designing channels and experiences for the service. This is certainly an area that appealed to Apple about Beats streaming as a way to differentiate themselves from services like Spotify. It is not something Spotify can easily replicate right now given their limbo before a potential public offering and that hiring a large number of employees to curate music is not likely when you bleed cash already.
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Serious question: is your checkbook currently balanced?It was the hardware.
Kudos Beats, you just found the richest sucker to purchase your overpriced headphones, and the silly suckers are smiling like they got a good deal
And most of well played Dr Dre , YOUR mega rich! And damn lucky cook is running the show.
So apple bought a headphone company that is renowned for having poor sound quality. Given apple in house headphones are nothing to call home about, they are basically not going to improve the sound quality going forward as a result of this spend.
I hope this is not a stupid attempt to be cooler than Samsung ...... Given how much money Samsung is throwing into marketing .
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I almost explained why this does not necessarily prove that, but given all the idiotic business insight I have had to dredge through on this topic, I will just let it mostly stand. These bigger numbers are for accounting purposes, on both sides. They are also likely fairly on target. The reality is it was a package deal for all the parts. It was silly for people to say it was not about the headphones, when the headphones make a ton of money. Apple wanted all of it though, and got a good price.
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I have had a thought that this deal was in the works for a very long time and some sort of project has been in the works for a while. I guess we will see.
It also sounds like WWDC has a lot of other stuff going on so maybe it was just roomier to spread it out.
That is why you would be a horrible business owner. Beats dominates the high end headphone market. Buy them and spend a couple million on some engineers.
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The market liked the news. Apple was up like 2% before close on the news.
Before that, this AM, an analyst on Marketplace Morning Report said they think the deal is about wearable technology - which I agree with.
And perhaps coincidentally, Beats introduced a new model, with better audio performance (read, less bassy, more neutral). How interesting...
Beats is certainly a fashion brand. One that would be able to more successfully market wearables to the masses than Apple, Samsung and Google trying to do the same thing. It certainly gives apple multiple paths in the wearables market.
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You mean nick cannon doesn't really run teen nickelodeon? Damn it!
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Okay the deal does make sense to me but the numbers breakdown makes no sense whatsoever. Apple paying $500 mil for beats music is a good deal; $2.5 bil for beats electronics is ridiculous. They are paying 2.5 bil for speakers and they are going to end up redesigning said speakers in-house anyway since beats will have to drop the current designer.
2.5 bil for beats music maybe, for beats electronics makes no sense.
This is simple insanity. You literally have no understanding what you are talking about.
I'm sure Jony is thrilled at having to take over the design of this:
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I have the Bose Soundlink Mini and it's the best $200 I've spent on a Bluetooth speaker. Not all Bose stuff is crappy.
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I have the Bose Soundlink Mini and it's the best $200 I've spent on a Bluetooth speaker. Not all Bose stuff is crappy.
What the...
I'm sure Jony is thrilled at having to take over the design of this:
Image
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I have the Bose Soundlink Mini and it's the best $200 I've spent on a Bluetooth speaker. Not all Bose stuff is crappy.
I have the same thing, and I have to agree! Bit bassy but I love it. I was so shocked by the sound coming from such a small box!
Well, his chest and arms have tripled in size! He's probably preparing for an on-stage bench press competition with Jony Ive for the Healthbook introduction.
Just checked Spotify; 300+ of my Facebook friends use it. Just downloaded Beats Music; 1 friend (also interested in tech stuff so probably just wanted to see what Apple had purchased).
Beats Music is nothing. Apple definitely made this purchase for the hardware.
Beats Music is nothing. Apple definitely made this purchase for the hardware.
