Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre May Make First Official Appearance at Apple's WWDC
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Excited for this. Iovine as music liaison between Cupertino and the record companies makes a ton of sense. Signed up for Beast Music over the weekend taking advantage of AT&T's 90-day free trial and the app is beautifully designed (especially on iPad) and makes using iTunes seem so 2008 for music consumption.
Note: To the dimwit racist posters both overt and subliminal - Beats Music is not hip-hop only. All genres presented in a beautiful way.
Note: To the dimwit racist posters both overt and subliminal - Beats Music is not hip-hop only. All genres presented in a beautiful way.
Last edited:
I'm assuming you are being sarcastic. If you can't see how the deal will help get Apple TV service off the ground (hint:licensing deals) then I just feel sorry for you and your ilk.
I don't understand the elitist behavior of people chiming in. Maybe Beats' headphones are overpriced for the tech and count on strange integrated processing to make music 'thicker'... However, the Beats Music subscription service is the best I've tried yet. I've used Spotify, rdio, Google Play and Qobuz for prolonged periods of time. The curation feature alone seems to be giving it a leg up even after only three days.
You don't get it? Really? Let me help you out with this people are sick and tired of terrible rap or hip hop music that have come out for the last few years even with the Pop scene. Rap or Hip Hop back in the in day was great because it had poetry and a story todays Rap scene is just about hoes and money not about originality and with Apple attaching themselves with beats a lot of us do not want more mainstream music especially through iTunes Radio which already plagues under some genres like electronic music.
If you grew up with Hip Hop like I did the key is to support the "real" artists that are working harder for less. Just bough Vinny Paz's latest album and will grab more.
I love hip-hop but I dislike Beats for selling headphones with subpar quality for the price. People have a problem with the headphones, not hip-hop. I haven't tried their music subscription service but it sounds like it is actually pretty good.
Regardless, I think this deal will be good for them. It shocked me at first, but I can see the benefits of the deal now. It will probably help Apple TV and iTunes Radio.
Last edited:
I like old skool hip hop or rap music even underground stuff like Schoolboy Q or Kendrick Lamar are fine I hate anything on FM radio dials or on MTV (whenever they play music videos, yeah I know).
You know I have to agree with some of the commentators that i've listened to about Beats and their point that before Beats made over the ear headphones popular again the headphone market was in poor shape.
I can remember when thin and small headphones that invariably sounded like crap were the popular thing. In fact if you went walking down the street with big old headphones on people looked at you funny.
Now everyone wants to deliver some nice cans. I'm thinking about grabbing some House of Marley cans pretty soon. The market would exist but would be different without Beats. I'll give them credit where it's due.
I can remember when thin and small headphones that invariably sounded like crap were the popular thing. In fact if you went walking down the street with big old headphones on people looked at you funny.
Now everyone wants to deliver some nice cans. I'm thinking about grabbing some House of Marley cans pretty soon. The market would exist but would be different without Beats. I'll give them credit where it's due.
Sorry....I had no idea Beats doubled as a hip hop act. Thought it was just hardware and a streaming service.
Give them a chance. If they do become execs, I'm sure they'll even beat John Brownett's record time to retirement from apple. 
In all honesty, I'm not creative enough to see these two guys adding much value to apple. I'm hoping there is more to this setup than meets the (albeit untrained) eye at the moment.
In all honesty, I'm not creative enough to see these two guys adding much value to apple. I'm hoping there is more to this setup than meets the (albeit untrained) eye at the moment.
Most people are only familiar with Beats as a headphone brand. And Beats headphones are often regarded as overly priced junk with no value to the consumer other than being attached to its marketing. Many Apple fans do not want to be associated with that.
Beats was valued at about $1 billion in late 2013. It is hard to see how they tripled their worth in the last 8 months or so. I bet stockholders are concerned that Apple is possibly overpaying by an enormous amount.
The Beats streaming service is often touted as the main reason for the acquisition. But it's not like Apple is buying a seasoned, successful company. Beats subscription service is relatively new and has only 200,000 subscribers. One wonders how much Apple paid per subscriber and how much it can expect to get out of that. The idea, of course, will be to grow the service. But that's a multi-billion dollar gamble.
One big problem Apple has is that the music industry doesn't like how much power Apple managed to get over them by becoming the defacto source for buying music and music devices. The industry has been very reluctant to grant Apple rights to stream music for fear of the same thing happening to streaming. Some have theorized that the "real" reason Apple is acquiring Beats is to get Jimmy Iovine's industry connections and/or all of the music streaming rights. But this makes no sense for two main reasons: 1) Beats and Jimmy will just be seen as a front for Apple. 2) Contracts for rights typically end upon acquisition, or if they don't in this case, they'll typically expire yearly anyway.
This is pretty much what I'm thinking, based on what little I know. I don't think my concerns are completely unreasonable. Of course the executives at Apple are much more business savvy than I am, and they have access to information that we don't have. I have also liked their acquisitions in the past, so I trust them somewhat. Nevertheless I remain very skeptical about this one, especially the price paid for it.