“When Apple announced it was acquiring Beats in 2014, lots of critics scoffed… Why was the most valuable, competent and profitable tech company on earth prepared to spend $3 billion—by far the most it had ever paid in an acquisition—to get Beats?” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for AppleInsider.
“Apple only acquired Beats three years ago. It’s already directly generated two solid new hits: Apple Music and AirPods, as well as a portfolio of revamped Beats products and the retooled audio performance across all of Apple’s Mac and iOS devices,” Dilger writes. “The significant lead in audio performance that HP, HTC and Amazon were once touting at the beginning of this decade has evaporated away.”
“That major shift in audio savvy not only demonstrates Apple’s incredible competence in selecting, engaging and implementing strategic acquisitions, but also suggests that the company has the ability to do similar things in the future to surpass rivals who have a temporary edge in specific technologies,” Dilger writes. “Apple has been consistently catching up and surpassing rivals, largely driven by well-considered strategic acquisitions.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple overpaid for Beats, but if that’s what it took to get Iovine & Dre on board and ramp up Apple Music, not to mention the ancillary revenue from Beats’ middling-to-worse / now-improving in sound quality headphone business, what does Apple care? $3 billion is pocket change to the Cupertino colossus.
“Remember that Apple only acquired Beats three years ago. It’s already directly generated two solid new hits: Apple Music and AirPods, as well as a portfolio of revamped Beats products and the retooled audio performance across all of Apple’s Mac and iOS devices. The significant lead in audio performance that HP, HTC and Amazon were once touting at the beginning of this decade has evaporated away.”
The deal that already paid for itself with sales of Beats audio products aka. Headphones…. duh…
Beats – overrated and overpriced.
Clearly you don’t understand about buyer perception and sales which as they are King perhaps you should. Probably not difficult to check out both however no matter what we think about fidelity. After all B&O have been fooling the market for years and on a financially massive scale too.
My ears know what sound is. Why can’t you understand that?
Your ears hear nothing. You hear with your brain, the single most variable organ in our bodies. What you hear is not what anyone else hears, so what you know is that your brain doesn’t like beats, but that has nothing to do with anyone else’s brain. Since our brains mingle all sensory input, perhaps yours doesn’t care about style, while others do.
Huh?
The new Beats studio seems pretty good, and I haven’t at all been a fan of Beats up till now.
Daniel Eran Dilger is normally one of the few insightful observers. Does he explain why AirPods could not have been developed by Apple without Beats? What does the $3 billion spent on a company known mostly for bad audio and an association with foul mouthed rappers bragging about raping women?
I think Apple could have developed the industry’s best audio products without wasting $3 billion. And I detest the association of Apple with the culturally and morally depraved world of rap music.
I tend to agree with you but it will have saved them a lot of time and effort and as I mention above perception and sales are different to actual audio quality. Apple has improved on that so benefits are both ways and Beats will due to its brand help them in myriad ways as markets develop. In recent times Apple have hardly suggested their ability to develop new products is a taken. Finally what ever one thinks of Beats quality it has a market, youth appeal and brand impact in the precise areas Apple needs to tune into and greater experience in appealing to those audiences. So we probably should not be too snooty about their ability to contribute.
Spy, indeed, time is money.
Very hard to say what trade secret IP in the works was in place at Beats that Apple might have wanted.
Does anyone know if Dre and Iovine have really helped ramp up anything at Apple?
Nothing worth spending your money, but Apple’s hipness quotient jumped 30 points.
They ramped up their bank accounts.
Beats was a tragic waste of money and enriching the abuser Dre or hanger on Iovine just makes it worse.
“sneak attack on the future of sound…”
And in so doing destroyed sound as we know it…
Sneak attack on Apple as it was intended. Tim Cook is no friend of Apple, he’s just milking the cow.
Apple destroyed music when they helped normalize MP3s as the defacto way to listen to music.
Precisely, then add Beats…
Destroyed sound how? The analysis of HomePod I’ve read says the things it is doing with sound are normally only found in speakers worth two thousand bucks or more. Audio engineers are amazed by HomePod, seems like they might know what they’re talking about.
How about it ships first and we judge for ourselves? Also, if Homepod is like Beats, then we should be sceptical.
The sound portion of HomePod has already been demonstrated and the technical details are available. That’s enough for engineers to weigh in, and they’re impressed. Is it possible HomePod sucks as a speaker? I suppose, but given what engineers (who know better then you or I) have said I don’t think that is a likely outcome.
It could be sensational, but how about judging for ourselves?
Then there’s the matter of “how sensational”, by which I mean price/performance.
I’m sure no matter how good HomePod is it won’t be good for you apple *cynic*.
And for you it will be what? No matter what.
Assuming HomePod is as good as reviewers and engineers have said, it will be useful to me, as long as the sound is as good as people who have already tested HomePods are saying it is. From what I’ve read two HomePods working together could be better than my current audio set up, with much less hassle (and additional features), and cheaper at $700 for two HomePods. I will listen to the speaker myself and make a final judgment, but I have no reason to believe everyone who has tested HomePods thus far is lying. You seem to be assuming that everyone is lying about how good the sound is and you are dismissing the analysis of very qualified engineers when it comes to the audio tech inside the HomePod. The consensus is that it is very impressive for the price point.
And I blindly believe almost nobody. Will it be better than my B&W A7? Maybe. But I already have it.
There’s no blind belief involved here. The HomePod has been reviewed by people more qualified to talk about sound and audio tech than you or I, and the consensus is that they’re impressed. Reserving final judgment for myself has nothing to do with blindly believing anything. What is wrong with you?
I just realized the B&W A7 speaker is $600 to $800. Two HomePods for about the same price might actually beat that.
What part of I already have it are you missing?
I didn’t miss anything. You were talking about “how sensational” the HomePod might be with regard to price and performance, and the answer based on your current audio experience with your B&W A7 may be that the HomePod is as good or better for the same price point. Given that you can buy two HomePods for the same price my theory would be it is a better value than what you bought.
Interesting that this guy joined Apple in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomlinson_Holman
PS-See my answer to R2 below.
See VHS most people don’t care, most of the high sound devices and companies selling them went the way of the Dodo long before Apple came along.
And I care what most people care about why?
lol…Beats…forgot all about that Pipeline Timmy fiasco.
” … but also suggests that the company has the ability to do similar things in the future to surpass rivals who have a temporary edge in specific technologies,”
I seem to feel that the word “Netflix” is bobbing about somewhere in that thought process.
If one can prove that AirPods wouldn’t have happened without Beats, then I agree. AirPods alone were with a $3 billion investment. I swear it’s the least talked about revolutionary product Apple has ever produced. That Cupertino is able to sell them for only $160 is extraordinary.
But I don’t see how you can make that case, unfortunately. AirPods were probably in the pipeline before the acquisition. At best perhaps someone or some technology from Beats helped get the design team over a big hump.
How many AirPods will Apple have to sell to match their 3 billion dollar “investment”? Can you do the math?
18,867,925 AirPods…but that last one would be a little profit because I rounded up lol.
It must be hard to know so much. I’ve heard that Apple can’t wait to replace Tim Cook with you and Botty.
Can I share that dream?
What the hell do I care? I have them and I love them. That’s all that matters.
Excellent and, no sarcasm, good for you.
And yet, Windows, with there audio enhancement software built in, still sounds better than the simple, default, not all that, audio of the Mac. Software always wins over hardware.
Devin Prater Assistive Technology instructor in training, JAWS Sertified.
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Does anyone really think Apple wanted the Beats Headphones division? They wanted Beats Music streaming service. This was probably an all or nothing deal. If anything, Apple has only improved the beats headphones by introducing higher quality and the W1 chip. Apple is not know for buying companies to increase their revenue. They buy talent that can improve their products and I don’t think Beats Headphones did that, Beats Music yes but not headphones.
Beats Headphones is a money making freebie. Still the highest selling headphone manufacturer in the US.
Beats manufactures nothing and it is all done overseas. That would make your statement doubly wrong, thus wrong and wrong again.
What are you saying? Apple doesn’t make iPhones because they are made overseas and subcontracted? Irrelevant.
I think Beats headphones sound better then Sennheiser and B&O, is that crazy?
Depends. Which model Beats? Which model Sennheiser?
Yes, you are batshit crazy. The bass on beats phones is atrocious, and the high end is tinny and fatiguing to the ear. You can do much better for no more dinero.
Of course when we have a generation of music streamers who haven’t heard a vocal that wasn’t computer pitch corrected or an instrument that wasn’t edited via computer to 100% dynamic range from start to finish, then lossy compressed into DRM laden streaming crap tracks and then played back via even more lossy bluetooth … of course any audio equipment will do.
Is Beats still inserting dummy weights into their cheap plastic headphones to make them feel like an acoustic engineer actually braced the enclosures?
Beats was a profitable company when Apple bought them, went compared to Amazon and Netflix.
I have no inside on this
But the development of Beats looks like a complete inside Apple job to reinvent iTunes.
Sorry, have I missed something? Was the sneak attack so stealthy that no one noticed it.
I do worry about DED sometimes, I wonder if he holidays in the Netherlands and spends his time tilting at windmills. It was generally accepted that Apple purchased Beats in order to enable Apple Music. I very much doubt that Apple needed to purchase Beats to be able to release wireless earbuds.
Itunes may not have been totally ruined by Apple’s decision to merge Beats music subscription into it, but it definitely was a bad move. It delayed many desperately needed fixes to iTunes music management. No other app causes as many spinning beachballs.