“Beats Electronics, which Apple acquired for $3 billion last year, was working on a Wifi-connected loudspeaker that could be used to play subscription music services straight from the Internet, according to multiple sources familiar with the project,” Janko Roettgers reports for Variety. “That would have put Beats in direct competition with Sonos, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based speaker manufacturer succeeding with a very Apple-like product lineup.”
“Insiders say that the company ran into numerous problems, switching chipset vendors along the line, and postponing the project’s launch date more than once,” Roettgers reports. “Given these issues, Apple made the call to scrap the project, according to some sources, while another source close to Apple said it was put on hiatus due to a joint decision of executives at both Beats and Apple.”
“The product was supposed to be introduced in time for the holidays last year, but was effectively killed post acquisition,” Roettgers reports. “‘Right now, they’re fully focused on mobile,’ said a Sonos spokesperson when asked about Apple Music coming to Sonos. That statement seems to ring true for Apple’s hardware plans as well — but in turn, the company is risking losing the living room to others.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Maybe the poor Wi-Fi speaker team were also trying to use discoveryd?
Regardless, Apple doesn’t have to do everything. They can own Internet TV without making TV sets. And they can own music without making loudspeakers. Plus, given their last crack at making speakers…