Beats’ new Pill+ Bluetooth speaker shows Apple influence

“Well over a year after having been bought by Apple, Beats’ headphones and speakers still look and sound much the same,” Stephen Pulvirent writes for Bloomberg.

MacDailyNews Take: i.e., plasticky and muddy.

“The new Pill+ [$230, due in November] is a Bluetooth speaker that holds on to the core Beats identity while clearly showing some influence from Cupertino,” Pulvirent writes. “The Pill+ is a major improvement over the Pill 2.0, which was last updated in late 2013. It’s a little larger (a little more than 8 inches long and about 2.5 inches tall and deep), but it still has the familiar long, rounded shape and it has four internal speakers.”

“The Pill+ also gets 12 hours of battery life on a three-hour charge, nearly double the Pill 2.0’s 7 hours,” Pulvirent writes. “The build quality is extremely solid and the perforated grill extends all the way around the Pill+, even though the back is actually closed to give the speakers solid grounding. All the buttons are right on top and the ‘b’ branded button is multi-use to minimize clutter on top.”

“The sound is what really shocked me, though. Beats’ headphones are most often criticized for being bass-heavy, but this emphasis wasn’t present at all with the Pill+ during my short test. The low notes were light and clean, with none of the muddiness often found in small speakers. If anything, it was the highs that were a little sharp,” Pulvirent writes. “The only overt nod to Beats’ new parent company is a tiny connector hidden under a flap: a Lightning port. Now you can charge the Pill+ with the same Lightning connecter you use for your iOS devices instead of using the micro-USB more common with Android phones.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: If Apple is now working on the sound quality (de-bassing the things in favor of a more balanced approach), that’s very good news for Beats.