Engadget:
On the streaming side alone, the investment has paid off. Apple has cemented itself as a key player in the most popular way people now listen to music.
Of course, Beats has that massive headphone and speaker business — it’s not all about turning Beats Music into Apple’s own service. After joining Apple, the company would release new headphones, but the fruits of the relationship didn’t blossom until fall 2016. As part of the iPhone 7 reveal, Beats announced that it had three new headphone options in the works. All three would feature the W1 chip that powered Apple’s own true wireless AirPods.
Apple had benefited from Beats’ streaming service, and now Beats headphones were benefiting from Apple’s engineering smarts. The company would follow up a year later with a fourth model that leveraged the power of the W1 chip: the noise-canceling Studio3 Wireless.
The behind the scenes story of this purchase will likely never be known but it was fascinating at the time and continues to bring up a lot of questions as to why Apple is working Beats the way they are. But there’s no doubt it is hugely successful, regardless of your thoughts about the product itself.
You gotta know that Iovine and Dre are very happy with the outcome.
The acquisition was easily ridiculed by people Beats hardware wasn’t being directly marketed to. Sounds like a solid partnership despite the careless naysaying.
“On the streaming side alone, the investment has paid off. Apple has cemented itself as a key player in the most popular way people now listen to music.”
Has it? This presumes that Apple would not have been able to build a streaming service from the ground up for less than it cost to buy Beats. It’s not like Beats subscribers turned into Apple Music subscribers, they got new customers from the ground up because Beats Music was shut down for a while.
“Overall, Beats products have improved over the past five years, and Apple can take most of the credit. ”
Adding this, once again how much value did Beats qua Beats add here? Would Apple have been able to do more for less? Apple’s most successful and iconic headphone line, AirPods, has nothing to do with Beats. Would buying someone like Skullcandy for $300M, improving their headphones and distribution and building a music service from the ground up (or buying a cheaper one and similarly iterating on it) have created as much or more value than the $3B acquisition of Beats.
“On the streaming side alone, the investment has paid off. Apple has cemented itself as a key player in the most popular way people now listen to music.”
Has it? This presumes that Apple would not have been able to build a streaming service from the ground up for less than it cost to buy Beats. It’s not like Beats subscribers turned into Apple Music subscribers, they got new customers from the ground up because Beats Music was shut down for a while.
“Overall, Beats products have improved over the past five years, and Apple can take most of the credit. “
Adding this, once again how much value did Beats qua Beats add here? Would Apple have been able to do more for less? Apple’s most successful and iconic headphone line, AirPods, has nothing to do with Beats. Would buying someone like Skullcandy for $300M, improving their headphones and distribution and building a music service from the ground up (or buying a cheaper one and similarly iterating on it) have created as much or more value than the $3B acquisition of Beats.