I don't want Apple to be manufacturing crap like that, with such bad bad sound.
You should listen to something with Apple's EarPods and then listen with Beat's urbeats. Even compare with Apple's in-ear phones for a more equivalent price and it's unlikely that Beats won't win in design, quality, and sound.
Couldn't they have just bought this for $500mil and left the headphones out of it? I assume they tried their damndest but to get Iovine, they had to buy the headphones...
The Beats hardware division has high margins, presumably is one of the more profitable parts of the business. It's not a burden even if that might end up being the least interesting component to Apple.
Iovine and Dr. Dre's connections to the music industry are the most valuable part of the deal. If those two took off after the acquisition, Apple would have a fledgling streaming music service and some headphones. That's why Apple got Iovine and Dr. Dre's commitment to stay with Beats.
Whether or not Beats headphones are "any good" -- in terms of audio quality -- is irrelevant. The Beats brand's coolness is driven by Dr. Dre and Iovine's ability to enlist top contemporary talent to promote the brand.
Interestingly, the after-hours stock market is barely registering to the news (+0.03%) so it appears the rumor may have already been baked into the current stock price.
I personally have no opinion on whether it's worth it or not - we really don't know what Apple's plans are (as usual).
I'm only negative on the quality of the Beats headphones - I don't want Apple to be manufacturing crap like that, with such bad bad sound. I would hope Apple would go in the other direction, like Neil Young's Pono project (high-resolution sound).
I'd wager that's why Apple is keeping Beats a separate brand. But I'd also like to say, that sound "quality" is not what's registered on meters but what sounds pleasing to the person hearing it. If Beats strikes a cord with a certain demographic, what's wrong with that? Apple has never produced anything that EVERYONE likes - it would be impossible for any company to do that. Beats offers a brand that is popular with younger kids... and what starts in urban areas eventually spreads to the suburbs then rural areas as well.
Steve Jobs used to go on and on about the high quality of iPod's earbuds and how excellent they sounded - and guess what, they have always just been, meh. They weren't horrible, but they certainly weren't the best on the market, or even near it.
And good to know where my money go when I decide to upgrade my smartphone next time.
The word that seems to be missing from Jason's vocabulary is... accretive, as in, Cook indicated that the Beats deal will close at the end of Apple's fiscal 2014 and will be accretive to earnings in 2015. So those Beats headphones really are a part of the deal, much as his $30,000 per user calculation would value them at $0.00.
You can imagine that Beats premium -priced headphones and earbuds, portable speakers, and car audio products, in the hands of Apple and with Apple's huge global market presence behind them, will sell in even greater quantities than Beats has been able to muster on its own. And now those Beats products you already see in Apple stores will deliver all of their profits to Apple rather than the marginal share Apple gets from selling them in their stores today.
This is really probably more of an acqu-hire. Apple really needs someone like Jimmy Iovine to pick up where Jobs left off negotiating with the media companies. The brand and the streaming service is worth something, but the ability to make the labels and studios happy is an art that can't be managed the same way as fine tuning supply chains and creating great user experiences.
Who do you think managed supply chains for Steve Jobs? You either don't understand what supply chain means or you are clueless about Tim's role in working closely with Steve. Are you serious in you delusion that Steve created all user experiences? And what great experience have you missed out on since his death? What basis do you have that Iovine is going to provide that for you?
Here is another issue to consider, more and more consumers are actually signing up for XM/Sirius and most people listen to music in their cars, and you can access your Sirius account on mobile devices so how many subscription services are people going to pay for.
Perhaps the article could have mentioned Beats Music's recent history. Beats acquired the music service MOG, with the intention to shut it down and replace it with a new service. MOG was regarded as one of the highest-quality streaming music services available (320 kbps), with a very large library of music and compatibility with Sonos music players, among other devices and set top boxes.
Unfortunately, after acquiring MOG, the new Beats Music doesn't stream anywhere near 320 kbps so they can no longer claim they have the best quality streaming. I believe Google Play is among a very short list of services that stream at or above 320 kbps.
Beats is distinguishing itself by curating its playlists, unlike MOG, who distinguished itself by having superior audio quality. I don't find that to be a fair trade.
After Beats revamped and started shutting down MOG, they made sure Sonos and others could continue to stream Beats Music content. Will Apple cut the ability to stream Beats Music on non-Apple devices? I think that would be unfortunate.
Still do not see the value, we all seen it before, music consumers are fickle bunch and they will jump ship with every wind direction change. Over the years look at all the various methods people used to obtain and consume music content. Beats music service and just the new kid on the block and people will get tired of it and move on to the next greatest things someone comes up with.
There is no stickiness with music listeners
That next new thing will first need to sign up the music content owners to acquire a catalog of music. Apple's catalog, last I checked, was on the order of 26 million tracks, which is 26x Pandora's BTW. It will need to offer the content owners something better than what Pandora, for example has negotiated, as Apple came in after Pandora made its deals and made deal that offer more revenue to the record labels and content owners. And then the new entrant will need to create something more compelling than what's on offer from iTunes Radio, which mimics the Pandora model, or Beats, which mimics the Spotify model while adding human playlist curation. Plus the new entrants will need to fight it out with iHeartRadio and others while trying to make a name for themselves while Apple, and to a lesser extent, existing incumbents like Pandora and Spotify, have the mindshare and muscle to take the broad majority of the market. Then the entrant needs to survive having its model usurped by Apple or others, as Apple usurped Pandora's model without acquiring Pandora. So, yes, there will be new ideas, and Apple will be there with its own new ideas right along side and with a war chest to buy up anything that shows promise. I'd say Apple is in the catbird seat, as it has been for over a decade, in terms of the music business.
This is great news! Very exciting possibilities here. And so much whining and troll activity around this issue. It's sad how so many people can't see the potential. I was taken aback initially just like everyone else, but now that there's been a ton of info out there, the only explanation for the continued hyper reactions against the deal is willful ignorance.
Apple pretty much spelled out how they're going to use Beats, and the benefit is obvious. For anyone that still does not understand this deal, you need to watch Jimmy Iovine's interview from All Things D last year, and it should all become much more clear:
All I can say is I hope Jony Ive understands and approves of this deal. One Jony Ive is worth 100 Dr. Dres and 50 Jimmy Iovines IMO. Good luck Apple, whatever you're doing!
Comments
You should listen to something with Apple's EarPods and then listen with Beat's urbeats. Even compare with Apple's in-ear phones for a more equivalent price and it's unlikely that Beats won't win in design, quality, and sound.
Couldn't they have just bought this for $500mil and left the headphones out of it? I assume they tried their damndest but to get Iovine, they had to buy the headphones...
The Beats hardware division has high margins, presumably is one of the more profitable parts of the business. It's not a burden even if that might end up being the least interesting component to Apple.
Iovine and Dr. Dre's connections to the music industry are the most valuable part of the deal. If those two took off after the acquisition, Apple would have a fledgling streaming music service and some headphones. That's why Apple got Iovine and Dr. Dre's commitment to stay with Beats.
Whether or not Beats headphones are "any good" -- in terms of audio quality -- is irrelevant. The Beats brand's coolness is driven by Dr. Dre and Iovine's ability to enlist top contemporary talent to promote the brand.
Interestingly, the after-hours stock market is barely registering to the news (+0.03%) so it appears the rumor may have already been baked into the current stock price.
CWA (Coders with Attitude)? Will be get to learn how to bust a caps lock in someone's ASCII?
I personally have no opinion on whether it's worth it or not - we really don't know what Apple's plans are (as usual).
I'm only negative on the quality of the Beats headphones - I don't want Apple to be manufacturing crap like that, with such bad bad sound. I would hope Apple would go in the other direction, like Neil Young's Pono project (high-resolution sound).
I'd wager that's why Apple is keeping Beats a separate brand. But I'd also like to say, that sound "quality" is not what's registered on meters but what sounds pleasing to the person hearing it. If Beats strikes a cord with a certain demographic, what's wrong with that? Apple has never produced anything that EVERYONE likes - it would be impossible for any company to do that. Beats offers a brand that is popular with younger kids... and what starts in urban areas eventually spreads to the suburbs then rural areas as well.
Steve Jobs used to go on and on about the high quality of iPod's earbuds and how excellent they sounded - and guess what, they have always just been, meh. They weren't horrible, but they certainly weren't the best on the market, or even near it.
Just in time for WWDC !
More than 100 technical sessions presented by Dr Dre !
Screw that... a live performance from a reunited N.W.A. (of course without Eazy-E).
Hah. 110k paid users ~ $30,000 per user.
Nicely done, Tim!
And good to know where my money go when I decide to upgrade my smartphone next time.
The word that seems to be missing from Jason's vocabulary is... accretive, as in, Cook indicated that the Beats deal will close at the end of Apple's fiscal 2014 and will be accretive to earnings in 2015. So those Beats headphones really are a part of the deal, much as his $30,000 per user calculation would value them at $0.00.
You can imagine that Beats premium -priced headphones and earbuds, portable speakers, and car audio products, in the hands of Apple and with Apple's huge global market presence behind them, will sell in even greater quantities than Beats has been able to muster on its own. And now those Beats products you already see in Apple stores will deliver all of their profits to Apple rather than the marginal share Apple gets from selling them in their stores today.
And "acqu-hire" makes no sense at 3 billion if they get sick and die. Someone point me to an acqu-hire anywhere that went for anything like this.
Everyone else..thanks for playing.
Who do you think managed supply chains for Steve Jobs? You either don't understand what supply chain means or you are clueless about Tim's role in working closely with Steve. Are you serious in you delusion that Steve created all user experiences? And what great experience have you missed out on since his death? What basis do you have that Iovine is going to provide that for you?
Here is another issue to consider, more and more consumers are actually signing up for XM/Sirius and most people listen to music in their cars, and you can access your Sirius account on mobile devices so how many subscription services are people going to pay for.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/04/12/can-sirius-xm-tune-in-big-subscriber-growth-this-year/
SAMSUNG'S INFERIOR ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY BECAME MORE INFERIOR WITH THIS APPLE NEWS. :d
$3 billion to upstage Samsung?
Unfortunately, after acquiring MOG, the new Beats Music doesn't stream anywhere near 320 kbps so they can no longer claim they have the best quality streaming. I believe Google Play is among a very short list of services that stream at or above 320 kbps.
Beats is distinguishing itself by curating its playlists, unlike MOG, who distinguished itself by having superior audio quality. I don't find that to be a fair trade.
After Beats revamped and started shutting down MOG, they made sure Sonos and others could continue to stream Beats Music content. Will Apple cut the ability to stream Beats Music on non-Apple devices? I think that would be unfortunate.
Screw that... a live performance from a reunited N.W.A. (of course without Eazy-E).
They were interesting in their time (purely for their controversial message), but NWA today would be a shame.
CWA (Coders with Attitude)? Will be get to learn how to bust a caps lock in someone's ASCII?
Awwwww, yeah BOOOOOY!
Still do not see the value, we all seen it before, music consumers are fickle bunch and they will jump ship with every wind direction change. Over the years look at all the various methods people used to obtain and consume music content. Beats music service and just the new kid on the block and people will get tired of it and move on to the next greatest things someone comes up with.
There is no stickiness with music listeners
That next new thing will first need to sign up the music content owners to acquire a catalog of music. Apple's catalog, last I checked, was on the order of 26 million tracks, which is 26x Pandora's BTW. It will need to offer the content owners something better than what Pandora, for example has negotiated, as Apple came in after Pandora made its deals and made deal that offer more revenue to the record labels and content owners. And then the new entrant will need to create something more compelling than what's on offer from iTunes Radio, which mimics the Pandora model, or Beats, which mimics the Spotify model while adding human playlist curation. Plus the new entrants will need to fight it out with iHeartRadio and others while trying to make a name for themselves while Apple, and to a lesser extent, existing incumbents like Pandora and Spotify, have the mindshare and muscle to take the broad majority of the market. Then the entrant needs to survive having its model usurped by Apple or others, as Apple usurped Pandora's model without acquiring Pandora. So, yes, there will be new ideas, and Apple will be there with its own new ideas right along side and with a war chest to buy up anything that shows promise. I'd say Apple is in the catbird seat, as it has been for over a decade, in terms of the music business.
This is great news! Very exciting possibilities here. And so much whining and troll activity around this issue. It's sad how so many people can't see the potential. I was taken aback initially just like everyone else, but now that there's been a ton of info out there, the only explanation for the continued hyper reactions against the deal is willful ignorance.
Apple pretty much spelled out how they're going to use Beats, and the benefit is obvious. For anyone that still does not understand this deal, you need to watch Jimmy Iovine's interview from All Things D last year, and it should all become much more clear:
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/5/9/music-and-curation
+infinity
It'll be interesting to see if any 1st tier Apple employees, who are connected with this deal, walk over the next few months.