Apple Reportedly Buying Beats Electronics For $3.2 Billion 198
An anonymous reader writes "Multiple publications report that Apple is undertaking its biggest acquisition ever, buying Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion. The deal would give Apple control over the popular 'Beats by Dre' headphones as well as a new music streaming service. Analysts suggest the headphones will open up a new series of product lines for Apple, while the streaming service will jumpstart its efforts to compete with Pandora and Spotify, as iTunes' growth slows. 'If Apple wanted to, it could certainly have built a streaming subscription service itself; the company had been floating the notion of one with label executives in recent months. But it's possible that Apple's most recent attempts to extend its music business beyond the iTunes store helped convince Cook that he was better off getting outside help.' The deal hasn't been completed yet, but a candid video of Dr. Dre was posted to Facebook in which he appeared to confirm it."
Overpriced snake oil salesmen (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Overpriced snake oil salesmen (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Overpriced snake oil salesmen (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Overpriced snake oil salesmen (Score:3)
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And that is different from Apple how ?
Ohhh thats right they are perfect for each other.
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The can buy Monster cables next.
Monster actually used to manufacture Beats [gizmodo.com].
Re:Overpriced snake oil salesmen (Score:5, Informative)
Right. I continue to be baffled by people that will buy crappy headphones with some random musicians name on them and think they'll in any way sound good.
In speakers, size matters. Yes, you can get big crappy sounding speakers. But the one thing you'll never get small good sounding speakers. Laws of physics and all. This is also why Bose sucks and have been conning guys that watch infomercials for decades.
If you want affordable, good sounding speakers, you have to build them yourself. Get one of versions of these:
https://sites.google.com/site/... [google.com]
They don't have a huge amount of bass, but I'm betting they will be the best speaker most slashdotters have ever heard. And you can put them together with wood glue, scotch tape and a soldering iron.
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Under those circumstances, a fairly teeny driver can beat up on your eardrum quite convincingly indeed, a great deal more effectively than a driver of similar size running i
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Personally, I feel you should just give up on headphones. You're never going to get good bass response
I agree with everything you've said, but it's worth noting that if you need to use headphones, better is still better than not better. I recently picked up a Motorola S11 Flex HD [amazon.com] bluetooth headset, to listen to podcasts while exercising and doing yardwork, and I found that it takes far less mental concentration to listen to voices when the bass is better (the last headset I had had awful bass). I don't kn
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Right. I continue to be baffled by people that will buy crappy headphones with some random musicians name on them and think they'll in any way sound good.
Agreed.
In speakers, size matters. Yes, you can get big crappy sounding speakers. But the one thing you'll never get small good sounding speakers. Laws of physics and all. This is also why Bose sucks and have been conning guys that watch infomercials for decades.
Again, I agree. Bose takes it to a whole new level of suck though. They never post specs, and have sued enough reviewers over the years that most won't even mention them. There have been people who posted specs on their systems from time to time and they are astonishingly bad. I read somewhere that a replacement paper cone "woofer" in their satellite systems will set you back $12. Quality stuff that is.
If you want affordable, good sounding speakers, you have to build them yourself. Get one of versions of these: https://sites.google.com/site/... [google.com]
I suppose it depends on your definition of affordable. But building the cabinets yourself is by no
Re:Overpriced snake oil salesmen (Score:4, Funny)
If you want affordable, good sounding speakers, you have to build them yourself. Get one of versions of these: https://sites.google.com/site/... [google.com]
I'm going to look really funny wearing those on the bus though.
3.2 B (Score:5, Insightful)
For overpriced technically inferior headphones to listen to compressed to hell music.
Wake me when apple gets a quality pair of headphones and at least cd quality loss-less without DRM.
Re:3.2 B (Score:5, Informative)
Amen! I finally had a chance to listen to music using Beats. To be fair I gave it a minute or two of listening and came to the conclusion the Sennheiser headphones I bought from Best Buy were much better and 75% cheaper.
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Agreed ! I love my Senn's 380Pros (and Sony MDR 7506s); there are LOTS of GOOD choices under $200 these days.
1. Audio Technica ATH-M50
2. Jaybird Bluebuds X
3. V-Moda Crossfade LP
4. Grado SR80i
5. Beyerdynamic Custom Pro One
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Here is one review of the: Beats Pro vs Audio Technica ATH-M50
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
IMHO Beats is like Bose. Overpriced, and blows.
--
First Contact is coming 2024. Are you ready to handle the next paradigm shift and evolution in consciousness
Re:3.2 B (Score:5, Funny)
If you think that 256 kbps AAC is "compressed to hell" you probably have a place at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters as some sort of bat-themed superhero.
Re:3.2 B (Score:5, Insightful)
Different meaning. In audio circles, compression is a technique used during mastering to make the sound louder without inducing clipping artifacts by selectively amplifying the quieter portions of the audio.
Re:3.2 B (Score:5, Informative)
Re:3.2 B (Score:5, Interesting)
Different meaning. In audio circles, compression is a technique used during mastering to make the sound louder without inducing clipping artifacts by selectively amplifying the quieter portions of the audio.
You're right about the ambiguity of the phrase "compressed to hell", but since the GGP then stated talking about "at least cd quality loss-less" I think he really was talking about the lossy file-size compression.
To the GGP: Try testing yourself at mp3ornot.com if you think you can hear the difference.
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mp3ornet tests if you can hear the difference between 128 and 320 not lossy and lossless. They do not specify what the source was to start out with either. I was talking about lossy vs lossless, the pop music that is compressed to hell I put as a choice by the sound engineer. Consider that you can get 24 bit 96k audio even in 5.1 and 7.1 uncompressed or loss-less why buy an inferior product it's not like storage or bandwidth are an issue for audio.
Are you the guy that is ok with compressed to hell cable
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Yo dawg, I heard you hate compression, so I put some compression in your compression so you can hear artifacts in your artifacts.
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[quote]You can use 256kbps to carry well-engineered sound or over-compressed pop crap. The bits don't care.[/quote]
Yeah, but if you use "clear-o-shine" and polish it into the surface of the bits then the audio quality will be far superior! /me ducks and runs for cover
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yeah, bring back the small black patches you attach to your equipment to make it sound better, and oxygen free cables that only work in one direction.
The Dre stuff is about a lifestyle, a lifestyle that does not include musical appreciation it seems from the shit reproduction quality of the headphones. They look quite nice though.
Reminds me of when ghetto blasters changed from portable boxes that could play music to funfair theme ride decorated light boxes, funny as heck.
Keeps the youth entertained though a
Re:3.2 B (Score:5, Insightful)
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My favorite is the cell phone speaker and it tucked into there baseball cap.
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I have an open Sennheisers that sound great, but by design others in the room can hear the music. Now if the Beats' phones are supposed to be closed and this happens, that's bad. Never heard of Beats and have no desire to try listening to a pair.
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Wake me when apple gets a quality pair of headphones and at least cd quality loss-less without DRM.
Why? This is perfectly in line with the rest of Apples products.
If you want quality products that aren't overpriced there are other brands already available.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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He who pays the piper calls the tune.
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But you have no place calling yourself an 'engineer' if you don't have the will and ability to stand up to the boss/client and say 'No.'
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That sounds like a perfect fit for technically inferior "free" (goog | fb) products with fake security that spy on you and report everything back to (goog | fb) .
ftfy
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It doesn't even require that level of sophistication. Within a mix, if you aren't using some kind of normalization, older music often just sounds quieter and requires increasing the level.
Beats sound like garbage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Beats sound like garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
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Now THAT I would pay extra for.
Re:Beats sound like garbage (Score:4, Funny)
Apple and beats? Sounds like a badly conceived pie.
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Re:Beats sound like garbage (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, easy there. They must be good. They were developed by a Dr.
Pardon me while I put on my Doc Martens to go get a Dr. Pepper.
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I really don't know what they are touting, but the HP Touchpad that died at birth, had beats audio. It has surprising good quality speaker sound for a tablet. I am guessing that may be a portion of what they bought.
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It's sad that Palm died; but it's downright tragic that Android, rather than WebOS, is the de-facto alternative to iOS. WebOS is a howling wasteland devoid of apps, and the builds that actually run on much of anything are too old to use really safely; but (especially for tablet-size UIs) it was embarassingly superior to Android.
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I agree with that. My wife still uses hers, with cynogenmod though. It has a few cracks in the plastic, but covered that up with a cheap silicone case. WebOS was awesome, and much more friendly than Android or IOS. Shame it was not allowed to keep going.
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that bitch got no PHD,
I lost count of mine,
I got stupid whack degrees.
-Stephen Hawking
Re:Beats sound like garbage (Score:5, Informative)
Reference audio isn't for everyone, and can be a bit flat when you have a lot of background noise. I'd suggest something like £20 on a pair of nice Sennheiser PX100s. Entry level price, but pleasingly and enthusiastically overcooked sound.
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I couldn't walk down the street wearing my AKG K701 headphones, it would look bloody ridiculous
just like beats!
your music sucks, and you're stoooopid (Score:2)
Exactly like what happened when we got cable news channels, with 24-hour coverage allowing us to delve more deeply into the important issues of the day.
fsck, my sarcasm meter just broke.
Re:Beats sound like garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
First: studio headphones are optimized for different environments than consumer headphones. This often includes sensitivity and impedance designed for professional audio levels and drivers, something that standard consumer electronics commonly will not drive properly. Try driving a 600 ohm headphone with 90dB/mW sensitivity on a common smartphone.
Second: studio headphones aren't designed to listen to _music_, they are designed for listening to _sound_. It may be a surprise to many so called "audiophiles" and other elitists that that isn't the same thing - a sound engineer have to be able to hear things clearly in order to adjust mixing and levels for the desired result. Real people listening to real music doesn't need this level of analytic detail and often don't want it. That's the reason one can buy headphones optimized for different listeners and genres - some want a balanced sound, some want voices to be somewhat clearer and many want bass to enhanced. This also includes the "audiophile" gear BTW, not that the fanatics would ever admit to that.
Third: studio headphones are most of the time overpriced for consumer uses. This is partly because the manufacturers can price them higher given the target market and partly because they are designed to tolerate abuse. Also they often are looking quite shitty.
That said Beats are at least generally overpriced shit. There are many better alternatives for much less, just go to "non-audiophile" forums and learn.
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Second: studio headphones aren't designed to listen to _music_, they are designed for listening to _sound_. It may be a surprise to many so called "audiophiles" and other elitists that that isn't the same thing
"An audiophile is someone who listens to his stereo rather than his music."
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LOL. That's a fantastic joke! Here's another one:
"When I die I hope my wife sells my speakers for what they're worth rather than what I told her I paid for them." :-)
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Beats are a fashion accessory, not a critical listening device.
That's what confuses me about this - Apple is sure to like fashion accessories, but people buy it for the brand, so how likely would they change if they became iHeadphones. I don't know if Apple makes headphones already, so this might be just them trying to get that market.
By the way, studio headphones are great when you need to hear the details of audio like when you're mixing sound, but they don't necessarily give the best listening experience. Sometimes headphones or a good sound system can improve a
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Agreed 100%.
I wore out my MDR 7506s using them over 10 years; I finally upgraded to the Senns 380 Pro.
These Velour Earpads breathed new life into my MDR 7506s. Soft, smooth, and ultra comfortable:
* http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/... [bhphotovideo.com]
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like the venerable Sony MDR-7509s
Looks like the '09's aren't in production now. The 7506 [amazon.com] appears to be the most popular, accurately reproduces 20-20, can fold, and has decent sound isolation. From what I'm reading on a bunch of reviews, if you need a half dozen studio headsets, you go buy a box of these and scatter them around and everybody is happy. I put a 7510 [amazon.com] on my wishlist, though - better sound isolation, more comfort, 5-40 response, and - and this is something you learn over time - the word "
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Long way from Compton (Score:5, Funny)
Dre's gonna be the first hip-hop billionaire.
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All About the Salmon P Chase's
Re:Long way from Compton (Score:4, Informative)
He's a billionaire straight outta Compton -- or so Dr. Dre says, anyway. [cnn.com]
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Yeah, that is odd. Mods here are an odd bunch.
</hipster> I remember listening to NWA when I was in the Army in the mid 80's. Never thought any of those guys would end up anywhere other than San Quentin. And now Dre's a billionaire.
Good fit (Score:2, Insightful)
2 fashion companies disguised as electronics companies.
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In general iPods, iPhones, and iPads are also better-than-average quality, with some famous exceptions.
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That's true, but I can hardly blame them. So long as the product is decent, what do I care? I'm just glad that people are buying nicer stuff - it forces the whole market to up the quality game. It's not just Apple - remember how many nicer flip phones became available got once Motorola showed that people would pay a little extra for the Razor? And of course look at how Toyota and Honda changed the small car game. Prius is now doing the same for hybrids, and perhaps Tesla for electrics.
Thing Thugs Will Beat You For (Score:5, Funny)
"Thing Thugs Will Beat You For" for $200 Alex.
---
1> Apple products are the what the thugs want around here, most only threaten or beat you, some use hand guns.
2> Those beats headphones got popular and are now being targeted by thugs.
3> Apple see's another market for repeat (re-beat?) customers.
4> Profit!
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Just goes to show... (Score:5, Informative)
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
-H.L. Mencken (paraphrased)
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No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
Which is why most smartphones run Android. No denyin' I ain't lyin'
That was what you meant, right Sparky?
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Which is why most smartphones run Android.
What, an operating system that exists solely to gather data for the largest player in the advertising world? :p
Oh come on! (Score:2)
"Ok, sign here...and here...and...here. Well, Congratulations! You bought yourself a 3 billion dollar company!"
"Thanks! Ok, where's the girl?"
"Pardon me?"
"The girl. That Emilly Ratsomehing"
"Sir, she is a supermodel and did not get sold as part of the deal."
"WHERE'S MY ACCOUNTANT?!?!?"
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Beats also owns rights to a lot of music for streaming. That's probably the killer part of the deal.
Re:how much is a name worth? (Score:4, Funny)
Hey man, when you dis Dre you just dis yourself.
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Don't understand it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand this deal yet, but my problem isn't with Beats headphones being a "rip off". That's not the issue for me. The larger issue for me is, I don't see why Apple couldn't have simply produced their own rip-off headphones if they wanted to, or their own music streaming service. They have the technical ability. They have the design and marketing talent. So what are they getting out of the deal?
I would imagine that this is either a waste of money, or there's some other calculation. Like maybe record labels have been trying to bend Apple over a barrel when they ask for streaming rights, and in this deal, Apple acquires the streaming rights that Beats had, thereby side-stepping the deal. Or maybe Apple looked at the organization and thought it was a good team as a whole, and rather than trying to steal the employees away one-by-one, they thought it was better to purchase them outright. There's always the explanation that they were buying the customer base, but I'm not sure that'll hold once they rebrand and integrate-- and I would be surprised if they didn't rebrand and integrate it into their existing products/services.
I don't know. Does anyone have info here that would shed light on the real motivation? Or has Apple just started buying random businesses because they're profitable, without a larger strategic plan?
Re:Don't understand it. (Score:5, Insightful)
An existing very well recognized brand, existing supply chains and contracts for producing "premium" headphones, and existing streaming service with deals with all major record labels and many independent labels.
Could Apple have reached the same point cheaper if they did it all themselves? Probably. Would it have been as fast? No.
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True. And no doubt Apple learned from the Apple Maps fiasco - if you're going to compete out of the gate with existing, popular, feature complete installations... you need to be as close to feature complete as possible out of the gate yourself.
message to the studios... (Score:3)
buying beats is also a bit of a threat/warning to the studios.
they are making money from the on demand model, but they aren't allowing apple to play in the space because they want to break itune's monopoly.
by buying beats, apple is saying, look, now we own beats. you want to keep fucking with us, we'll own spotify and pandora too. fuck you.
now sit down with us and let's make this on demand music thing work and stop trying to erode itunes dominance.
that's how i see it.
plus they get an solid brand with a soli
Re:Don't understand it. (Score:4, Insightful)
An existing very well recognized brand, existing supply chains and contracts for producing "premium" headphones, and existing streaming service with deals with all major record labels and many independent labels.
Could Apple have reached the same point cheaper if they did it all themselves? Probably. Would it have been as fast? No.
I think (and from all the up voted comments, I think a lot of people here don't really get this deal) Apple doesn't care about the headphones.
Beats has a subscription audio service, and a bunch of engineers who are good at making those services work. They have existing contracts for that service, which saves Apple a lot of time they could have spent negotiating and dealing with music labels who want to see Apple brought down a peg.
The headphones are a nice added bonus for Apple (think of the profit margin on those things), and they probably inflated the buyout price, but they really have nothing to do with the big reasons for this deal.
Pandora would have been a reasonable alternative as well, but Pandora is a much more expensive buyout than Beats.
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Buzzfeed, (The Beats Audio of blogspam) has a great article on how it's about hiring Jimmy Iovine.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/peterlauria/apples-beats-deal-is-all-about-bringing-music-mogul-jimmy-io
"As part of the $3.2 billion deal to acquire Beats, legendary music executive Jimmy Iovine is expected to join Apple in a “creative role.” The deal is essentially the biggest music industry acqui-hire."
Also here:
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/08/beats-jimmy-iovine-join-apple/
"Beats Electronics boss and
Brand (Score:2)
They get a trendy well established brand name. They get the Dr. Dre. They get the perceived quality (200$ headphones? rly?). They get to reinforce their dominance as a music production company (ipods, iphones).
Is it worth 3+ BILLION? Hell no! However A) Beats is pretty uniquely placed right now. They are at their peak and no one is like them. B) News! Tech company overpays for another company! OMG! When you have a bazillion dollars, you likely have to prove as a CEO you are doing something with it other th
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I don't understand this deal yet, but my problem isn't with Beats headphones being a "rip off". That's not the issue for me. The larger issue for me is, I don't see why Apple couldn't have simply produced their own rip-off headphones if they wanted to, or their own music streaming service. They have the technical ability. They have the design and marketing talent. So what are they getting out of the deal?
Apple doesn't develop tech from scratch, they buy it in or just buy the company that makes it, and then add their own design on top. They bought the company that makes their ARM CPUs. They bought in the click wheel and 1.8" hard drives for the iPod. They use off-the-shelf radios in their phones. Their PCs are based on standard hardware but come in a fancy case.
Apple does design and software. When they need hardware, they buy it. They obviously want Beats audio hardware. To me the interesting question is why
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Apple does design and software. When they need hardware, they buy it.
That's not entirely true. It's sort of true, in the sense that many hardware vendors don't create all their own components, but Apple does develop their own hardware (and related technology) to some extent. For example, yes, they bought the ARM manufacturer, but now they have continued to advance that in-house. They developed methods for building better Aluminum cases, and now apparently are doing the same thing for sapphire screens. Many of the components for laptop, desktops, iPods, iPads, and iPhones
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The deal doesn't make sense to me, but presumably it would involve Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine being contracted to stay for some minimum amount of time, which brings a lot of clout (esp. Iovine) in the music biz.
The $3.2B price if true seems insane though. Between 2012 and 2013 Beats bought out HTC's 50% ownership for a total of $415M (25% in 2012 for $150M, 25% in 2013 for $265). So, if half the company is worth $415M, the whole thing should be worth closer to $430M, not $3.2B!
Re: Don't understand it. (Score:2)
Like maybe record labels have been trying to bend Apple over a barrel when they ask for streaming rights, and in this deal, Apple acquires the streaming rights that Beats had, thereby side-stepping the deal.
Yes. You hit the nail on its head. Beats music is a direct derivative of MOG, and they had a 16 million track music catalog. Apple is already in the music on demand business and subscription music service is the next logical evolution. This subscription service will be wholly incorporated into iTunes, and $10/mo will get you access to 16 million iTunes tracks. You'll of course still have the option to buy the track, but who would what to do that? The record label's royalties are going to be significantly im
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What Apple is getting, as you noted, is access to a streaming music catalog. The labels has no incentive to cut Apple a reasonable deal if Apple wanted to create such a service. While the bulk of the deal is officially for the headphones,
Innovation? No, marketing.. (Score:2)
Innovative marketing move. Expect a set of Apple-branded cans with builtin iPod/WiFi and voice control. Not rocket science.
Most of their headphones are crap. (Score:2)
If Apple does buy them, they should replace the plastic bands on the other models with metal with leather cushion like what you find on the Executive. For the price they share, they should not break during normal use within a year.
I had a pair of Dr. Dre Wireless break on
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For the price they share, they should not break during normal use within a year.
Check out Beyerdynamic's Pro line. They look good and are built like a tank. The Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro are around $150-200, comfortable for long use, have an excellent sound signature, good isolation, and can pump out an enormous, gorgeously detailed bass if your music asks them for it.
Does This Mean Apple Will Spam My Blog? (Score:2)
There was a time when I got more Beats By Dre comment spam on my blog than any other single spam subject...
Beets! (Score:3, Funny)
Tax Benefits/Profit Taking? (Score:2)
Anyone care to enlighten us on which international subs will be forking over the money, and how the transaction will be structured to avoid paying any taxes?
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