This makes even less sense than the Square acquisition rumor.
1. Apple has the tech and library to do their own subscription service if they want to. You think they can't do their own licensing deal? They surely don't need to pay $3B to acquire someone else's.
2. Apple wouldn't want to operate a cross-platform service. They'd pay a huge premium to acquire a bunch of Android customers than they'd promptly purge. Plus, it'd probably invite anti-trust scrutiny.
3. The argument about Beats headphone quality is moot. Even if it's more than just marketing / bass-heavy EQ, Apple would not pay $3B to acquire headphone technology.
None of that makes any sense at all. I have to believe someone thinks Beats and Square are interesting to Apple because their products have a certain superficial Apple design aesthetic. But it makes no sense from a business model standpoint.
Or maybe Apple's doing some kind of next-level mole hunt here to level-up on secrecy.
It simultaneously gets rid of people that leak to the press as well as anyone working for the company that hears something like that and not only believes it, but doesn't speak out against it.
Update on my comment: After reading this article over at Daily Dot there are maybe some flaws in my assumptions.[1]
1. Apple might actually need to acquire a team to do better licensing deals with the music (and TV/movie?) industry. Beats, I didn't realize, has some incredible people involved and has a lot of industry buy-in. That sets it apart from Spotify, etc. even though it has no subscribers.
2. Maybe Apple does want to buy a brand. The Beats brand has a lot of pull with communities where Apple doesn't, especially African-Americans. They may see it as an opportunity to upsell them from Android to Apple products.
3. Maybe Apple does need a cross-platform service to do the deals it needs. Like they did with iTunes on Windows back in the day. They get that, without any awkward "iTunes for Android"
4. Beats' headphones business is totally not Apple's approach.. yet? Right now it's more like Monster Cable, commodity product dressed up with sales & marketing & cachet. But what's to stop Apple from improving the quality of the brand? Apple-designed Beats headphones could be something very special. (But that is the weirdest part of this.. Monster is the antithesis of Apple and Apple's never done sub-brands. Maybe they literally bought them just for the preceding reasons.)
I hope they are "doing some kind of next-level mole hunt to level-up on secrecy" here. I do not see any value in Beats other than a superficial fashion trend that has already run its course.
A cynic would say the same about the iphone. I think there's a good fit here - the same kind of people buy both, so there's lots of opportunity for cross-promotion.
But not $3 billion+ worth of opportunity. If all they wanted was cross-promotion there are plenty of ways to do that without buying the company outright. If Apple wanted to get into the fashionable accessories market they have enough brand clout to do so on their own, without having to buy an existing player.
> You think they can't do their own licensing deal?
When you are the richest guy in town it is hard to negotiate a good deal. It is probably much smarter to just buy Beats. If they bought Spotify, they would be stuck supporting Android and Windows customers.
The $3B price probably reflects the current profitability of the headphone line. For what it is worth, audio brands seem to have staying power. I am not sure if the quality criticisms are a positive or negative value signal personally.
Other services (like spotify) have tended to have clauses in their licenses saying something like "If you get acquired, the deal is cancelled and you have to renegotiate it" so that the record companies can prevent exactly this from happening. I would be surprised if Beats doesn't as well.
That means that it doesn't matter if Apple (or anyone else) buys someone who already has a deal - the previous terms go away and the record companies get to start the negotiations all over again.
True, but if they have a system ready to roll and are in a good negotiation position (iTunes is effectively a monopoly) it puts a lot of pressure on the labels to sign
My assumption is that Spotify has so many passionate customers that killing the Windows/Android apps would earn Apple enough bad karma, they could never do it. Apple could kill Beats Music, integrate it into itunes, and the small number of customers can't kick up enough stink for Apple to care.
>When you are the richest guy in town it is hard to negotiate a good deal.
Do you mean that the negotiation will go something like "come on, we know you can afford more!"? Granted, I haven't ever participated in negotiations at this level but I really doubt that being rich is a disadvantage.
Especially if you have other options and aren't in a rush. "You've got a nice portfolio of licenses, we're interested in working with you." "Fine, but we know you're worth over $120 billion so pay us $1 billion." "Thanks, we'll talk to your competitors now, or maybe just get our own licenses."
All negotiations start with what you think the other party can afford. I've never worked on a billion dollar deal, but I've worked on plenty of million dollar deals and I can assure you, perception of the other parties' ability and desire to pay does in fact play a factor.
but apple do effectively corner the accessories market for people buying iphones. if this acquisition happens it's about getting people to spend more money on gear after they buy their apple i-product.
I cannot figure out any way to reconcile the incredibly poor quality of Beats products with a hopeful future for Apple. Can someone make the argument for why this is a good idea?
Quality of product is unimportant. Vast market of "gullible fools" proves this.
Currently there are a lot of different headphones that have very similar specs - I suspect that some company is mass producing drivers and other companies are iust putting these into fashion shells and selling them at large profit. (WESC is an example of a company that I think is doing this).
In this market - not very good headphones sold with large profits to people who care more about looks than sound quality - Beats headphones is exciting buy.
Don't forget that many people will be listening to poor quality source material - poorly ripped; weird dynamic compression; etc.
Apple's market, however, is not gullible fools. They produce quality products that do not lie about their quality. This authenticity and quality is key to their success.
I was downvoted for a snarky comment about having to replace Beats if they were provided as the standard quality for iPhones in particular. OK that's fair. But with what I believe to have been Job's fastidious attention to quality, I find it difficult to understand how he would have accepted the sound quality. The branding issue has a certain, even large value, but there's also the loss of reputation for quality that using what are objectively poor quality sound reproducers will I think bring, to consider as well.
The quality of the audio electronics in iPhones is quite alright. The iPhone's have measured well and sound quite OK given the limitations on space and power. The standard earbuds provided with them are poor quality though, and as an electronics engineer, audio engineer, and musician I would be quite disappointed if Apple allowed this sound reproduction shortcoming to persist. Monster Turbines like the Copper Pro are substantially better than Beats, so upgrading quality might happen, and what I say will be irrelevant.
I want Apple to continue to strive for excellence in quality, and not to let that focus lapse if concentrating on branding and market share.
My first ever downvoted comment alluded to the fact that my iphone earbuds were never used and collected dust in a drawer. The first pair I had with an iPod were quickly replaced by cheap AKG's costing about $7, and the pair in the drawer I gave to a lady customer in an apple store who I overheard asking about them. I arranged to give them to her for free. No use wasting them really.
The iPod and iPhone earbuds seem to me to be an anomaly. They are one of the few areas where it appeared style trumped substance. I can get similar Chinese knockoffs for about a dollar from different places. The cirrus chips and surrounding electronics in the iPhone, and Wolfson's in some iPods are quite capable musically.
My point is more about the legend of Jobs the perfectionist that I've heard so much about in these and other pages. If he were to turn his attention to the earbuds and headphones then I find it incongruous that he would have let the reputation of mediocrity with the Beats sound rest unopposed.
I myself see this as a slide away from innovation.
The Momentum On-Ear† are top notch quality, full of bass while keeping meds and highs detailed all the while costing much less. Technically, Beats cans are definitely overpriced, you're definitely paying for the style (which is not necessarily a bad thing per se)
† The Momentum over ear have a totally different, much more balanced sound. Almost a monitor headset, except with detail being just right so that they don't give too much fatigue.
Some are speculating that Apple is more interested in the beats music streaming service. I'm not sure I buy that -- doesn't Apple nearly have its own? Even if they don't, surely they've got the foundation set to build one quite effortlessly.
Beats is EXTREMELY WELL positioned to be a major iTunes competitor without the overhead of computer hardware and software divisions. Not only that, but while Apple is cool, Dre is much, much cooler.
Beats streaming apparently has about 200,000 subscribers. That doesn't seem so cool when it's competitor Spotify has about 10 million subscribers.[1] Even if you think Apple is going for the subscriber base it still doesn't make sense.
I don't think it's about Apple purchasing a turnkey subscription service. Beats is an extremely strong brand with a lot of momentum who has been built from a consumer-electronics foundation, where Apple still has laptops and whatnot markets to wrangle. Beats likely does not have the infrastructure to be a turnkey rebranded acquisition anyway. However, download sales are down and going lower, so Apple does need to think about a future where streaming is dominant.
They are over marketed a bit and over priced, sure, but just as much as Bose, B&O and a lot of other premium sound brands.
How do they objectively have "incredibly poor quality"? Do you have a link that support they have really poor sound quality or bad build quality or horrible customer satisfaction rate?
“In terms of sound performance, they are among the worst you can buy,” says Tyll Hertsens, editor in chief of InnerFidelity.com, a site for audiophiles. “They are absolutely, extraordinarily bad.”
I'm a bit of an audiophile myself, so I wouldn't listen to Beats, but I do think "bad" is a value judgement. I want a neutral reproduction of the music, and I get that with my Grado's. The Beats customer wants lots of thumpy bass. We each get what we want.
This is exactly it - they give a 'fun' listening experience that people enjoy, and mistake for sound quality. They're paying a high price for a brand and experience, rather than for the quality of the components, like many other premium brands.
I don't wear them, but I don't hate the people who do (though I'm not huge on Beats' "the way it was meant to sound/the way the musician intended" branding)
"they give a 'fun' listening experience that people enjoy"
ding that's the crux of it. people want something that makes them feel good, which often isn't something you can quantify in a lab. so rather than trying to build a better headphone, beats built the equivalent of a booming car stereo strapped to your head, and that evokes a very specific emotional response for most of their customers.
fwiw: i have a pair of Bose QC15 cans that i got as a gift from work. i think they're crap for reproduction purposes, but the experience they're designing for is noise cancellation.
It's not really, when frequency response is a measurable quantity - sound quality can be, and is defined, and Beats do not fare well[1]. But you're right, they do look cool, and they have a fun listening experience.
I once tried to help someone with a pair of beats headphones that they purchased as a present for a relative. The complaint was that they didn't sound right.
I tested them out. It was horrible, it sounded almost like what it sounds like when a stereo headphone jack is only partially inserted -- on three different devices and two different pairs of headphones.
They suck and are a major ripoff.
Whenever something advertises beats audio, I know that it's not a product for me.
They have come a long way since 2011. I'm listening to my post-Dre-branded Beats right now and they sound good. And I like to think I'm not just one of the gullible sub-human tools the people participating in this thread enjoy thinking they're so far above.
I've been using their streaming app since it was released and it's fantastic. It puts the others to shame IMO. I'd been using Spotify for about 4 years before Beats. The volume and quality of playlists they have created is amazing and the app design is quite nice. I find it great for discovering new music (and you still have the option to search the catalog too).
Quality when applied to speakers and headphones is typically demonstrated by frequency response, with a perfectly flat response being the pinnacle. Headphones like Beats appeal to people who have only had bargain headphones (think a few bucks), and they do this by having attractive packaging and just basically amping up the bass response because bass has a "wow factor".
This is simply untrue. The best headphones, speakers, and amplifiers, are designed to faithfully reproduce the recorded signal. Anything that does something other than that is a poorly designed product, or a product that is intentionally misleading the consumer. Most cheap products accidentally fail at this goal. Beats products are intentionally designed to be cheap to manufacture, while being bass-heavy and overly bright on top, to disguise their poor quality.
A flat response is always desirable to the listener (whether they know it, or not). If the listener desires EQ (for a bass-heavy and bright experience), they can apply it before it goes out to the transducer. Old stereos used to have a "loudness" button to slap this kind of curve onto the audio, but all modern playback devices have EQ and such available. But, I'd recommend using good quality headphones and listening as the engineer and artist intended.
Some people, perhaps most people, want a strong bass. Are they wrong?
Not to say that Beats are great or anything, but applying a bass boost to something with a flat response is not going to produce better bass than housing, speaker, etc that all resonate together at the right frequency.
Another thing to keep in mind is that most people will be using these in noisy environments.
> Some people, perhaps most people, want a strong bass. Are they wrong?
I think that if people want a strong bass, they should listen to music that has strong bass and use headphones that will accurately reproduce it.
If they want music that doesn't have strong bass to sound like it does, well that's the role of the equalizer, not the headphones. The role of the headphones is to take whatever signal they're given and accurately reproduce it.
That's what the comment you're replying to is saying.
What people aren't getting in this thread is that modern pop and hip hop is engineered to be played on systems with a lot of bass (sub woofers). Ironically this forces the engineer to limit the amount of bass in the mix, so there some truth to the claim that a headphone with exaggerated bass will produce a sound closer to the intention of the artist.
I think they sound horrendous (I'm an audio engineer) but I have a 9 year old friend who is obsessed with getting the $300 version and can't be persuaded that this is waste. So I would say Beats has a powerful brand. The margin on the headphones has to be unprecedented...
"What people aren't getting in this thread is that modern pop and hip hop is engineered to be played on systems with a lot of bass (sub woofers). Ironically this forces the engineer to limit the amount of bass in the mix, so there some truth to the claim that a headphone with exaggerated bass will produce a sound closer to the intention of the artist."
Not true. Engineers working in pop and hip hop mix primarily with the understanding that the first listen by a consumer will be on the radio in their car. This has several built-in assumptions, and the expectation of lots of sub bass being reproduce-able is not among them. Sales of records are heavily affected by how good the song sounds on the radio, and most people have the audio equipment that came with their car.
Not only that, the next stage of music marketing evolution is earbuds. So, if one were to mix for the next most popular method of getting your music into the ears of consumers, you'd mix with the expectation of being heard first through cheap earbuds.
Engineers mix knowing that their tracks will be played on a wide variety of equipment, from very bad to very good. The more accurate their equipment is, the better they'll be able to serve all of those listeners. But, the best results will always come from having accurate equipment for playing it back.
I'm also an audio engineer, and I, too, find the $300 beats headphones to be an abomination to both good sense and good taste. But, I disagree with your suggestion that engineers are mixing with less bass because subwoofers exist.
Good mastering requires accurate monitors, as well. Every stage gets tested in various types of speakers and playback devices and formats (so, the engineer checks it out in their car on the way to the studio, on their iPod, on their laptop, etc., as does the mastering engineer). There is no stage where the engineer (recording or mastering) doesn't want an accurate monitoring setup, however. And, there is no stage where checking the mix against various listening environments is a bad idea. High dollar recordings are listened to hundreds of times by at least a half dozen people on the way to being shipped to listeners.
I'm probably commenting more on my experience, which does not extend to actual hits. But I am called on to emulate the sound. It has been a struggle to get the bass right, often I find if I mix to have perceptually a lot of bass on, let's say small computer speakers, it's easy to have blown out bass on a system with a sub.
The bottom line is that virtually all playback systems that exist in the real world are nothing remotely like an accurate studio monitor. The engineer is always concerned with how the mix translates to different systems. In this process accurate monitoring is profoundly helpful, but that doesn't mean the engineer expects any listeners to have such a system.
Bass enhanced headphones like Beats have become yet another listening environment to be considered.
I think a lot of people that want strong bass don't even know what an EQ is, so they'll just buy headphones with strong bass, since that's the easiest way (to them) of getting the sound they want.
People who want really strong bass will buy headphones that have strong bass --- and then turn the bass up on the EQ too. :)
This is simply untrue. The best headphones, speakers, and amplifiers, are designed to faithfully reproduce the recorded signal.
Have you seen the actual frequency response curves of headphones? They are by no means flat! They can approach flat from 20-20k, but there are always trade offs, at least until you get to certain price points.
What is good or bad sound is largely subjective and socially conditioned. The expectations around binaural recordings of natural sound are very different from highly produced studio production. What is bad in one context is good in another and vice versa. And while I'd go for headphones with better frequency response, it's not the be-all end all measurement either.
Then again, maybe Beats are a tragedy, since we are getting to a point technologically where every headphone could have reference class performance, if that is what the market wanted. That's not what the market wants. Maybe that's the real tragedy.
"Have you seen the actual frequency response curves of headphones? They are by no means flat!"
Yes. And, as I said: Most cheap products accidentally fail at this goal.
It costs a bit of money to produce a quality transducer that is stable, reliably mass-produced, and lasts a long time. Not as much for headphones as for larger transducers, however. For $100 you can buy any of several models that are extremely accurate (compared to what $100 would buy you in speakers). Sennheiser, Shure, AKG, and Audio Technica all offer several models in the $50-$100 range that will destroy Beats offerings at even much higher price points.
Nonetheless, just because most people's cheap headphones suck doesn't mean that a company producing expensive headphones that suck should be given a pass. In a world with good products in a field I care about, why wouldn't I encourage people to choose them over a clearly inferior product? Beats is a demonstrably inferior product with good marketing.
You don't even need to go to the $100 level to get better than Beats. I've convinced a bunch of Beats owners at my work by loaning out my $30 Sonys. Not only does everyone agree that they sounds better, but there's near universal agreement that they're more comfortable to wear as well.
I'm not saying a $25 pair of headphones is particularly good, but it gets past the "obviously bad" test that Beats headphones fail and allows me to leave them at work without worrying about losing or breaking them.
Combining the speaker and the EQ might not work for your use case. That doesn't make it a bad choice by the manufacturer or the consumer. Targeting a particular class of user by combining products that are often used together has been very successful in a plethora of markets. Apple is kind of the poster child for integrating accessories in an opinionated fashion. The built-in camera on the iMac comes to mind. Even the choice to use a 3.5mm jack on the iPod could fit the frame of your argument.
Me, I'm a Skippy Natural guy, but I see a place on the shelf for Goober too ;)
It's disingenuous to say that this is the way the engineer intended it to sound. It's probably how it did sound to the engineer, but that's not the same as how he or she intends it to sound. Any competent engineer knows that people will be listening to the music on a wide variety of sound systems.
The NS10 has been out of production for years, and I haven't seen them in a studio in quite some time. Though, when I was in college (I went to college for audio engineering), every studio I worked in had a pair (in addition to one or two other types of monitor).
It is true that for a decade or two, the NS10 was the monitor on which more records were produced than any other. And, they are reasonably accurate. There are more accurate speakers than the NS10, even at similar prices, but part of the value of the NS10 was that you'd have them wherever you were working. The mastering engineer would have a pair of them, too, so you'd know everybody in the path from tracking to cutting the master would be hearing roughly the same thing. But, it's worth mentioning that I've never been in a professional studio that only had a pair of NS10s. They were considered the sanity check speakers...not the speakers used for all of your mixing and such.
Anyway, the newer models (HS series or MSP series) from Yamaha might be a good choice, if you want good reference monitors.
But, a reasonable level accuracy should be the goal of every transducer. Just because consumers make often make poorly informed decisions based on marketing and tricks played on the ear (because a "hyped" sound, like the Beats headphones and devices, will sound louder and thus "better"...but will also be more fatiguing and will have other negative effects on your listening experience) doesn't mean people who know better should just shut up and let manufacturers do so without criticism.
NS10s are so popular because they're so non-complimentary. Yamaha (and I've read conflicting accounts) either deliberately created a speaker that was so non-flattering to any audio, or accidentally released a product that became a studio mix engineer hit for the same reasons.
I've heard producers and studio engineers say that if something sounds good on NS10s, it'll sound good on anything.
This is the same reason professional mastering engineers will sometimes insist on listening to mixes on average car stereos, ipod headphones, and cheap consumer audio systems. It doesn't matter how good it sounds on your $100,000 studio system if it sounds terrible to 99% of the population.
Typically you aim for as much of the audible spectrum as possible with as flat of a response as possible... From there you adjust for personal listening preferences. Some cans tend to accentuate bass a bit, others mids or trebs. Flat headphones are preferred for mixing/mastering of course. That's about as objective a measure as you can find.
Bose is a damn bad example as a premium brand to compare Beats to. Their consumer headphones are widely considered to be way overpriced and gimmicky. The brands Beats should really be compared to are Sennheiser, Shure, A-T, Denon, Beyerdynamic and the like. Any offerings from these brands at a price point from $100 and up offer at least as good sound quality as Beats' cans and for a much lower price, and many of their phones look pretty good as well.
And yet... Bose QC15 are simple, light, comfortable and sound fine. The real point, however, is that they are amazing at tuning out the outside world, and thus are fantastic for coding. Their lack of audiophile cred means absolutely nothing compared to all the above, and if you are in an environment with noisy children or coworkers you won't want open headphones anyway. So for the actual use cases of many of us here, QC15 are actually a good choice. Regarding Beats, I actually have no opinion since I've never tried them, but people who like them enjoy them...
I'll go one further and assert that in a noisy environment, the Bose QC15 have the absolute best overall sound quality of any headphone I'm aware of. By a very, very long mark.
I had a few very sophisticated sets of expensive headphones (plus a headphone amplifier) and I just don't use them any more. When I don't need to wear headphones, I'll sit down in my theatre room. When I need to wear headphones, it's because I'm in an environment with other noises (office, travel, etc) and the noise cancellation trumps any other cans' refinement.
Even Beyerdynamic 770 Pro? I tried active noise canceling in the past, but found the sound ultimately fatiguing. I prefer passive cancellation now, and 10db is a significant amount of isolation.
Absolutely; the 770 Pro are one of the cans I own (the 80 ohms model). They're exactly the set I reach for when I want to listen at home with privacy.
In a noisy environment though, they just can't compete. Yes, the 770 Pro have excellent passive isolation characteristics, but they do absolutely nothing for low frequencies [0] whereas the QC15 achieves 20db [1]. This makes all the difference in the world when you're trying to escape into music while flying.
I know what you mean about active noise cancelling being fatiguing. I've been lured into noise cancellation before, only to be repelled by the strange feeling of pressure within the ear. I wouldn't have given a moment's consideration to the QC15 had I not been loaned a pair by a friend. I'm not going to say the QC15 are perfect for everyone, but to my ears the pressure phenomenon is pretty much nonexistent. I've worn them for an entire 13 hour flight without a moment's discomfort.
Indeed! Their active noise canceling headphones actually retain the bass while removing the external noise. Other active noise cancelling heaphones tend to blunt the bass.
I would second this statement strongly. The only other brand I'd add to the list is AKG as they also have some wonderful headphones at around this price point.
I've done AB comparisons with friends who've bought Beats, Sony, Skull Candy etc. and they're always blown away by the difference between the product they bought, and my AKGs, A-Ts or Sennheisers. I recently tested some Beyerdynamics and would highly recommend them, although I still think A-Ts are the best bang for buck around.
This - I bought AT headphones (c£150) at Christmas, and they're astonishing. I had a listen to some Beats 'phones in the apple store (£279) last time I was getting a repair done, and they were astonishingly bad - fuzzy, tinny high end, massive overbearing bass.
But - from an Apple perspective, they're not buying just the headphones tech, but the manufacturing capacity as well, I'd assume.
I tend to agree when it comes to headphones. I'd go with sennheiser over any other brand anytime.
But the bose soundlink mini (bluetooth speaker, they are quite fashionable these days) has an incredible sound and a similar price tag as the vastly inferior beats pill.
Bose professional and aviation products are actually superior to Apple quality. Their consumer noise canceling is pretty good. I agree about their consumer speakers.
I don't know anything about build quality or customer satisfaction, but this video gives you an excellent idea how they sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pK7QbLNjno — try to listen to the demo with relatively neutral headphones. FWIW, I listened to Beats at an Apple store, and the video fits nicely with my impressions.
I would argue they're way worse than Bose. Bose products, at least to me, sound good but are overpriced. Beats products are overpriced but also sound bad.
Modular phones will create opportunities for high quality audio drivers for Android.
Apple products are synonymous with quality audio, and Apple's success is partly attributed to it's investment in music technology.
A brand like Beats which is popular with young audiophiles could potentially transform Android into a recognizable music platform if they provided a Beats audio driver and quality headphones.
This is a risky proposition for Apple as it would drive more of their high-end audience to view Android as a serious audio contender.
> Apple products are synonymous with quality audio
Are they?
I like Apple products but the headphones really aren't great, certainly not for what you pay for them (looking at the prices for the headphones alone).
In that sense you might argue there is a certain synergy with Beats...
This seems like a strange thing to acquire. It's not like Apple couldn't make headphones of that sort if they wanted to, and if they wanted cachet, they'd probably scoop up Bose or Sennheiser, a name with some actual weight behind it.
It's amazing that HP's series "With Beats Audio" actually cheapens their product.
I read a thread on Reddit where someone discovered that disabling the "enhanced audio" feature just screwed up the driver EQ system (setting "treble" all the way up and "bass" all the way down).
They doubtless want cachet that resonates with their target market. Ergo Sennheiser probably isn't a great choice.
As for Bose, they probably wouldn't be a bad choice, but they do a lot more than headphones and their market cap is $20B, quite a bit more than the $3B we are being told for Beats.
So much for Apple's appearance of being a premium brand. Beats products are junk. Until 2012, they were basically white-labeled Monster Cable products.
Yes, it's precisely about appearance. Beats head/earphones are very popular. They were also in some sort of partnership with HP (and perhaps others?) previously --- you can find many HP laptops with Beats Audio. This appears to be a selling point, so combined with the fashionable image of Beats, it makes sense that Apple would want to absorb this brand.
Also, most people aren't aware that Beats are junk. Many consumers mistake a strong bass for good audio quality (or even more shockingly, they don't care about quality, and bass is _what they want_).
The "beats audio" in partner hardware is just software eq to filter bass and then turn it back on again. It's sheer chicanery that I am disappointed that Apple would want to associate itself with.
Many consumers mistake a strong bass for good audio quality
Exactly. Heavy bass sounds powerful, psychologically speaking. And personally, although I prefer a flat response, I'd prefer one with more bass over one with more treble. Consumers have basically associated treble-heavy with the "tinny sound" of cheap headphones/earphones - there's a reason why there's no competing equivalent brand to Beats that emphasises treble (I suppose an appropriate name would be "Shrieks"?)
As for Beats, they (or at least their components) are made by the same OEMs in China that make tons of other headphones/headphone components, just sold at a ridiculous markup. You can buy headphones with the exact same bassy sound (and often the same or very similar looks!) from them, and get the same experience at a more appropriate price.
Interestingly, HTC bought a majority share (50.1%) in Beats, and slowly sold it back in pieces. Based on the timing, I wonder if Beats may have had to buy it back in order to sell to Apple.
In August 2013, reports surfaced that Beats' founders planned to buy back HTC's remaining minority stake in the company, and pursue a new, unspecified partner for a future investment.[11][12] On September 27, 2013, HTC confirmed its plan to sell its remaining 24.84% stake in Beats back to the company for $265 million, with the deal expected to close by the end of the year. Concurrently, Beats announced that the Carlyle Group would make a minority investment in the company"
Apple can drown them in quality control engineers in the first few months, and then they have a really solid brand. There hasn't been a headphone brand with such mass-market appeal in a long time - they are like the sony walkman of headphones.
$3.2B? I don't get this at all. What exactly does Apple get out of the deal? (1) Their brand is much stronger than Beats. (2) They could design and build high quality headphones if they wanted, the design is quite simple. And (3) if they wanted a music subscription service, they could easily create one of their own.
> if they wanted a music subscription service, they could easily create one of their own.
Actually, they have one. (iTunes Radio)
Of course, the fact that this has to be pointed out to someone arguing how strong Apple's brand is relative to Beats might illustrate the value they get from buying Beats better than anything else.
I'd say more than slightly. Spotify's main draw is that you can search for the song you want to listen to, and you can hear that song.
iTunes match works off your own personal collection, and Radio is just like Pandora. Neither allows you to look for things you don't own and listen to them.
...On 1.2B in annual revenue. A $200 pair of Beats headphones reportedly costs about $14 to manufacture; That's a phenomenal business. With people under 20 it can be argued that Beats has an even stronger brand than Apple. So Beats is enormously successful, dominant, high margin, and has premium brand appeal with a younger demographic. At the price Apple is paying (<3X revenue) they're getting the music streaming service (which is now included on all new AT&T Android phones) for free. So offensively in retail or defensively in music, it makes good business sense.
The comments in this thread are similar to the comments in any Facebook related post on HN. Arrogant. People who likely haven't used the product for more than a few minutes have a concrete opinion on it. You may think Beats suck but they sell $500m of headphones per year. People clearly like the sound they produce even if you think it's shit and overpriced.
Beats was made popular by the Monster Cable marketing machine, who is specifically known for selling well-marketed overpriced crap. Claiming that they're good because they sell is silly.
It depends on how you define 'good'. They may not be good for listening to certain genres and they may not have a very balanced sound which a lot of audiophiles desire, but the sound they produce is clearly a sound people want and that is proven by how well they sell. They are not an impulse purchase, they are ridiculously expensive. If people really hated the sound most of them wouldn't buy Beats even with the marketing and fashion aspect.
> the sound they produce is clearly a sound people want
Most people are easily fooled when it comes to audio quality and have no idea what sound they "want", so they have to judge the quality of the product on the basis of marketing/branding and design instead. That's exactly what's happening with Beats.
And it is entirely sustainable because (in the mainstream) headphones are first and foremost a fashion accessory, and neither Beats wearers nor the observers are know a thing about what good audio quality is. As long as they look hip wearing Beats in the eyes of mainstream observers (a phenomenon that doesn't show any signs of abating), it'll continue to fly off the shelves.
As someone else commented above, the job of quality headphones is to reproduce the recorded signal as faithfully as possible - a flat frequency response. If you want enhanced base (for example), that should be done in the software equalizer, before the signal gets fed to the hardware. On an objective level, the audio quality of Beats blows. There's simply no other way to put it. Of course, this is all irrelevant to the unwash^H^H^H^H^H^Huneducated masses.
Supposedly (according to Recode.net) Beats music only has around 200,000 subscribers and most of them are free trial users from a AT&T deal. Doesn't sound a like a service Apple would want.
I'm not surprised. I'm a Beats subscriber and the only thing going for it is the (actually good) human-curated playlists. However, Spotify seems to have a bigger music catalog and music discovery is good enough.
I really think people are underestimating the streaming service they could be acquiring here.
Currently even as an iTunes Match subscriber, if I hear a song on iTunes radio I still need to go and purchase the song if I like it.
Potentially the deals Beats currently have mean I could just tag that song as one I like, and each time I listen to it some amount of revenue is split between the label and Apple.
Acquiring beats would undoubtedly mean they also acquire their licencing contracts, which seem to have been traditionally difficult for Apple in the past.
Even if they're not interested in the subscription service model, there may be something here that can improve iTunes Radio's song selections:
"The service uses a personalization system combining recommendations based on listening habits and algorithms with human curation and playlists from music professionals, including other "guest" curators, such as Rolling Stone, Rap Radar, and Pitchfork. Song searches prioritize the original, master recordings of songs over other versions (such as covers). A feature known as "The Sentence" allows users to generate playlists by filling four blanks in a sentence with words describing various activities, moods, and genres."
"Apple is in talks to acquire Beats Electronics for about $3.2 billion, according to a person briefed on the matter."
I guess there is some disagreement about whether or not Beats is "worth" $3.2B. Such stories, on the eve of an acquisition, are always about trying to get the price raised it seems. Would be interesting if Apple walks away from the deal at this point.
The major labels have a love/hate relationship with iTunes. It brings in loads of cash, but it's a monopoly and the majors have little to no control (on price and promo, compared to retail).
So I wouldn't be surprised if the labels are being somewhat difficult to Apple about streaming rights - they'll dominate, and once again the labels lack control.
This deal could get round that somehow?
Add to that that I think the labels have vested interests in Spotify and very favourable deals, (while cautious of the streaming model) and it makes sense to not let another player in just yet, especially one like Apple.
Apples service is one that'll ride roughshod over everything, installed instantly on 100's of millions of devices with an iOS update - Sounds like a good use of their money to get that sooner rather than later.
I haven't used Beats headphones but if their tech could be used to perceivably improve idevice's and laptops built in speaker audio it's a win there too.
If true, seems like a submarine into wearable technologies.
Apple building mood sensing tech for personalized streaming service is a bit creepy. Apple adding mood sensing tech to a huge, young, existing, user base is broadly exciting.
In my eyes, this paints Apple as just another "big company" making acquisitions that don't make sense. Maybe they are going to bundle all ipods with beats...? Not sure where they are going with this unless it's for the music service licensing agreements.
Which would be great if the iPod wasn't a decline market.
They can put them in with iPhones (adapted to include hands free) but I'm not sure how much that would influence people to buy an iPhone over something else.
Reading through these comments, the thought of Apple bundling beats with devices scares me the most. Ironic that if I acquired another one of their devices, i'd still have to throw their headphones into a draw to collect dust.
...because music is the next big thing on the horizon?
Does Apple have an answer to Nest? To Tesla? To Comcast?
I understand Beats is a powerful brand, with a youthful and enthusiastic customer base, and they've entered the streaming space with some panache. Apple already knows how to do music. Is this what they're focusing on? It seems like a distraction and not a terribly advantageous one.
As I see it it's not for the hardware, but for the streaming service and for Jimmy Iovine and his connections/knowledge in the music industry. I don't know how he could fit with Eddy Cue but I think Jimmy Iovine would bring a lot if he was in charge of the music services in iTunes.
Because he is the music industry, because maybe the now mighty Apple has lot of difficulties securing licensing music rights, especially in the streaming area. Now I don't say it's worth 3.2bn$ (I don't think it's even worth 1bn$) but at least I think there is more value there than with the headsets. Anyway spending so much on such a shallow thing would send a wrong signal in my opinion, for the same amount I would have bought AMD or something more significant hardware related.
HTC bought it for 300 million, they sold it as they had no use. Their in the same market as Apple (and with Sense / HTC, they also could use a music broadcast service).
They sold it. Now Apple wants to buy it at a much higher level... Doesn't make any sense.
Apple make very smart acquisitions and have a track record in creating markets where others have failed to do so. They are also good at spotting opportunities in existing markets.
That said, I think this is a deception to get Samsung to do something costly and stupid.
So where does that leave HTC? They own 50.1% stake. They need cash pretty quickly. And I think they would continue to want implementing Beats audio in their phones.
Btw, HTC One audio sound quality is emotionally exhilarating. (Tears)
Look at the last couple of massive acquisitions e.g. Facebook buying companies that made little revenue which made even less sense. Most of the big ones I can think of were for user acquisition and not product/technology. This seems like the same type of play.
1. Apple has the tech and library to do their own subscription service if they want to. You think they can't do their own licensing deal? They surely don't need to pay $3B to acquire someone else's.
2. Apple wouldn't want to operate a cross-platform service. They'd pay a huge premium to acquire a bunch of Android customers than they'd promptly purge. Plus, it'd probably invite anti-trust scrutiny.
3. The argument about Beats headphone quality is moot. Even if it's more than just marketing / bass-heavy EQ, Apple would not pay $3B to acquire headphone technology.
None of that makes any sense at all. I have to believe someone thinks Beats and Square are interesting to Apple because their products have a certain superficial Apple design aesthetic. But it makes no sense from a business model standpoint.
Or maybe Apple's doing some kind of next-level mole hunt here to level-up on secrecy.