Beats has a track record of producing consumer electronics that are accepted as fashionable. The iPhone already blurs the line between tool and accessory and it spends most of its time in a pocket or purse. A smart watch or head mounted display is more visible and needs to overcome a nerdy bias to appeal to the mass market.
Looks by Dr. Dre
31–40 of 123 posts
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#32I find it hard to believe that apple couldn't make additional colors if they wanted. I don't think it's a lack of technological know how. They could pick that up without acquiring a entire additional company. Limited colors on the iphone or ipod make sense. For the most part, it's an item that stays in your pocket. I'm sure some people care about additional design choices, but most people solve this by buying a case…
I think you're right for the most part. Apple probably doesn't want tons of variation in their products, for brand recognition. How long does it take to recognize an Apple laptop? They come in only one style that is distinct from most other laptops. But as the author said briefly, if they are really releasing an iWatch, it would be different. It isn't an item that stays in your pocket, and the style would be one of t…
Apple had tons of variations in the iPod line, and is opening things up again with the 5C.
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#33This article lost me at the part suggesting that Dre Beats are premium headphones. Having listened to a few different sets of these "cool" headphones I can personally think they are overpriced crap, don't think they are worth more than £20-30 tops simply based on audio quality. People are simply buying them as a fashion item!
> People are simply buying them as a fashion item! So... you're saying it's a great match for Apple?
Not really sure why you're being downvoted. Apple's design is amazing. They've (almost) single-handedly thrust consumer electronics into a position where fashion and looks are just as important (or more important) than function. Gone are the days where "geeks" are the guys with the expensive, ugly computation devices. Now, when a famous actress waltzes down the street, you're just as likely to see her pull out an iPhone (or WP8 or whatever) as you are to see her wearing an expensive handbag.
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#34The more closely you look at Beats, the more they make sense as a serious asset to a consumer electronics company, and the less plausible the "Apple just needed to get a streaming service off the ground" story is. Two more angles to consider: * Owning Beats puts Apple hardware on the heads of a huge fraction of every mobile user, whether they use iOS or not. Having a Beats brand affinity for those users makes it easi…
My theory on confusion over the Beats purchase is that Apple fanboys have a reluctance to admit that Apple is significantly a fashion company. Not the beacon of technical excellence(asterisk) they set it up to be in their mind.
The reality is that Beats is also primarily a fashion company. Also with a strong brand. Also with a product line that sells at a high markup. They go together like pancakes and maple syrup. If Apple puts Beats headphones in their stores they will sell just as much as they do now. Why wouldn't Apple want a slice of that profit?
And if they make a next generation Beats headphone that can only be used with Apple products? Well, that's even more money.
Edit: asterisk: which is not to say that Apple lacks technical excellence, but the reason why they are so successful is not their engineering credentials, it's because they are able to marry aesthetics and engineering.
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#35One thing about Beats is that they really are ridiculously popular. They are consumer electronics items which are also fashion accessories. I don't think there's really any other brand like that in the industry, at least not that I can think of. Even Apple's products while stylish I'd hesitate to call them fashion accessories.
Maybe they were worried primarily that Google would buy Beats and suddenly hold more 'cool' appeal than Apple (particularly with youngsters).
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to agree somewhat with this comment. In particular, is handling 60 SKU's really a huge problem with technology and management nowadays? It's a pity there's so much focus on small details like that and the color selection, because that's really not the main point, which the article does touch on - the two companies understand and heavily influence the consumer market and fashion, so the partnership makes sense.…
Handling 60 SKUs of similar products is a big problem. Multi-variant stock control and supply chain management is troublesome at best. If one of your stores runs out of green widgets and another one only has red widgets until Tuesday, how do you reliably sell red and green ones to customers who want one without buying so much stock that you are then at risk of a loss when it is end-of-lined? Too late, the customer ha…
When you have a 2000% profit margin on the product, you can just trash unused stock.
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#37It is so amazing to watch the attention that people give Apple's business decisions. Seriously, how much their actions get read into is unparalleled. Any other company, we'd just say "yup, they bought a headphone company, and now they'll be selling some more/different headphones" and then we'd move on. But with Apple, it just must, must represent some form of tidal shift.
Because unlike most other big tech companies Apple doesn't make big purchases like this. They normally acquire small, unknown companies which are focussed on a specific technology Apple needs (mapping for example).
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#38The more closely you look at Beats, the more they make sense as a serious asset to a consumer electronics company, and the less plausible the "Apple just needed to get a streaming service off the ground" story is. Two more angles to consider: * Owning Beats puts Apple hardware on the heads of a huge fraction of every mobile user, whether they use iOS or not. Having a Beats brand affinity for those users makes it easi…
My theory on confusion over the Beats purchase is that Apple fanboys have a reluctance to admit that Apple is significantly a fashion company. Not the beacon of technical excellence(asterisk) they set it up to be in their mind. The reality is that Beats is also primarily a fashion company. Also with a strong brand. Also with a product line that sells at a high markup. They go together like pancakes and maple syrup. I…
To the extent that you can say the exact same thing about Porsche, I agree; just bear in mind that it takes more than a sense of style to execute on "Porsche".
But also look how Apple integrates downmarket. To a first approximation nobody's first car is a Porsche, but the less expensive iPhones are viable first smartphones. There's something powerful about being able, at least in theory, to address the whole market that way. Porsche probably can't change the way everyone engages with cars, but Apple can do that with mobile.
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#39As nerd-ragey as some people are about the Beats deal, they have some amazing fit and finish with regards to manufacturing. See for instance their paint: most painted plastics experience an undesirable amount of "orange peeling" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_peel_(effect)).
This is caused in part by not getting the temperature of the paint high enough to form a smooth finish. Metal can withstand significantly higher temperatures than plastic. This is usually why car paints look so much better than Krylon's.
By over-molding their plastic tops around a metal base, Beats was able to increase the tolerable temperature range. Next time you roll into a Best Buy, compare the 'shinyness' and 'smoothness' of the overmolded Beats to any other plastic product made by Samsung, HP, or Sony.
We learnt this through Chinese manufacturing forums where if anything, the idea of 'target demographic' does not apply - Beats simply figured out how to put a nicer finish on their product than the competition using innovative manufacturing techniques and increase margin.
Re: Looks by Dr. Dre
#40As nerd-ragey as some people are about the Beats deal, they have some amazing fit and finish with regards to manufacturing. See for instance their paint: most painted plastics experience an undesirable amount of "orange peeling" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_peel_(effect)).
This is caused in part by not getting the temperature of the paint high enough to form a smooth finish. Metal can withstand significantly higher temperatures than plastic. This is usually why car paints look so much better than Krylon's.
By over-molding their plastic tops around a metal base, Beats was able to increase the tolerable temperature range. Next time you roll into a Best Buy, compare the 'shinyness' and 'smoothness' of Beats to any other product made by Samsung, HP, or Sony.
We learnt this through Chinese manufacturing forums where if anything, the idea of 'target demographic' does not apply - Beats simply figured out how to put a nicer finish on their product than the competition using innovative manufacturing techniques and increase margin.