Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#101

Post by gnaffle » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

gareim wrote: post #77

joe_inferno wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"…this is going to be seen as where Apple's golden age began to wane." I heard that kind of talk when Steve died.

Yes, it's definitely easy to cry doom, haha. But what have we seen since Jobs? Iterations of successful product lines. Faster, thinner, better battery life in general. But where's THE AppleTV that the media has been rumoring about for years? Or the wearables that grab headlines every day? I'm sure there were plenty of products (AppleTV, smartwatch) in the pipeline before Jobs passed away. The question is, outside of…

Then again, what did we see before the iPhone launch? Not much more than incremental improvements to Macs and iPods.

We'll see next week what they'll have to announce.

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#102

Post by sehr » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

jotm wrote: post #79

apalmer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Factually true, but as they created and own pretty much the entire market for $300 headphones, one has to concede they have the title of high end headphones... high end doesnt necessarily mean highest quality.

Not really true - Sony and Sennheiser (as well as AKG and other less known companies) had the market covered already.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that most youth weren't begging their parents for $300 headphones before Beats came along.

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#103

Post by sscalia » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:12 PM UTC

antr wrote: post #95

abalone wrote: post #70

The most interesting reveal from Tim Cook's quote is that he only mentions the music service and the talent, not the headphones. That's super interesting. It basically means Apple looked at this like a typical Apple aquihire / component technology purchase (of the service), that just happened to have a multi-billion dollar profitable accessories business attached to it. That makes it a very unique kind of deal.

For those of us not familiar with Beats, what is so special about the music service compared to (for argument sake) Spotify?

I used my trial of Beats Music for awhile -- I will admit, it had the BEST discovery and automatic playlist creation of any service I've ever used (Rdio, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes Radio) -- you really could be confident when you suggested a song it would build a list of songs that you weren't skipping.

It also had a unique UI.

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#104

Post by k-mcgrady » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:12 PM UTC

espitia wrote: post #21

k-mcgrady wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the rumour was $3.2bn he wasn't going to become a billionaire despite his video stating his was - so now the price has dropped he certainly isn't one. Also - what does Beats have to do with his career in hip hop? Hip hop didn't make him almost $1bn, an electronics company he co-founded did. It just irks me every time I see 'hip hops first billionaire'. It has absolutely nothing to do with hip hop.

Hip hop is his origin, therefore he is the first hip hop millionaire. Kind of like saying I'm the first billionaire from insert city .

Yeh I get that, but it's a music genre. It's like a web developer winning the lottery and being called the first Javascript millionaire. :) /s Sorry I totally get what you mean it just irks me for some reason and I can't help but comment regardless of the down votes.

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#105

Post by Bootvis » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:12 PM UTC

newaccountfool wrote: post #36

UnethicalHacks wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he owns something like 22% of the company. I read somewhere that this will bring him to approx $800m.

So it will become rather easy for him to become a billionaire if he invests it correctly. Pretty good for a guy from the streets of Compton.

If he didn't spend too much he should be a billionaire right now, see [1]. Money quote: "Forbes estimated his net worth at US$270 million in 2012."

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Income

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#106

Post by goatforce5 » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

6thSigma wrote: post #37

I would have never guessed that Apple's largest acquisition ever would be Beats.

Their largest acquisition so far.

(Was Apple's purchase of NeXT bigger than this deal relative to their value at the time?)

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#107

Post by andrewmunsell » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

antr wrote: post #95

abalone wrote: post #70

The most interesting reveal from Tim Cook's quote is that he only mentions the music service and the talent, not the headphones. That's super interesting. It basically means Apple looked at this like a typical Apple aquihire / component technology purchase (of the service), that just happened to have a multi-billion dollar profitable accessories business attached to it. That makes it a very unique kind of deal.

For those of us not familiar with Beats, what is so special about the music service compared to (for argument sake) Spotify?

Curation and discovery-- they have celebrity and music curator created playlists. They also have an interesting Pandora-like radio where you can essentially select a mood and it'll build a playlist for you.

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#108

Post by mattkopecki » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #15

danhak wrote: post #11

So, Apple acquires music streaming service lala.com in late 2009 for $80 million and shuts it down unceremoniously. Less than 5 years later pays $3 billion for Beats electronics, largely for their music streaming service.

Lala became iTunes Radio AFAIK.

Actually, FWIW I think lala's technology (matching songs based on the audio waveform instead of the file's metadata) was used to underpin iTunes Match. It is the component where you match your local library to Apple's library in the cloud, and then only upload anything that Apple doesn't already have.

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#109

Post by smackfu » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

lmg643 wrote: post #82

gareim wrote: post #25

Apple redefined the mp3 player market, the ultraportable laptop market, the smartphone market, the tablet market, and now they're buying a company that reinvented the higher-end headphone market. Is it smart of a brand that has traditionally created their own iconic images to buy another cultural icon for $3 billion? I don't think so. Maybe this gets used a lot, but would Steve Jobs have done this? Or would he have c…

I totally agree. The question I ask is whether Beats is the kind of headphone that Steve Jobs would personally design and use. The "steve" test seems to guide everything else they build, so why not extend to headphones. The way I see it, the answer seems to be "no." The headphones are bulky, the logo gaudy - just not Steve. The advertising - think of the superbowl ads that rankled Seattle fans - just not really Apple…

OTOH, the iPod Hi-Fi.

Re: Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

#110

Post by sayemm » Wed, May 28, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

  "Still, I stay close to the heat
   And even when I was close to defeat, I rose to my feet
   My life's like a soundtrack 
   I wrote to the beat"

- Dr. Dre, http://rapgenius.com/412394