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Apple Confirms Its $3 Billion Deal for Beats Electronics

nytimes.com

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

#51

Post by joe_inferno »

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…

"…this is going to be seen as where Apple's golden age began to wane."

I heard that kind of talk when Steve died.

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

#52

Post by joeblau »

jaxytee wrote: post #18
joeblau wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will make him close, but not there. I'm sure Diddy is no motivated to start some tech startup idea.

Curtis "50cent" Jackson seems to have followed in Dre's footsteps and now has his own headphone line http://smsby50.com/ . Wouldn't it be interesting if they were acquire by a Google/Microsoft/Amazon?

That would be funny, but I think that makes less sense than Apples move. I've heard a lot of speculation, but nobody really knows what Apple's plans are.

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

#53

Post by danudey »

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…

> would Steve Jobs have done this? Or would he have created his own headphones and music streaming service?

I don't know, would he have? You asked the question in such a way as to imply the answer that no, he wouldn't, but you can't actually know that for sure. Also, we shouldn't be holding Apple to the standard of 'Steve Jobs was perfect so if he wouldn't have done this then it's bad'; Jobs made his share of mistakes anyway.

The confusing part is that Apple is spending $3bn on a company that makes mediocre, overpriced headphones with lousy sound quality. It makes no sense to me that they would buy a company like this when they have the money to create their own headphone line with better technology, equivalent or better design, and overall better result, likely at a lower price.

I guess we'll have to see where things go from here.

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

#54

Post by free2rhyme214 »

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 completely agree with this. Jobs would've already made a subscription service and tried different headphones to sell by now. This is more of an aquihire and it's unimpressive.

If you watch MKBHD's videos on youtube, he shows why beats headphones sound good and why there's plenty of others that sound better for a cheaper cost.

Basically it's not really a move Jobs would've done but that's what happens when your co-founders aren't running the company anymore. It's like the NFL draft.

I'd say Google is going up and Apple is going down.

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

#55

Post by baddox »

sz4kerto wrote: post #42
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…

> reinvented the higher-end headphone marke There's zero high-endness about Beats headphones. They're all right (at least if they were priced around 30% of their current price), but really, they don't sound particularly good.

That doesn't mean they're not part of the higher-end headphone market.

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

#56

Post by Osmium »

izzydata wrote: post #34
Osmium wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's uncontroversial about that? The iTunes Store did make (legal) digital music mainstream. That's not to say it was the first store of its kind, but it was certainly the first to have widespread success.

CDs are digital music, everyone was listening to digital music before apple did anything. People were using walkmans long before the iPod. The point is trying to credit apple for "digital" music as opposed to "analog" music. That is just absurd. Credit them from making a business out of selling digital music, but not for making digital music popular.

Completely fair point – I was reading "digital" in this context as something ephemeral, like a computer file (mp3s etc.), rather than a physical object such as CD, even though as you say CDs are digital too.

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

#58

Post by jmelloy »

izzydata wrote: post #34
Osmium wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's uncontroversial about that? The iTunes Store did make (legal) digital music mainstream. That's not to say it was the first store of its kind, but it was certainly the first to have widespread success.

CDs are digital music, everyone was listening to digital music before apple did anything. People were using walkmans long before the iPod. The point is trying to credit apple for "digital" music as opposed to "analog" music. That is just absurd. Credit them from making a business out of selling digital music, but not for making digital music popular.

I don't think anybody realistically considers a CD "digital".

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

#59

Post by k-mcgrady »

danudey wrote: post #39
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

The meat of this deal isn't likely the streaming service. Beats Music had only 111,000 subscribers as of March [1]. Compare that to Spotify's 10 million paying subscribers, 30 million non-paying users, and $4 billion valuation. The deal's financial logic is driven by Beats's $1.3 billion business (in 2013) of selling high-priced headphones. Given Apple's P/E ratio of 14.9x earnings [2], the acquisition would make sen…

Your argument makes sense, but it kind of falls apart when you consider that Beats aren't actually good headphones, to the point where The Wirecutter actually did an article[1] where they listed all the various Beats products and then provided examples of better deals (some of them with significantly better quality at half the price). I don't understand why Apple would buy a headphone company that makes pretty but lo…

>> "company that makes pretty but lousy products whose price is only justified by the brand name"

Isn't that something people accuse Apple of doing? Maybe lousy is pushing it a bit but Apple has always been accused of charging high end prices for pretty but mid-range/mediocre hardware. I don't agree with this characterisation but it's one that's always been around.

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

#60

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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