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> 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.
It doesn't matter if you're paying for sound quality, fashion, or the brand name. They cost $150-$300. That's higher-end.
An important quote from the article: >> “Could Eddy’s team have built a subscription service? Of course,” he said. “We could’ve built those 27 other things ourselves, too. You don’t build everything yourself. It’s not one thing that excites us here. It’s the people. It’s the service.” From my usage of the Beats streaming service it stands head and shoulders above everyone else because of the people it has creating pl…
Is it just the ability to discover new music that has people in love with BS? I find that Google Play does a fantastic job on my phone, and for any sort of real use I fall back to my Sansa MP3 player. I personally dislike others making my playlists, so perhaps I'm far outside the demographic. Is there something I'm missing here, some sort of killer feature perhaps, that validates the huge valuation of this acquisitio…
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.
If they wanted the headphones or the talent or the streaming service, they could have bought any one individually, or purchased a number of competing services that are better in each of those spaces.
The fact that everyone is so confounded by this acquisition makes me think that Apple purchased something non-public.
This is more than an acquihire or however you want to spin it. I'm sure right now Beats headphones are printing money and the people at beats are good at marketing youth culture.
Apple needs the ability to sell expensive tech to teens to be cool. Beats manages to sell overpriced headphones to teenagers all the time in huge numbers, even if it doesn't make financial sense. It's like designer jeans or Oakley sunglasses or... the iPod.
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.
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…
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 would argue that they've already been left behind on the music front. iPods are dead, no one wants to buy tracks on iTunes for $1.29, iTunes Radio was too little, too late. A lot of Apple fans are proudly using Spotify or other services on their iPhones. Heck, even the musicians associated with Apple are getting uncool.
So, at least a Beats acquisition is something.
Is music even still important to Apple? The iPod is in a longterm decline. Low margin music streaming has replaced purchased mp3s. I think music has changed from the main event in the Apple ecosystem to a minor attraction. It seems like Apple is looking backwards and defensively, not forward and offensively on this one.
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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.
"CDS ARE DIGITAL MUSIC!!!"
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.