Beats Pill+ portable speaker won’t stay dead

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A second special edition since Apple discontinued the Beats Pill+ speaker looks to be imminent.
A second special edition since Apple discontinued the Beats Pill+ speaker looks to be imminent.
Photo: Apple/Beats

Apple killed the Beats Pill+ portable speaker in January, and yet it lives on. In March it saw a special-edition release through a partnernship with Stüssy. And now it rises from the dead once again.

This time, a collaboration with Devin Book and Book Projects will result in a customized Beats Pill+ exterior design that takes its cues from the Sonoran Desert.

Apple discontinued Beats Pill+ in January. And yet it’s on its second special edition since then.

Apple paid $3 billion for the Beats brand — aka Beats by Dre — back in 2014. The Beats Pill+ became the first completely new product to come out after the deal was done.

But in January of this year Apple discontinued the speaker without saying anything about what might replace it. In March, a skull-embossed Stüssy edition suddenly showed up.

The Beats Pill+ started life with a $229 price tag. But Apple ended up selling it for $179.95 in its stores and online. Around the time it was killed off you could still find it through third-party retailers. But all signs of its existence have been wiped from Beats and Apple websites.

Watch the video from Beats, Devin Book and Book Projects:

Not clear yet when we’ll see the desert version (or how much we’ll pay)

Beats Pill+ charged through a Lightning port and integrated well with Beats’ iOS app. It was widely considered to be an improvement over its predecessor, the Beats Pill II.

Beats doesn’t say when it will launch the new special edition or how much it will charge for it. The Twitter reveal only showed how it will look. It sports a faded, black-orange design, with two letter Bs on either side of the sun.

In recent weeks Beats said it would release a couple of different special editions of its Beats Studio Buds, including this one. And going back a bit further, there have been others, like this and this.

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