Apple today officially welcomed Beats Music and Beats Electronics to its family, along with Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, following its $3 billion takeover back in May.
“Music has always held a special place in our hearts, and we’re thrilled to join forces with a group of people who love it as much as we do,” reads an announcement on Apple.com, while those buying products from the Beats website will now be routed through the Apple Store.
Apple is finalizing its acquisition of Beats Electronics ahead of the August 1st closing date, and while most of Beats’ top talent will be migrating to the mothership, about 40% of Beats’ global workforce will be cut during the transition.
Around 200 jobs at Beats Electronics will be cut as part of the merger, according to the NY Post, which reports offers were sent to from Apple to employees last week, some of which are just transitional offers with a set end date.
The European Commission today gave its approval to Apple’s $3 billion takeover of Beats Electronics and Beats Music. The regulator concluded that the two companies are not close competitors, and that the headphones they sell are “markedly different in function and design.”
Beats just launched a legal assault against Chinese copy cats earlier this month, but it looks like the company just got hit with a legal bomb for copying another headphone maker itself.
Bose Corporation has filed a lawsuit against Beats for allegedly infringing on the company’s noise-canceling patents, according to CNBC’s Josh Lipton.
Beats may have been acquired by Apple for $3 billion earlier this year, but that doesn’t mean that the trendy headphone maker is ready to adopt the white Jony Ive-favored minimalism of Apple just yet.
While Apple continues to work on its Cupertino “Mothership” headquarters, an article from Fast Company sheds some light on the new Beats campus being renovated from two industrial buildings in Culver City, Los Angeles.
Featuring reception areas, conference rooms, and offices in one building, and a cafeteria, gym, and double-height workshop for R&D in the other, the article describes the design as featuring “architectural gestures that go from pop to cinematic to downright arty.”
One thing it’s not, though, is reminiscent of Apple.
This time on the CultCast: rumored new Apple tech could give weeklong battery life to future iPhones; why your grandma will love the new iTunes; after a 30-year feud, Apple and IBM kiss and make up; Kim Kardashian’s iOS app makes way more than it should; Beats brings the marketing magic back to Apple; and we pitch our favorite apps and tech then vote on which one’s best—it’s an all new Faves N Raves!
Hem and haw your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.
Our thanks to TextExpander for supporting this episode! TextExpander for Mac saves you time and effort by expanding short abbreviations into frequently-used text, pictures, code blocks, and more, and it’s an application we use every single day. Try it out for free at Smilesoftware.com/cultcast.
The German champions may only get one World Cup trophy, but thanks to Beats Electronics, the team members will each get a complimentary pair of 24-karat gold Beats Pro headphones.
Having previously become the hit advertiser of the World Cup with its “Game Before the Game” ad (despite being banned from press events), Beats’ follow-up is a great marketing stunt. It also adds supermodel Naomi Campbell, who was photographed with the gold-dipped headphones and a similarly shiny soccer ball, to the list of high-end celebrities associated with Beats.
If there’s one thing we learned during the World Cup (other than ze Germans are relentlessly brilliant machines), it’s that Beats has some of the best damn marketing on the planet, and Apple really, really needs its help.
After getting tossed around by Samsung in the marketing ring the past few years, the NYPost reports that Apple is looking to Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine to help it reignite its marketing magic, even if it means cutting ties on its 30-year partnership with TBWA.
It’s hard to imagine the inventor of gangsta rap having an office in the spotless halls of Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. Dr. Dre managed to rise above the streets of Compton to become the self-proclaimed “first hip-hop billionaire” thanks to Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats.
While Dre is actually valued between $700-$800 million following the Beats sale, he is still an amazing success story. Not only did his hometown of Compton celebrate “Dre Day” for the first time this summer, but his incredible career is inspiring inner-city kids to dream big.
Is Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Music a potential antitrust case? European Union antitrust regulators announced this morning that it will rule on whether or not to clear Apple’s Beats music bid by July 30.
It is hoped that the deal will help Apple gain the lead in the rapidly-growing and lucrative music streaming business. The European Commission has the power to either clear the Beats deal unconditionally, or else demand concessions if it sees competition issues.
If you like the look of Adobe’s new Creative Cloud apps Sketch and Line, but don’t fancy buying the $200 official stylus to use with them, you should pick up Adonit's new Jot Touch instead. It has a tiny “Pixelpoint” tip instead of a disk or fat rubbery point, and it works just like Adobe’s Ink stylus, letting you copy and paste to/from the Creative Cloud as well as access files and Kuler color palettes. Best of all, it’s just $120.
Apple’s new headphone company has been spewing its love for the World Cup all over the internet with huge cinematic ads and exclusive Jay Z tracks, but there’s one place you won’t see a pair of Beats headphones – inside the actual stadiums.
FIFA has banned Beats headphones from the football pitch and official media events thanks to a licensing agreement with rival Sony.
Beats already released one epic World Cup commercial this month, but last night Dre’s music behemoth tossed out another fantastic ad wrapped in an exclusive Jay Z track you’ll only find on Beats Music.
For the next week a new remix of “Jungle” featuring Jay Z alongside fellow Brooklyn-based friends, X Ambassadors & Jamie N Commons will be exclusively available on Beats Music streaming service.
Checkout the full Beats ad with J Hova’s ungodly soccer fueled verse:
NBA superstar (and Samsung shill) LeBron James reportedly made some serious bank as a result of Apple’s $3bn Beats acquisition in May — ranking as the largest equity cash payout for a professional athlete in history.
Citing sources close to the issue, ESPN claims that James struck a deal to promote Beats headphones back in 2008, in exchange for a minority interest in the then-new company. Although it’s not known exactly how many shares he owned (Beats has always framed it as a “business relationship” without giving further details), it was enough to earn him a whopping $30 million in both cash and stock when the Beats deal was finally done.
The latest ad for Beats headphones prominently displays Apple products, which probably has something to do with the fact that Apple is spending $3 billion to buy Beats.
Clocking in at just over five minutes, you won’t see the ad on TV. It’s tailored for the upcoming World Cup, and Beats is not an official sponsor. Nevertheless, the ad is compelling and filled with celebrity cameos. Could this be the direction Apple is heading with its in-house advertising?
Like an enthusiastic groupie, Apple is picking up musicians left and right these days. The latest report, confirmed by a spokesperson for Beats, says the Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor will not be leaving Beats following the Apple acquisition.
Reznor was hired by Jimmy Iovine back in January 2013, joining the company as its Chief Creative Officer, and charged with helping build up its streaming music services. At the time of the hire, Iovine said that Reznor would “bring an emotional connection back to the act of music discovery.”
The real reason behind Apple’s $3 billion buy of Beats may be a plan for an epic mashup of music and tech by combining the hardware of headphones and Beats Music software.
Two notable patent applications published Thursday suggest that Apple could be thinking along exactly these lines.
24 hours haven’t even passed since Apple announced it scooped up Dre’s bass-loving headphone company but that’s not stopping the Dr. and Iovine from busting out an encore to their most successful headphones yet.
This morning Beats revealed its replacing its popular Beats Solo headphones with the new Beats Solo² that not only offer better sound, they’re the most Apple-like set of cans we’ll see before Jony Ive gets his team on them.
I’m a streaming music junkie. I’ve subscribed to Rdio, Spotify and Slacker to rein in my tendency to hoard (and then not back up) music. Putting a tenner on monthly subscriptions for an all-you-can-listen auditory buffet model appealed to me more than an album-binging approach, too.
Still, the Apple and Beats acquisition rumors (now fact) struck me as tone deaf – what does Beats bring that the other services don’t? So I decided to take the Beats app on my iPhone for good long spin.
Three weeks of speculation and rumors have led to this. Apple is finally buying Beats for $3 billion.
News of the deal broke weeks ago but the tech world is still scratching its head, wondering why Apple decided to buy a company that peddles overpriced plastic headphones and is co-anchored by one of hip-hop’s most notorious MCs.
Forgetting the fact the fact that Beats has captured 60% of its market, makes over $1 billion in sales and has one of the fastest growing music subscription service in the U.S., the acquisition is the most perplexing Apple purchase since NeXT, but now that Tim Cook has broken the silence on why Apple bought Beats we finally answers you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.
Apple’s acquisition of Beats is official, and it’s clear that the move is more about the talent Apple is getting than anything else.
After the buyout was announced this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the reasoning behind the company’s decision. “What Beats brings to Apple are guys with very rare skills,” he said in an interview with Re/code. “People like this aren’t born every day. They’re very rare. They really get music deeply. So we get infusion in Apple of some great talent.”
So it’s obvious that Apple thinks very highly of the people at Beats. But who exactly are they getting as part of the deal?
Two weeks after the news of the deal was first reported, Apple has officially announced its buyout of Beats Electronics for $3 billion.
Apple will keep the Beats headphone and Beats Music brands separate as part of the deal. As previously reported, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine will join Apple full time.
“Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “That’s why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world.”
After Beats co-founder Dr. Dre made an exuberant video post on Vine boasting about becoming the first rap billionaire, many worried that Apple’s deal with the audio and streaming music service — once rumored to be worth as much as $3.2 billion — was scuttled. But a new report suggests it’s still on track for being announced this week, although Dre’s boastfulness may have cost him two hundred million dollars.
This week: two awesome Apple artifacts hit the auction block; Oompa-loompas leak pics of a super-sized iPad; forget headphones, the Beats acquisition could be all about video; Woz sets the FCC straight on net neutrality; iPad is where the Gov-er-na-tuh stores his shirtless selfies; a popular travel app you should definitely download, like, right now; and, is Apple building out their own content delivery network?
Heartily guffaw your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin!
Our thanks to Smile Software for supporting this episode! If you haven’t tried TextExpander from Smile software, you’re missing out on one of the most useful apps available for the Mac. TextExpander saves you time and effort by expanding short abbreviations into frequently-used text and pictures, and it’s an application Erfon uses every single day. Try it out yourself for free at smilesoftware.com/cultcast.
Click on for the show notes.
Conventional wisdom is that while Beats has a lot of fashion credibility, the actual audio quality blows. So why does Apple want to buy them?
Rumors have swirled that it’s an acqui-hire, and that Apple wants Beats so that it can also own Beats executive Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, whose contacts in the music industry are unparalleled.
But there could be another reason, too. Apple might want to prevent Samsung from purchasing Beats.