The recent return of the iconic Beats Pill portable Bluetooth speaker wasn’t just a typical product update, but a complete overhaul to help cement Beats’ identity as a premium-products subsidiary of the iPhone giant, according to a new interview with Apple executives.
“We wanted to do something special with the Pill and completely re-architect and reimagine it,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple VP of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Sports and Beats. “It wasn’t a case [of] let’s swap out one or two things. We really wanted a complete refresh. This is a completely new product inside, and outside as well.”
Apple execs detail ‘complete refresh’ of iconic Beats Pill speaker
Schusser, along with Jeff Bruksch, head of Product Marketing at Beats, sat down with an interviewer from Wallpaper recently in Apple’s new Battersea Power Station offices in London to talk Beats strategy and more. The new speaker’s late-June release got teased ahead of time in a video by Lebron James and Li’l Wayne, which followed other clues to the product’s imminent arrival.
In the interview, Bruksch first laid out the updates to the speaker, which manages to be lighter, louder, more water- and dust-resistant (now IP67) and twice as long-playing (24 hour battery life) than the original, released in 2015 as a Beats 2.0 replacement and retired in January 2022. Oh, and the new one’s also less expensive, by the way ($150 compared to the original Beats Pill’s $230). And the colors look pretty cool: Matte Black, Statement Red and Champagne Gold.
What makes new Beats Pill special: ‘Bigger sound, lower distortion’
Photo: Apple
Bruksch described the new Pill’s improvements in sound quality, which trump all the other improvements for many discerning listeners (if it doesn’t sound great, who cares how long the battery lasts?).
“With [preceding model] Pill+ we had dual woofers and dual tweeters, both circular shaped. We completely redesigned and reimagined that, with a single racetrack woofer [and] single tweeter that are much more competent and capable of louder sound, bigger sound, lower distortion,” he said.
“The single woofer itself displaces 1.9 times more air than the two woofers combined in the Pill+,” he added. “They have stronger neodymium magnets. They give 20% stronger motor force. Together that just gives us a lot more potential on the low end for better bass reproduction, cleaner bass reproduction.”
Why did Apple retire the original Pill?
The interview described some of Beats Pill’s history, including why Apple retired it. It had to do with sorting out headphone strategy before speakers strategy.
“We needed to do a lot of work. We look at Beats as a premium product company. We’re in the headphone space. Our aspirations are to make the best headphones with the best technology. We needed to completely redesign and reimagine our entire headphone portfolio,” Schusser said. “We decided to focus on that first before we were going to get to the Pill.”
And when they go to the Pill, they completely re-did it, inside and out. The interviewer asked about how they made it smaller and lighter with no audio-quality sacrifice.
“It really was about efficiency — efficiency of the acoustic components, efficiency of the structure. And [there’s] a lot more diligence around the design, manufacturing and implementation of all the components,” Schusser said.
And he reiterated his point about Beats being about “premium” products:
One of the things I want to make sure is understood is: We see ourselves as a premium brand. Obviously we’re part of Apple and we have really incredible engineers working on these products. So we are obsessed about weight; making it as light as possible; making it as small as possible; making the battery life [longer] – 24-hour battery is incredible. These are things that we pushed really hard for. Because we see ourselves on the premium side of the spectrum in the market. Even though our target audience tends to be a little younger, and people take the Pill on the beach and on the basketball court, these are high-quality products.
A busy decade for Beats
Photo: Apple
Schusser also responded to a question about highlights of the past years since Apple bought Beats for $3 billion in 2014, saying “he pace of innovation in the last few years has been incredible.”
The last few years, we have been launching more products than in Beats history within the shortest amount of time. Beats obviously was born within the over-ear segment [of the headphone market]. But with the Beats Studio Buds, we went aggressively into the in-ear market. That’s been a huge success out of the gate. And we’ve now upgraded the product, with a better version. Beats Fit Pro is an incredible product for athletes because they have the wingtip so they stay in your ear.
So just the pace of innovation in the last few years has been incredible. It’s a combination of upgrading some of our iconic products, whether it’s Studio or Solo [headphones], or now the Pill, or launching new products [such as] Beats Solo Buds, which is really an engineering wonder – incredible technology packed into the smallest headphone we’ve ever made.
And of course the interview asked what’s next for the brand.
“We will continue to make the best products in the market, and innovate,” Schusser said. “We have a number of surprises coming.”
