Apple has surprised us all today by announcing a new and improved Beats Pill bluetooth speaker, and is calling it the Pill+. The new speaker isn’t a radical retake of the original Pill with Apple focusing on making some serious under-the-hood improvements to produce what could arguably be the best sounding Pill ever. Pill+ is set to replace the original Pill speaker which was launched back in 2012. It is larger than previous Pill, but smaller than now discontinued Pill XL.

Beats Electronics, which was acquired by Apple earlier on this year for the tidy sum of $3 billion, has risen to prominence thanks largely to its extensive marketing campaigns. Many celebrities, particularly those with ties to the music industry and sports, have promoted the company’s products simply by wearing them in music videos or in the run-up to major sporting events, and you only really have to turn on the TV to see a pair of Beats headphones floating around. Bose, the audio specialist and thus, major rival to Beats, recently struck a deal with the NFL that would permit players to be seen using only its own brand of audio hardware during and around the time of matches, but while this move also banned NFL participants from wearing any other brand including Beats, one quarterback has decided to flout the rules and has subsequently been fined $10,000.

If you’ve interacted with an HTC device of any description over the past year or two, you’ll be more than familiar with the Beats By Dr. Dre logo branded on every top-spec handset. As a part of the Taiwanese company’s buy-in to the audio company of the hip-hop mogul, HTC has been readily implementing the Beats technology into its roster. But in a dramatic twist, Beats is now looking to buy HTC out of the company, apparently in the market for an investor to bring some funding for further growth and development.