Apple seems determined to celebrate the buyout of the Beats Electronics and Beats Music brands and had already dedicated a page of its online store to the Beats by Dr. Dre hardware before today slashing the prices of most of those products by 10%.
Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music wasn’t in vain at all. Earlier this week, the Cupertino tech giant started exposing first-time customers to Beats Music when they stepped into the App Store for the first time, and now, the company has included Beats Music app to the “Apps Made by Apple” list in the iTunes App Store, in order to guarantee not only just higher number of downloads for the app, but also cement its ownership of the company and its platform.
The deal that saw Apple acquire Beats Electronics was one of the biggest stories so far this year. Sure, we were flabbergasted by Facebook's $16 billion purchase of WhatsApp, partially because of the sheer amount of money changing hands, but given the Cupertino company’s conservative spending habits, this one came a little out of the blue. Apple has consistently stayed away from big-money buyouts, and the decision to snap up the Dr. Dre-founded company also signaled the first time that the Mac maker opened its wallet for a well-known company. Now, with the $3 billion agreement having been given the rubber stamp of approval, Beats has been given its own special space on the Apple retail site, where you might find headphones, speakers, and… oh - more headphones.
Apple's purchase of Beats Electronics was not only the biggest acquisition that the Cupertino company had made in its history, but also represented the first time that Apple opened its wallet to acquire a popular, well-known brand. Beats' "Pill" mascot, based on the Pill speaker device that you'll no doubt have seen advertised on numerous occasions, has naturally just been introduced to Apple's Siri voice assistant, and in a rather entertaining new advertisement, these two well-known products hold their first public conversation.
Beats Electronics, which was recently acquired by Apple, has enjoyed an immensely successful first few years in business, and while its hardware arguably offers premium audio quality, there's no doubt that the company's ties with music and popular culture have helped it to reach the dizzy heights of being Apple's largest ever acquisition. As well as music, an industry in which founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are heavily invested, football / soccer players have certainly helped to broaden the appeal of the brand, and now, Beats has returned the favor by presenting Germany's World Cup-winning squad with some 24-carat gold Beats Pro headphones.
Dr. Dre's Beats Electronics, soon to be part of the Apple empire following a massive acquisition announcement of $3 billion, has filed a lawsuit that it hopes will not only put a collection of Chinese counterfeiters out of business, but also rake in a pretty penny when it comes to fines and seizure of assets.
Apple's well-documented acquisition of Beats Electronics was officially announced only a couple of weeks ago, but even though co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine clearly enjoyed their first publicized engagement alongside Tim Cook and the other Apple executives, the company is still very much on its game as far as the business of releasing new products is concerned. Having already taken the wraps off the new Solo2, Beats has just announced its very first wireless earbuds in the form of the Powerbeats2, and like the original Powerbeats, they are designed with the active, sporting individual in mind.
With Apple having spent $3 billion to officially take Beats Electronics under its wing, the Cupertino company has wasted no time in moving its new subsidiary onwards and upwards. The Beats Music app, which offers streaming music to customers in a similar business model to Spotify et al, was immediately updated on iOS following yesterday's press release, and now, some new headphones have become available to pre-order. The $199.95 'Solo2' headphones, an upgrade on the Solo HDs, sport a more sizeable, tweaked design, and also promise to deliver improved sound quality.
Earlier on in the month, it came to light that Apple had struck a deal with Beats Electronics to purchase the audio-focused company, in a union that would serve as the Cupertino's costliest acquisition by some margin. Now, Apple has issued a press release offering official confirmation on the takeover, worth a cool $3 billion.
Apple's acquisition of Beats Electronics certainly came out of the blue, but the company does have some notable history. Along with the revelation that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a long-time fan of Jimmy Iovine - the guy who has manned Beats since its inception along with Dr. Dre - a conference call between Dre and Jobs has recently come to light where the two men discuss Apple's iTunes music service.
