News - Apple rumoured to be in talks to acquire Beats for $3.2bn

[HEXUS]

The move is expected to allow Apple to achieve its music streaming ambitions.

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[Defiant]

I have to say I had a small chuck to myself over this

[Torashin]

No no no no no no no no no no no no no! Please no! They might think they'd be improving their audio but I want my future apple devices to be capable of producing more than a lump of 60Hz "bass" accompanied by white noise. Go and buy Creative or Sennheiser instead!

[Gh0sty]

Ha ha ha ha ha just goes to prove how much of a fashion accessory an apple product is! No one in their right mind would buy a pair of those over priced awful sounding headphones. For at £100 less you could actually buy a decent sounding pair of headphones.

[iranu]

Just goes to show you how marketing works, people are suckers for an endorsement and a bit of shiny, shiny. Most people haven't the faintest clue what quality sound actually sounds like, instead they love the boom, boom, boom.

I'll stick to my Sennheisers thanks.

[walibe]

Who says Apple wants beats for its headphones? They launched a streaming service. Is this not their backdoor into making money from Android users without having to dirty their itunes brand?

Also don't forget the beats brand (brand images is important here) goes from strength to strength despite being pretty average headphones. I doubt Apple would do a macbook or iphone with 'beats audio' engraved on it but you never know. Does seem alot of money for the brand, but then Apple has huge cash reserves doing exactly 'jack'.

[tribaljet]

Makes a lot of sense, both brand's products are quite overpriced for what they offer in return so they're a good match.

I've yet to see any "technology" developed by Beats that's unusual, nevermind an improvement over current solutions and given the multiple starter companies with actually revolutionary tech are still doing their own thing, this might end up widening Apple's product line-up and potentially increasing prices on select models.

The bit about the audio store being used for Android is an interesting thought, though.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well AFAICS buying Beats did nothing for positive for HTC.

My HTC phone has Beats Audio stamped on it, I hate that. Thankfully you can at least turn the feature off.

[nicolman92]

Ha ha ha ha ha just goes to prove how much of a fashion accessory an apple product is! No one in their right mind would buy a pair of those over priced awful sounding headphones. For at £100 less you could actually buy a decent sounding pair of headphones.

Haha correct! Sennheisers are much better IMO but of course apple only care about what sells well. For the cost of macs. I'd expect decent speakers on them

[crossy]

Well AFAICS buying Beats did nothing for positive for HTC.My HTC phone has Beats Audio stamped on it, I hate that. Thankfully you can at least turn the feature off.

Same for HP gear - we've got tablets and laptop with "Powered by Beats" and to be honest I can't tell the difference between that and the equivalent non-Beats stuff.

Who says Apple wants beats for its headphones? They launched a streaming service. Is this not their backdoor into making money from Android users without having to dirty their itunes brand?

Hmm, like your thinking. I'd also be looking if Beats have any technical IP of note. There's the hardware side - good to have highly fashionable devices that work with anything but can also be stickered as "works best with Apple iOS". According to the unscientific poll I did (my teenage kids) the Beats stuff is aspirational (good to have if your parents are loaded) but other stuff like Skullcandy's are more "street".

Also don't forget the beats brand (brand images is important here) goes from strength to strength despite being pretty average headphones.

Also very true, although like most here I really can't see what the big deal is with Beats. Yes, the styling is "funky", but the audio performance is "questionable" and the prices ... omg. Maybe I'm a peasant but I think I'll be sticking with my Shure E-series and Beyerdynamics DT's for the forseeable.

[Smudger]

You'll still look like a boob wearing them.

[F2K8]

I guess they know their demographic really well. People who own Beats at the moment are the same people who go out and buy iPhones on the first day, without even looking at what they have improved. It's a good move by Apple if it turns out to be true. They'll be rolling in even more money fairly soon.

[Barakka]

I guess they know their demographic really well. People who own Beats at the moment are the same people who go out and buy iPhones on the first day, without even looking at what they have improved. It's a good move by Apple if it turns out to be true. They'll be rolling in even more money fairly soon.

But as some people have commented elsewhere, this is why it doesn't make sense... big companies do large acquisitions like this to add a large volume of customers to their portfolio, but the customer bases and demographics already significantly overlap so they won't gain that many more customers.

I wonder if it's more to do with the streaming service as walibe said, the service Beats established has some serious players involved, previous record company execs, and top producers giving it the possibility to finally make a deal that sticks for copyright and royalties payments, and that's something i'm sure Apple would love to have credit for.