Apple is buying Beats Electronics. Maybe. Some day. News of the deal broke nearly two weeks ago and at that time, an announcement was supposedly imminent. Then a video of Dr. Dre’s drunken celebration seemingly confirmed the news alongside additional reports from several big papers. But Apple and Beats have yet to make any announcement.
Some have suggested that Apple’s Beats buy is a good move, with one report going as far as to call it Apple’s “best idea since the iPad.” Others have slammed the move as a desperate attempt to “acquire cool.” Wherever people stand on the rumored deal, however, one truth is beyond apparent: No one seems to know exactly why Apple is buying Beats.
While analysts and bloggers continue to offer their theories on the subject, a more productive use of time might be to actually take a look at the businesses Apple will control if and when it nabs Beats in a rumored $3.2 billion deal that would be its largest ever acquisition. Namely, Apple will own the world’s leading headphone brand as well as a streaming music service that could potentially fill a huge gap in its music product lineup.
Where the latter product is concerned, TidBITS’s Josh Centers (via The Loop) recently offered a terrific in-depth review of Beats Music.
Centers does a fantastic job of cutting through the hype and showing off Beats Music’s various core features compared to the leading streaming music services such as Pandora and Spotify. While rival services certainly have the numbers, serving far more subscribers than the rumored 111,000 or so that Beats has, Centers found several key areas where Beats offers value that rival services simply cannot match. Among them are Beats’ higher-quality music files and its personal curation features, which call upon famous musicians and others to create themed playlists.
The review is a great read for those interesting in learning one of the reasons Apple might see value in Beats Electronics, and it’s linked below in our source section.
