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Details on Apple-Beats: Cook says Android and Windows apps will continue, Iovine to move over full time, more

Apple just made the Beats deal official, announcing its plans to acquire both Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion. Apple CEO Tim Cook has conducted several interviews with various news organisations about the deal, revealing some interesting tidbits. The press release noted that Apple will keep Beats around as a separate brand, including Beats’ hardware. Most notably, however, Cook told the Financial Times that Apple will not remove the Beats app from competing app stores on Android and Windows Phone. Cook said “It’s all about the music”.

The Financial Times also confirmed that Apple will keep Beats’ subscription service and iTunes Radio separate entities, at least for the time being. In an interview with the New York Times, Cook sung the praises of Iovine and Dre saying that these people are unique. He continued that Dre and Iovine, who will join Apple as employees, are going to focus on making “features that blow your mind” to take music “to an even higher level than it is now”.

The Apple-Beats acquisition has been met with a lot of skepticism in recent weeks. Unsurprisingly, Cook is positively enthused about the whole thing.

Mr. Cook called the deal a “no-brainer.” He said that Apple had bought 27 companies since last year, but that did not mean Apple had to buy those companies.

“Could Eddy’s team have built a subscription service? Of course,” he said. “We could’ve built those 27 other things ourselves, too. You don’t build everything yourself. It’s not one thing that excites us here. It’s the people. It’s the service.”

Cook showed similar enthusiasm in an internal memo to Apple employees. Cook said that Beats is the first company to do a music subscription service “right”. Beats will help Apple expand its editorial and curation teams for music as well as push the iTunes business forward, according to the note.

The Wall Street Journal shines some more light on the duo’s new jobs, saying that whilst Iovine will leave his current role to join full-time at Apple, Dre will remain primarily creating music. The artist will “do as much as it takes” for Apple, however.

 

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Comments

  1. myke2241 - 10 years ago

    Seriously, those guys took someone else’s design, put their names behind it and added marketing. if they want to take music to the next level buy a hifi company and figure out how to make their stuff cheaper.

  2. iPadCary - 10 years ago

    Dear Tim,
    PLEASE just go away.
    Sincerely,
    iPadCary

    • chrisl84 - 10 years ago

      Have fun paying 1.29 per song in iTunes while the rest of embrace the future of music

  3. thud (@thud) - 10 years ago

    Well, the problem for Apple has been ongoing for years and it’s time someone put a stop to it. PLEASE. TUCK IN YOUR SHIRTS. Thank you.

  4. Derek Huey - 10 years ago

    I keep thinking that this is bringing in Iovine to basically take over as CEO after some time while Cookie can either resume his role as COO (or be fired?). And I think its a good idea as long as he knows how to treat employees like Cook and Jobs did. Jobs didn’t directly treat people well, but he created a great environment.

  5. I can’t wait to see what Apple messes up or changes drastically within the next year with this Beats deal. If consumers think that change isn’t coming, they are wrongly mistaken. Anything with an Apple branding on it is sure to turn for the worse.

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.