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Apple officially welcomes Beats to the family as Beats moves online sales to Apple’s site

Apple has updated its homepage to include a new microsite officially welcoming the Beats Electronics and Beats Music team to the company. The new site marks the first official mention on Apple.com of the Beats acquisition since the initial press release describing the deal.

Welcome to the family. Today we are excited to officially welcome Beats Music and Beats Electronics to the Apple family. Music has always held a special place in our hearts, and we’re thrilled to join forces with a group of people who love it as much as we do. Beats cofounders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have created beautiful products that have helped millions of people deepen their connection to music. We’re delighted to be working with the team to elevate that experience even further. And we can’t wait to hear what’s next.

The site features a silhouettes view of Beats headphones in the background, one of the marquee products of the company acquired by Apple, and the site contains a link to the newly refreshed BeatsByDre.com (after a few days of downtime).

Featured at the new Beats site is a message also describing the headphones and music company’s move to Apple. The message explains the importance of Apple’s role in music with each of its key products including the Mac, iPod, and iPad.

There’s a new instrument in the Apple family. Musicians rely on their instruments to give structure and form to their imagination. At the dawn of digital recording, the Macintosh computer was the instrument of choice. At the beginning of portable digital music, the iPod placed the library of the world’s music in your pocket. The iPhone became not only an instrument for music but also the center of your connected life. The iPad extended this capability with a user interface and apps that allowed you to compose a symphony on the subway. Starting today, we at Beats are fortunate to add our instrument to this legacy by joining Apple. The products we build together will allow us to reimagine sound once again and to continue this great tradition of bringing imagination to life.

As part of the change, online sales of Beats products will now be routed through Apple’s online store.

Earlier this week we reported that Apple has been busy transitioning Beats employees into the company and reducing a number of jobs that overlap as the two companies begin to further integrate.

The Beats acquisition also means Apple has inherited a new lawsuit from Bose which claims Beats headphones infringe on noise-cancelling technology patents held by Bose.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, and Phil Schiller, SVP of Worldwide Marketing, sent employees the following internal memo:

Today Beats officially joins the Apple family!
On behalf of all Apple employees around the world, we would like to extend them our warmest welcome.
Music is in our DNA. In Beats, Apple has found a team of creative and talented people who are as passionate about music as we are.
Jimmy Iovine, Dr Dre, and the team that has built Beats have created music products that customers love. And what we will do together is going to be even greater than what we could have done on our own.
This is going to be a lot of fun!

Apple first announced its plans to acquire Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion earlier this year on May 28th.

Update: Apple has confirmed with 9to5Mac that it has indeed received U.S. regulatory approval needed to complete its Beats acquisition.

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Comments

  1. ruslev (@ruslev) - 10 years ago

    The beats online store is closed and the site takes you to the apple store.

  2. Bruno Fernandes (@Linkb8) - 10 years ago

    Nothing wrong with the acquisition, it just seems they overpaid by 2.5 billion.

    • freediverx - 10 years ago

      @Bruno Fernandes (@Linkb8)
      Let’s see… so you think it was a bad deal for Apple to pay $2.5 billion for a company with over $1.5 billion in yearly sales, a 27% share of the global market for headphones which it sells at very high profit margins, plus a highly regarded subscription music service known for its curated playlist recommendations,,,

    • chrisl84 - 10 years ago

      What is your $500M valuation of Beats based on? Your personal opinion or have you taken the time to crunch the numbers?

  3. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    Tried Beats at Target once. Was not impressed in the slightest.
    Then again, the best Apple has to offer are free EarPods………

    • poldev - 10 years ago

      Free?? May I ask where exactly 30€ == Free??

      • freediverx - 10 years ago

        Included with all iPhones and iPods.

    • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

      The EarPods sound great for being included in the box.

    • Ben Wexlar - 10 years ago

      Fortunately, Beats isn’t just a headphone manufacturer.

  4. c1ce091b - 10 years ago

    Now, if Apple can get Beats to get rid of their Flash web player at https://listen.beatsmusic.com

  5. chrisl84 - 10 years ago

    Beats app for the Apple TV on its way?

  6. figshta - 10 years ago

    I can’t get to the beatsbydre.com US site from Japan… I can get to the Canadian site though.

  7. Oflife - 10 years ago

    Am convinced this purchase was made because Apple’s CEO whilst a nice guy and doing good for Apple’s continued supply chain (that’s his expertise) wanted to appear ‘hip’ to both Apple employees and their customers. Truth is, my Bose QC15s blow away all Beats cans I have tried, even if not looking as cool. This is the most bizarre acquisition by Apple in their history. Now if they had bought Bose or Sonos, that would make sense. Better product and more Apple like industrial design (except for the QC15s in the case of Bose!) I don’t know anything about the Beats software so cannot comment.

    • freediverx - 10 years ago

      Bose headphones are good at noise cancellation, so they’re a good choice if that’s your main objective.

      But Bose’s audio performance lags other products that cost about the same or less and they’re butt-ugly, looking more like some cheap product you’d buy at Radio Shack than a premium item at an Apple store. Cheap, ugly styling is a non-starter for a product that is increasingly purchased as both a gadget and a fashion accessory. Plus in the home audio market Bose has a well earned reputation for selling overpriced products made with inferior materials and with hidden performance specs.

      You can get better performance, styling, and build quality from Sennheier, B&W, or V-Moda, so if Apple were merely interested in buying a great maker of headphones those would be far better candidates than Bose.

      In any event, Apple doesn’t go around buying companies at random. They bought Beats for strategic reasons, which I suspect revolve largely around their Beats Music service. Beats Music excels at music curation and discovery – beating out competitors like Spotify and Rdio and especially Apple’s own atrocious itunes Radio. And Beats Music is strictly a subscription service, meaning they have a solid business plan compared to companies like Spotify that are operating at a loss.

      Beats’ headphone business is just icing on the cake as its revenue alone easily justifies the acquisition price and the product appeals to a large portion of the market on which Apple does not currently have much influence.

      • Oflife - 10 years ago

        Re Bose styling, I know, I said so in my comment. Re Beats music, likewise, I explained I didn’t know anything about their software.

        I totally disagree about Bose quality etc, whilst I hate docks, theirs blow away the competition, and their clock radios (used to be advertised in the glossy newspaper supplements) also sound outstanding, as do their separate computer speakers, such as the Companion Series 2 etc. I know their are Bose haters, but I’m an audiophile and think they are superb. I suppose it is a matter of taste.

    • Ben Wexlar - 10 years ago

      Your first mistake is your false assumption that Apple bought Beats only for their headphone product line. You can talk all you want about how they compare in quality to other headphone manufacturers, but you’d still be missing the point entirely.

      Purchasing Sonos or Bose would make no sense whatsoever because they would offer nothing in the areas of music, labels, streaming content, or likewise. Apple already has great product designers, they don’t need more.

  8. Drew (@gettysburg11s) - 10 years ago

    interesting article. I am glad to see this. I use Beats Music app on my iPhone, and love it. It blows away Spotify. I have to wonder if Apple will now kill this app, and integrate it into iTunes.

    • freediverx - 10 years ago

      They should do the opposite and replace much of the iTunes app with Beats features.

      The UI and music recommendation on the iTunes Store and iTunes Radio are pathetic. They are ineffectively designed around trying to get you to buy stuff, while the Beats Music interface is designed to let you quickly find anything you want while also helping you discover new music you might like based on human-curated playlists.

  9. Jim Armstrong - 10 years ago

    Beats .. what shit technology. Proof that marketing beats good engineering every time.

    • herb02135go - 10 years ago

      I couldn’t agree more.

      I was not impressed either with apples upgrade to the new ear – specific iPhone ear buds. They are really restrictive for those with hearing issues.

      A moot point given I’m no longer using Apple products though.

      • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

        If you’re no longer using Apple products then why in the hell are you on this site absolutely constantly? Way to waste your time and look like a complete moron.

    • Ben Wexlar - 10 years ago

      Why is everyone brainwashed into thinking Apple bought Beats only for the headphones, or that Beats only makes headphones?

  10. thejuanald - 10 years ago

    Where’s TallestSkil at denying that this is happening and calling everyone who thinks Beats will be acquired by Apple an imbecile?

  11. drtyrell969 - 10 years ago

    I’ve yet to speak to a leading economist who thinks this is anything other than a bad investment. There is no angle, profit plan, improvement in Apple value in this acquisition. Eventually the backdoor deal will be revealed. Apple’s $100 billion just threw away $3 billion.

    • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

      The thing is neither you, nor any ‘leading economist’ knows a thing about why Apple did this deal, or what their plans are with it. Frankly, if it improves their products (like streaming music), the only morons that care if they make money from it or not, are people only interested in Apple making money, not the quality of their products. If Apple made garbage products that sold just as well, those morons would be just as happy. If everything were about money, the world would go nowhere.

Author

Avatar for Zac Hall Zac Hall

Zac covers Apple news, hosts the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, and created SpaceExplored.com.