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Following the official announcement regarding Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music, Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent a letter to employees regarding the deal. Cook goes through Apple’s focus on music throughout its history, how Apple and Beats will be structured upon the closing of the deal later this year, and why this acquisition is important.

Apple’s history in music began with selling Macs to musicians. That remains important to us today, but we also bring music to hundreds of millions of customers with iTunes, which is at the forefront of the digital music revolution. Music holds a special place in our hearts at Apple, and we know that we can make an even bigger contribution to something that is so important to our society. That’s why we have kept investing in music and why we’re bringing together these extraordinary teams — so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world.

Beats co-founders and music industry pioneers Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple, along with their team of employees. Jimmy has been on the cutting edge of innovation in the music industry for decades, including as a key partner for Apple in the launch of the iTunes Music Store more than ten years ago. He has produced or collaborated with some of the most popular artists in history, and been an important contributor to the success of the iTunes Store.

Beats Music was built with deep respect for both artists and fans. We think it’s the first subscription service to really get it right. Both Apple and Beats believe that a great music service requires a strong editorial and curation team, and we will continue to expand what we do in those areas. The addition of Beats will make our incredible iTunes lineup even better, extending the emotional connection our customers have with music.

Beats Music (along with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre) will be integrated into Eddy Cue’s services team while headphones and speakers will now fall under Phil Schiller’s domain. Cook ends his letter by saying “I hope you are as excited as I am about this new chapter in our history.” You can read the full memo below:

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As was reported to be in final talks a few weeks ago, Apple has officially closed on a deal to purchase Beats Electronics for $3B. Apple announced the deal in an official press release:

Apple® today announced it has agreed to acquire the critically acclaimed subscription streaming music service Beats Music, and Beats Electronics, which makes the popular Beats headphones, speakers and audio software. As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple. Apple is acquiring the two companies for a total of $3 billion, consisting of a purchase price of approximately $2.6 billion and approximately $400 million that will vest over time.

“Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “That’s why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world.”

“I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,” said Jimmy Iovine. “The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology. Apple’s deep commitment to music fans, artists, songwriters and the music industry is something special.”

The deal marks the largest acquisition ever made by Apple including its $400 million deal in 1996 to purchase the company NeXT which brought Steve Jobs back to the company (adjusted for inflation, that deal would measure around $600 million in 2014)…

(Photo via Pablo Martinez Piles)

Before Peter Oppenheimer announced earlier this year his plans to retire, Apple’s CFO shared in a scheduled quarterly conference call that Apple Retail would continue to expand its global presence across 2014. Specifically, Oppenheimer shared that the company will add an addition 30 retail stores this year while remodeling 20 existing stores; more than half of this expansion would take place outside of the United States.

We’ve already seen examples of this happening in places like Turkey where Apple opened its first retail store in Istanbul at the Zorlu Center last month. The company has recently given its long expected Portland “glass box” Apple Store at Pioneer Place a proper opening date (Saturday, May 31st at 10:00 am). In addition to the massive new stores in Istanbul and Portland, Apple has also put up the gate seen above around a future retail location in Madrid, Spain, ahead of its anticipated opening next month…
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Just a couple of weeks after releasing OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 to users, Apple has seeded the first beta of the upcoming OS X 10.9.4 to developers. We first reported that Apple was nearing a release of OS X 10.9.4 in beta to developers. It’s unclear what changes are in store with the new system, but hopefully it fixes the many headaches that Mac Pro users have been facing since 10.9.3’s release earlier this month. No word on when 10.9.4 will go public, but it is interesting that this Mavericks release will be in beta in tandem with OS X 10.10‘s beta release next week at WWDC. Thanks, D!

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The slide above is an interesting look at the rapid growth of tablets and how the category is growing much faster than desktop or notebook PCs ever accomplished. That and the fact there is still much room for growth is one of the key trends in a presentation from Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers at this week’s Code Conference.

The slide on the right above shows the potential for growth if tablets are to reach the population penetration of PCs (21%), smartphones (22%), or TVs (78%). The data in the slides comes from Morgan Stanley, which just so happen to lower its 2014 tablet growth forecast earlier this month suggesting that weaker than expected iPad sales could stick around for the rest of the year…
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Declining iTunes sales highlighted by Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty and reported by Fortune appear to underline the need for Apple to move beyond sales of music downloads and into the subscription music business. iTunes sales are down 24 percent year-on-year.

While the slack is being picked up by app sales – a trend previously noted by Asymco’s Horace Dediu – that falling blue line reflects the wider shift in consumer behaviour from purchasing downloads to subscribing to streaming services noted last year by Billboard magazine … 
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Rossenblatt Securities analyst Brian Blair is citing supply chain sources in Taiwan in stating that the iWatch has a round display, and is similar in design to the Moto 360 smartwatch shown above in a Motorola teaser image, but with a slimmer profile, reports Business Insider.

According to his supply chain sources, the iWatch will have a round face. Many people were expecting it to have a rectangular face, but Blair’s sources tell him it’s going to be round, like a normal watch …

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If you’re eligible for education pricing, iGeneration noticed that the discounts available on Macs through the Apple Store for Education have now been extended to iPads. The discounts are modest, ranging from $20 to $30, but it all helps.

Education pricing is available to pretty much everyone working or studying in higher education: students, faculty, staff – even parents of students – as well as employees of K-12 schools.

Discounted iPad prices for the base spec 16GB wifi models are:

• iPad mini: $279 ($20 off)
• iPad mini with Retina display: $379 ($20 off)
• iPad Retina display (4th Gen): $379 ($20 off)
• iPad Air: $469 ($30 off)

The discounts appear to be rolling out internationally, already available in some countries but not yet all.

If your college belongs to the Apple on Campus program, the same modest discounts on iPads appear to be available, in contrast to the significantly better discounts offered on Macs.

As always, we recommend tuning into 9to5Toys to find the absolute best prices on iPads and all other Apple gear. For example, we recently featured a 16GB iPad Air for $400 ($100 off), 16GB Retina iPad mini with LTE for $355 ($174 off), and a 64GB iPad mini (1st gen) for $349 (orig. $599).

Last night we reported that several Mac and iOS users were finding their devices remotely locked by hackers who had gained access to the users’ Find My iPhone accounts and demanded a ransom to return the devices to a working state.

Today Apple issued a statement on the problem, noting that—as suspected—the iCloud service itself was not actually breached, but individual user accounts may have been compromised through password reuse or social engineering:

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Earlier this month, reports emerged claiming that Apple was in negotiations to buy headphone and streaming music company Beats for $3.2 billion, making it Apple’s largest deal in history. According to a new report out of the NY Post, Apple has recently dropped the price its willing to pay for the company to $3 billion. It’s unclear as to what exactly caused Apple to lower its offer, but a report last week broke down a variety of reasons as to why the deal could be delayed. One of the reasons was a vulgar video from Dr. Dre, that apparently “freaked” Apple out. It’s also possible that a leaked report claiming that Beats only had 110,000 paying subscribers made Apple even more skeptical.

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On the Code Conference stage in California, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced an upcoming feature for Skype: live voice translation. The demonstration showed a German speaker speaking to an English speaker. The English words automatically were repeated by the computer in German, while the German speech was automatically spoken back by the computer in English…

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(Thanks iOSVlog Daily)

Apple revealed today that it will indeed be streaming video of the anticipated opening keynote from WWDC next week, and now banners are beginning to be displayed through Moscone West in San Francisco where Apple’s developer conference will be held. The banners so far reflect the same design used in the WWDC promotional material for this year including the “Write the code. Change the world” slogan used by Apple. Apple has already revealed much of the schedule for its developer conference next week where the next versions of OS X and iOS will be revealed including the keynote announcement set to take place on Monday, June 2nd at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern.
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When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone 4, he also introduced us to Apple’s definition of a Retina display. “There’s a magic number right around 300 pixels per inch, that when you hold something around 10 or 12 inches away from your eyes, is the limit of the human retina to differentiate the pixels… text looks like you’ve seen it in a fine printed book.”  That Retina branding has become an industry misconception according to LG, and the company made a point of it during its G3 smartphone unveiling earlier today.

Jobs also said that the Retina display was a first for a display on a phone, but that might not be the case for Apple’s new iPhone 6. Since the iPhone 4, Android manufacturers have one-upped Apple with higher resolution and larger displays. LG’s comments aren’t just relevant when comparing current iPhone models, but also when thinking about what’s planned for iPhone 6. It didn’t mention Apple by name, but it was clear LG was referring to the iPhone and Apple’s 300ppi Retina definition:
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Apple has updated its website to announce that it will be live streaming next week’s WWDC Keynote address for all to watch. As per usual, the event will be available on Macs running Safari 4 or later, iOS Devices running iOS 4.2 or later, Windows machines running Quicktime 7, and via an application on the Apple TV. The event kicks off at 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern time on Monday, June 2nd. Apple says that it has “exciting announcements” in store for the event (as it says for all of its events), which is likely to include talk of iOS 8 with Healthbook, a redesigned OS X 10.10, and new hardware products. We’ll be on hand live to bring you the latest news from the conference.

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It’s the 21st Century: weren’t we all supposed to be living in automated homes by now? Where we walk in the door after a long day to have our home playing some soothing music, informing us that it’s run us a bath and that dinner will be ready in 45 minutes? Where a robot has done the cleaning, changed the flowers, accepted a parcel that arrived while we were at work and fed the cat?

That dream seems to be a long time coming. I’m a reasonably techy guy who loves the idea of home automation, yet even I only have three examples in my home (which I’ll mention along the way). Most mass-market consumers haven’t even noticed that the products exist, and the few who have tend to view it all as too complicated or fiddly.

If anyone can change that perception, it’s Apple. Which is why the Financial Times report yesterday that Apple is working on a new approach to home automation that may be unveiled at WWDC next week caught my attention … 
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Update: Brent Simmons write on his blog that Vesper for Mac is indeed next.

Vesper received a major feature update overnight bringing one of the most requested features to the note-taking app: support for sync. Vesper, the project of John Gruber, Brent Simmons, and Dave Wiskus under the name Q Branch, was released almost a year ago for the iPhone and decidedly lacked iCloud sync (due to reliability) or any alternative. Simmons has since been journaling his experiencing with building an in-house sync solution for Vesper on his Inessential blog if you are interested in reading the behind-the-scenes work that goes into such a project…

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