Apple debuted a long-anticipated new version of the Beats Pill over the summer, and today the company has launched its first firmware update for the new speaker.
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Apple in June announced a new generation of the Beats Pill, a portable Bluetooth speaker under the Beats brand. As my 9to5Mac colleague Chance Miller said in his review here, the new Beats Pill is “better than ever” – and I have to agree. The more I use the new Beats Pill, the more I realize that it’s a better deal than the HomePod mini.
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Oliver Schusser might have one of Apple’s most wide-reaching titles, as VP of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Sports, and Beats. In a new interview, Schusser covers a lot of ground, especially focusing on Apple Music, its competitors, and the recent Beats Pill redesign.
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Following the recent launches of the Solo Buds and Solo 4, Beats is back with one more thing. This time, it’s the return of the iconic Beats Pill wireless speaker. The new Beats Pill retains the iconic pill-shaped design and packs a few interesting surprises inside that make it worth the wait.
Head below for all of the details on the new Beats Pill, plus some first impressions from my first week with it. It’s available to order today for $149.99, a substantial price cut compared to its 2015 predecessor.
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Apple has been teasing the comeback of its Beats Pill speaker with sports stars like Lebron James and more carrying it around. Now after FCC approval earlier this week, another regulator has approved the new portable speaker ahead of a potentially imminent launch.
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Apple has killed some Beats products recently, such as the Beats Pill+ and the Beats Solo Pro. Now, the company appears to have revived its speaker for another collaboration with Devin Booker and Book Projects with a customized Beats Pill+ inspired by the Sonoran Desert.
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At the start of the week we saw Apple officially pull the plug on Beats Music after using it as the foundation for Apple Music which includes a streaming radio station dubbed Beats 1 as a salute. On the hardware front, Apple is totally marching forward with the headphone and speaker business it acquired after buying Beats for $3 billion a year and a half ago. The first totally new product to come from Apple under the Beats brand is the recently announced Beats Pill+ ($195, reg. $229), a portable Bluetooth speaker that recharges over Lightning like iPhones and iPads.
The Pill+ marks Apple’s first real step back into the speaker business since briefly entering it in with the iPod Hi-Fi from 2006 to 2007; aside from color variations and wireless models, all other Beats hardware has been designed before the Apple move. Still, Apple’s new portable speaker resembles previous versions of Beats hardware more than you might expect from the iPhone maker in 2015. There’s even a companion Pill+ app for both iOS and Android. And even though this is clearly a Beats-branded product and not purely Apple, there’s something for fans of both to like, but is it the best speaker in its class?
Apple can’t catch a break on Android. When Apple released its first app on Google’s platform last month called Move to iOS, Android fans were quick to negatively rate the app that only existed to help people switch from Android to iPhone. To date, Move to iOS has roughly 30,000 1 star reviews to only 10,000 5 star reviews with not much happening in the middle.
Now Apple has its second Android app on the Google Play Store called Beats Pill+. It’s a companion app to Apple’s new portable Bluetooth speaker with the same name, allowing both Android and iPhone users to pair two speakers as stereo or amplified and use a DJ feature for queueing up tracks from multiple phones.
And the reviews? Just as extreme despite Beats speakers working with both iPhone and Android and only recently being bought by Apple…
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Apple has published a new app for controlling and managing its Beats Pill+ speaker. Notably, this cross-platform release is the second Android app the company has released, following up on the Move to iOS app.
Apple TV 4 isn’t the only new hardware coming out of Cupertino today. Announced earlier this month, the new Beats Pill+ is now available to order for $229 in black or white finishes. The new portable Bluetooth speaker is the first new design to come out of Beats since Apple bought the headphones and speaker company last for $3 billion last year in part to use its Beats Music service as the foundation for Apple Music. The rechargeable speaker uses a Lightning port and cable, the same as iPhones, to power up for up to 12 hours of use.
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Apple has issued a rare recall notice on one of its products today: the Beats Pill XL portable Bluetooth speaker sold in Apple Stores and various other retailers. The voluntary recall cites a situation in which the battery can overheat and become a fire hazard. Apple purchased Beats Electronics and Beats Music for some $3 billion in 2014. The current Beats Pill XL hardware has remained the same since Apple purchased the speaker company. Press release below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK4MYERlCS0&feature=youtu.be
Continuing today’s celebration of Beats officially becoming an Apple subsidiary, Beats’ official Twitter account has posted a fun video advertisement that uses Siri and the Beats Pill to promote the deal. The video pokes fun at a private Dr. Dre party, and perhaps this is some joke tied to Dre spilling the beans about the Apple deal in the weeks before the official announcement in May. The end of the video also appears to poke fun at Siri not always working properly.
https://twitter.com/beatsbydre/status/495363203740618752
