Why Apple Buying Beats Makes Sense
It looks like the rumor of Apple purchasing Beats that was floating around yesterday was confirmed by Tyrese Gibson and Dre himself in an expletive laden video posted to Facebook. I'm slightly worried because that totally worked out for HTC during their partnership. Buying Beats to get into music is like if Apple bought Starbucks to get into coffee: low quality product with an insanely high profit margin based purely on the popularity of the brand name.
It seems that whoever buys out or partners with Beats is doomed to fail almost immediately. AT&T, HP, HTC, and next, Apple, verifying the unpopular opinion that they are indeed in a rapid downward spiral, and while I dislike Beats for the simple reason of it not being high-quality audio for it's absurd price-point, I can see why Apple would want to buy them for a few reasons.
The first being that there Beats logo and flat wire headphones have replaced Apple's white earbuds as a sort of status symbol. No longer is it just enough to have an iPhone. You need to have an iPhone AND Beats. Think about it. Apple is all about image. Beats is all about image. People who buy either product are all about image. From a business standpoint, and financial, it makes perfect sense for Apple to acquire Beats, even if the product that they are buying doesn't make sense for a consumer to own, especially when compared to similar products from competitors that are significantly better for audiophiles, and at a much cheaper and affordable price point. Then again, Apple has never focused on affordable price points, so regardless, this is a perfect move for Apple that makes sense.
Secondly, iTunes Match and iTunes Radio, much like their predecessor, iTunes Ping, have been considered radical disappointments in the music streaming industry. Whatever is it, Apple can't seem to build their own music service to match, let alone compete, with the likes of Pandora, Rdio, and Spotify. Having Beats and Beats Music onboard would certainly help, especially if they were to merge it directly into iTunes. Trying to find new music on iTunes is an awful experience, something that Spotify excels at. The other big problem is that with Apple, your music is more or less locked in, with no way or transferring it to other platforms. Spotify alleviates that, by letting you switch from iOS to Android and back, because it's all in the cloud. If Apple were to release a version of iTunes for Android like it did Windows, with Beats Music baked in to help you discover new music, I think Spotify, and similar competitors, would have serious reason to worry.
The final reason is that the iPod and Apple's entrance into music is what saved them from total failure the last time. It makes sense that Apple would want to take the lessons they learned then and re-apply them now, to keep up with the ever changing demands of the music industry. People want options, and I think Apple is finally about to give them a viable one.
