Just hours after Apple announced that it would acquire Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion, Apple software and services SVP Eddy Cue and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine were interviewed together on stage at this year's Code Conference.
Much of the interview focused on the acquisition, and a fair amount of that talk centered on topics that had already been answered by Apple's press release and other reporting on the subject. Apple will retain the Beats brand and will continue to sell its headphones and speakers through online and brick-and-mortar Apple Stores, Iovine will be working at Apple full time (though he won't be moving to Cupertino), and he will work to bridge the gap between the entertainment industry (which Iovine described as "too insecure") and Silicon Valley ("slightly overconfident"). Both executives also emphasized the importance of the Beats Music streaming service to Apple's music business, noting that digital sales in the Apple Store weren't "going away" but that digital download growth has "leveled off."
Neither Cue nor Iovine would talk about Apple's future plans during the interview, but Iovine aimed a few barbs at Beats' competitors and even at Apple itself. One of the Beats Music service's largest competitors is Spotify, but Iovine theorized that the service would "cave" once its venture capital funding dried up. He spent some time criticizing his new employer's default headphones as well, saying that Apple's EarPods were headphones that you should use "to see if the sound works." Cue responded that Apple makes "the best headphones that come in the box," but noted that it "costs more money" to "make incredible sound." While plenty of audio experts have disputed the sound quality of Beats' bass-heavy headsets, it's not surprising that Apple wants to start upselling iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac buyers to Beats' fancier, more expensive headphones and speakers.Though Cue and Iovine talked about some aspects of Apple beyond the acquisition, most of what was said was stuff that we've already heard. Apple has acquired other companies and will continue to acquire them, Apple TV has sold more than 20 million units to date and does about $1 billion in revenue per year, and so on. When asked about future products, both executives were characteristically tight-lipped, though Cue said that the company's 2014 lineup was "the best product pipeline that I've seen in my 25 years at Apple." Hyperbole or not, we'll probably start seeing those products at Apple's WWDC keynote next Monday.
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