14 DAY TRIAL // Former Fake Steve Jobs blogger Dan Lyons (now reporting for Billboard) shares a very interesting tidbit regarding Apple’s rumored deal with Beats Electronics after speaking to biographer Walter Isaacson. Apparently, the $3.2 billion (€2.3 billion) acquisition is not primarily geared towards music.
Lyons is best known for his Fake Steve Jobs blog, which he killed off out of respect for the visionary genius when Jobs passed away in 2011. He recently had a discussion with Walter Isaacson, another person who knew and understood Steve Jobs really well, perhaps better than most people.
Isaacson, who is responsible for the only official biography of Steve Jobs, “thinks the Apple-Beats deal is not about headphones or streaming music but rather is about video,” Lyons reveals.
“He speculates that Cook wants Iovine to run Apple’s content business and help Apple launch the TV product that analysts have been gossiping about for years. The product has been held up because Apple can’t get all the content owners on board.”
Jimmy Iovine is the Beats co-founder who will reportedly become an Apple executive when the final papers are signed. Dr. Dre, the other Beats boss, will join him, people familiar with the matter say. Iovine is seen as a Steve Jobs in-the-making, not only by Lyons but by other company watchers as well.
Most analysts tend to agree that Tim Cook is an operational wizard and that his talents stop there. If Cook is aware of this and, more importantly, is willing to admit it, then Iovine being brought over to reignite coolness at Apple may not be so far-fetched after all.
“Maybe Iovine has the charisma and connections to round up the networks the way he did the music labels in 2002, although ‘it’s a lot more complicated’ this time around, says Isaacson. His track record of success in marrying content and tech gives that theory some weight.”
Apple has made a series of key acquisitions in the past year, all pointing to a massive focus shift. If you look solely at the company’s hires and purchases, you could say they’re going to take on everything that matters in the tech industry, from wearables and music streaming to television and gaming. Apple could be on the cusp of regaining its innovator image sooner than some analysts would like to believe.
The first scheduled showcase from the company is the Worldwide Developers Conference in early June, at San Francisco’s Moscone West. There, Apple is expected to unveil all-new OSes, with few (if any) hardware announcements.