14 DAY TRIAL // Some say Apple has just bought back its “cool” with the acquisition of Beats Electronics, taking aboard two record industry heavyweights. Dr. Dre is one of them, and he’s got something that Apple has been missing for the past three years: cool.
Profiled by the Wall Street Journal, Dre is one of the key drivers behind Apple’s decision to buy Beats for a price many regard as exorbitant. But Apple knows best. The company appreciates his M.O. and thinks it can use Dre to reignite interest with the young demographic.
According to people interviewed for the article, “[Dre] has quietly played an equally powerful role developing and protecting the Beats brand, eschewing market research for gut instinct at every turn.”
This particular trait nabs him a well deserved comparison to the late visionary genius Steve Jobs, who approached things similarly at Apple, and “made no secret of his belief that consumers don't really know what they want until someone else shows it to them.”
One of Dre’s colleagues says the rapper serves as Beats' “cultural barometer” of cool.
Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine is quoted as saying, “Once you try to describe cool you run the risk of going perpetually to non-cool hell. The whole premise is not to talk about it.”
Apple announced the Beats acquisition on May 28, just days before the Worldwide Developers Conference kicked off.
“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.”
Soon after the news broke out, Cook conveyed much of the same idea in a company-wide email, asking everyone at Apple to give Iovine and Dre a warm welcome.
Apple is rumored to be removing the headphone jack in future generations of iDevices with plans to route audio through the proprietary Lightning connector. However, EU regulators have asked Apple and other device vendors who use proprietary charging connectors to replace these specifications with standard USB plugs.
As part of the Beats acquisition, the Cupertino tech giant is also expected to revamp its headphones, but it has been said that Beats products will continue to be marketed as before - i.e. not as Apple products.