Apple Buys Beats by Dre
Apple Buys Beats by Dre. What does this Signal? The End is Near for Apple!
I will get hate e mails, tweets and txt about this opinion but I think my background in Technology starting in 1987 warrants at least a quick read and understanding of why I feel this way. Whether it’s the Roman Empire, The Ming Dynasty, The Incas, The Mayans or the great British Empire all good things, history tells us, must come to an end.
Now I am not completely convinced that the untimely death of Steve Jobs was Apple’s demise, but I do believe it shook the DNA of the company and many inside their Cupertino, CA walls began to shake with them. Violently! You just can’t replace a visionary like Steve Jobs. You can spend the money Jobs helped generate with his new innovations from computers to smart devices to lifestyle electronics. But the innovation that he spurred others to achieve will never be seen again…. By Apple. Where Jobs would have seen the explosion in the market for listening devices, figured out a crafty way to build the best one’s on the market and then have them work across all available platforms for easy integration, is truly a Jobsian theory.
Jobs would have been Beats before there was a Beats. Dr. Dre is cool and all, but Steve Jobs could arguably be on the Mt. Rushmore of cool! Apple’s waving of the white flag by purchasing Beats for an estimated $3 billion USD is absurd. Beats has NO unique technology, the actual quality of the sound is average at best. What Apple bought was a brand that has been marketed to death and in the world of 24/7 news cycles, Beats is never going to be as big as it was. Their model is too easy to rip off.
If I gave Steve Jobs $3 billion USD, does anyone not think he would not only create a better product but one truly integrated with other options built in like Satellite radio, telecommunication features or something. Jobs would have made the Apple listening device a company-wide initiative, challenged his greatest thinkers, brought in influencers in the music industry and beyond and crafted an authentic story about the creation of this brand from scratch and kicked the living crap out of Dr. Dre and his over hyped 1980s headphones with an attitude. I love that Beats hired a ton of high priced celebrity spokespeople such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and other athletes, entertainers and musicians to roll with Beats. I think that is super cool. But there is nothing anyone can say to me that will make me believe that with $3 billion USD, Steve Jobs wouldn’t own this market too!
Trust me, I have tremendous respect for Dr. Dre and what he has built. This isn’t an attack on him or his brand. This is a vision of what Apple used to look like and how I will miss them at the top of the mountain! RIP Apple!
