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“This is going to cause a lot of excitement and re-evaluation of record companies. It’s a rebirth of the record business."
—--Sony Music chief Doug Morris

APPLE, BEATS AND
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS

As WWDC Commences, All Eyes on Cook, Iovine and Dre; Meanwhile, the Biz Feels the "Buzz"

Naturally all eyes and ears are on Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco,. "Write the code. Change the world," offers the WWDC site with requisite humility.

It may not have been a formal intro, but Dr. Dre was part of Tuesday morning's festivities—albeit as a demonstration of OS X Yosemite's ability to extend iPhone calls. A call to Dre sent the hip-hop innovator andBeats co-founder's booming through Moscone hall: "Hey how you doing, this is Dre. I'm glad you called. I heard Tim [Cook] gets in early — what time should I show up for work?" Playful banter about employee orientation ensued. No calls to Jimmy Iovine or other Team Beats members were made, but the call was a cheeky way of bringing Apple's most talked-about deal into the mix. Expect more soon.

Apple kicked off by announcing the new versions of its operating systems, OS X Yosemite and iOS8, as well as iCloud Drive for sync/storage, a health-monitoring system, the promised "smart home" suite, Shazam and iTunes integration for Siri and more.

We could even see a new iPhone or an iWatch, though the geekvine considers this less likely. Speaking of gear, the
New York Daily News announced that Indian actress/singer Priyanka Chopra, an Iovine discovery, would become the new face of Beats headphones.

While the first day of the WWDC didn't include an announcement of Beats—and remember, the acquisition still awaits regulatory approval and isn't expected to be completed until September—there were some tantalizing hints of future possibilities for both electronics and streaming.

Apple's HomeKit and HealthKit suites, for example, are designed to make mobile devices "remote controls for life." So as developers are making apps talk to each other, so that "Siri, wake me up at 6" powers on lights, coffeemaker and thermostat at a set time, why not a Beats Music morning playlist as well? And as the iPhone's function at the gym includes tools for heart and respiration monitoring and other health metrics, how might future wearable tech from Beats improve their accuracy and ease of use? Not to mention supplying you with motivating jams, of course. Regardless of what's said or unsaid about streaming and headphones this week, read between the lines for all the places music and wearable gear might fit into Apple's larger schemes. 

While all kinds of spin has followed Apple’s acquisition of Beats, the perception has largely been positive.

"A buzz is in the air as Apple-Beats is moving forward," comments Jill Boyer-Adriance of the U.K.’s
The Guardian, in a piece titled "Apple Beats Becoming Multi-Faceted Diamond of the Music Industry." Boyer-Adriance notes Iovine’s stylistic similarity to the late Steve Jobs, in his ability to project confidence—as well as his letting Beats products build a base before investing in marketing.

What’s clear is that the deal’s price and scope has rebooted perceptions of the music industry’s value and potential reach.

"This is going to cause a lot of excitement and re-evaluation of record companies. It’s a rebirth of the record business," declared Sony Music ruler Doug Morris to
The New York Post, adding that the Beats team "made Apple look cool."

Morris added that the acquisition would construct "a bridge between Apple and the music industry and help align their interests in getting behind subscription streaming in a big way."

He said he recognized Iovine "as one of a few special people and gave him the opportunity, and that's where Beats came from. He's now my richest friend." 

"It’s all wins," Glassnote chief Daniel Glass told the Huffington Post. "It’s a win for everybody and the fact is the value of a copyright, a master, went up a lot. Think about it: The perception and value of music went up because of the amount of hands this will be in."

Manager Doc McGhee (KISS, Darius Rucker), meanwhile, was quoted in the same piece describing Apple as "the Tiger Woods of tech." Apple’s wife couldn’t be reached for comment.

The Times of India’s Farhad Manjoo offers a
wider perspective on the deal, noting that the Beats curation concept and the arrival of Iovine and Dre represents a counterpunch to the tyranny of the algorithm. "Apple's emphasis on the human angle of Beats provides an intriguing peek into how Apple sees itself — and how executives want customers to think of Apple," Manjoo writes, adding that the firm "is doubling down on tastemakers."

A fair amount of skepticism remains, of course, The New York Post’s Claire Atkinson wondered over the weekend if Iovine would even stick around. "
Music-industry wags are already taking bets on the length of his tenure," she wrote, quoting an unnamed exec who mused, "‘How long will he work for music boss Eddy Cue? He’ll be there a year, that’s the over/under.’" Atkinson also ventured that erstwhile Beats Music Chief Creative Officer Trent Reznor had exited before the big payday.

USA Today’s Michael Wolff was even more vitriolic in an
editorial that dismissed the deal as "a peculiar rather than an audacious expansion," dissing Beats hardware and even the idea of music-biz relationships.

By and large, however, Beats has seemed to breathe new life into perceptions of Apple’s future. It remains to be seen what kind of battery life those perceptions have.



 

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