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Jimmy Iovine named one of GQ's Men of the Year, talks Apple Beats deal
Jimmy Iovine joined Apple during the $3 billion acquisition of Beats earlier this year, the largest purchase in Apple's history. Needless to say, it's been a good year for Iovine. Now the mogul has been named one of GQ's Men of the Year and in his interview for the award, Iovine gives details on what led to his company's partnership with Apple. For Iovine, the deal was a matter of growth for both Beats and Apple: How did Apple come to buy Beats? I convinced them that they had to buy this company. I said, "I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to do this at Apple. I know I can achieve this at Apple. I don't want to shop it. I wanna come here, to Steve's company. I know you guys; I know what you're capable of; I know you get popular culture. I know you have a hole in music right now; let me plug it." I think it was two years before they said yeah. The "hole" Iovine saw and wanted to plug was Apple's lack of a streaming service in its music division. Apple Radio simply wasn't enough to compete with companies like Spotify. This isn't the first time Iovine has spoken about Apple's need for a streaming service. Back in 2013, when Beats was still known as Daisy, Iovine spoke in interviews about spending years trying to convince Steve Jobs to start his own streaming music service. It's fitting that Beats eventually ended up being the streaming service for Apple.
Full video of Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine's Code Conference interview now available
Just hours after Apple announced its $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics, Eddy Cue and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine sat down with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the inaugural Code Conference to discuss a wide range of topics, though the conversation naturally focused on music. The full interview lasts about an hour and is well worth checking out, if only because it's not too often we get to see Apple employees talk so freely and candidly. What's more, the Code Conference was the first time we've seen Eddy Cue really step up in the public spotlight in an arena outside of an official Apple media event. Check it out below. Your browser does not support iframes.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for May 29, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Former eMusic CEO gives his take on rumored Apple/Beats deal
Former eMusic CEO Adam Klein took to Bloomberg last week to give his take on the rumored Apple/Beats Electronics acquisition. Echoing what many industry watchers have speculated, Klein believes that the proposed deal has everything to do with Beats' new streaming service, which is essentially like Spotify albeit with professionally curated playlists to boot. [Apple's] gotta be at the party, and it's late, and this is the quickest way to get there. So I think that's what you're seeing there. They're getting in. They have to have a forceful streaming presence. It's the dominant format, it's the drawing format. It's the only format that's growing. Certainly from the label's point of view, [in terms of] revenue generation. And for them to build it would just take too long. The notion that Apple attempting to do this themselves would take too long is certainly worth highlighting, especially considering that Apple historically prefers to develop technologies and services in-house as often as possible. The music industry, though, is changing rapidly. Digital downloads are on the decline, while streaming is on the rise. Meanwhile, iTunes Radio has seemingly done little to slow down the momentum of either Pandora or Spotify. If the Beats acquisition ultimately goes through, it stands to reason that Apple is keen on getting a streaming subscription service up and running as quickly as possible as opposed to developing one on its own. Further, on-demand streaming rights are different from the rights associated with music recommendation services like Pandora, and the last thing Apple wants or needs is to get mired down in negotiations with music labels. From this vantage point, Beats Music makes for an attractive target as it would reportedly bring music mogul, noted wheeler and dealer, and otherwise musical tour de force Jimmy Iovine onto the Apple team. As for Beats streaming itself, we reported earlier this week that Apple became interested in the service after learning how quickly it was able to transform casual listeners into paid subscribers. And while the rumored $3.2 billion purchase price admittedly seems odd given Apple's propensity not to make large monetary acquisitions, $3.2 billion as a percentage of Apple's current bank balance is less than what the company used when it acquired NeXT.
Beats Audio CEO told Jobs to launch subscription music service
Beats Audio CEO and Interscope Chairman Jimmy Iovine has told AllThingsD that he "spent about three years" trying to convince Steve Jobs that Apple should launch its own subscription-based streaming music service. Iovine recounted the effort while talking about his own upcoming music service, Daisy, which has musician Trent Reznor as its chief creative officer. Iovine says that he and Jobs became close in the early 2000s and collaborated on several marketing projects, but that he was never able to fully convince the Apple founder that subscriptions would work. Jobs, he says, remained concerned about pricing, refusing to pay what the record labels were asking for their content and believing that they would eventually come down to Apple's offering price. We've been covering Apple's rumored music subscription plans for some time, and for a while there it was looking like things were getting more serious in 2012. Some believe that with subscribers to services like Spotify and Rdio on the rise, it's only a matter of time before Apple joins the pack. [Via The Verge]
HTC developing music streaming service, wireless boombox?
After having already acquired a stake in Beats Audio, HTC is reportedly looking to expand its reach even further, with the help of a new music streaming service. That's according to a report from GigaOM, which cites unnamed sources "familiar with the company's plans." These plans apparently include a new line of tablets and handsets, along with the aforementioned streaming service, to be spearheaded by Jimmy Iovine -- Beats head and Chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M. Details, of course, remain scarce, but GigaOM's sources say that the service will be included as a default client in HTC's handsets and tablets, and that it could launch as early as this month, at Mobile World Congress. The idea, apparently, is to differentiate Peter Chow's company from its competitors, and it's one that's been in the works for quite some time. Insiders say the manufacturer is planning to launch a new tablet at this year's MWC, as well, and is reportedly working on a new, Bluetooth-controlled wireless boombox. We'll have to wait a bit longer to see whether any of this actually plays out, but we'll certainly be keeping close watch over it.
Beats Electronics' Jimmy Iovine: 'we have got to get to the phone'
The HTC teleconference announcing its $300 million partnership with Beats Electronics just wrapped, and we were able to grab a few tidbits that weren't so clearly evident in last night's press release. The largest questions HTC CEO Peter Chou and Beats head honcho Jimmy Iovine fielded were focused on the effects of the purchase and why it happened. Neither Chou nor Iovine shared many specifics, but we learned that the two companies will be deeply committed in a "special" and "exclusive" relationship, which Iovine referred to as a "marriage." In discussing the possible deal, he mentioned that Beats felt a need of urgency to penetrate the mobile marketplace and were bent on making it happen with HTC: "we have GOT to get to the phone...this marriage expedites that process." Computer and phone companies alike are realizing that they need to upgrade the (currently subpar) audio experience in their products, he said, and we should expect to see many of these businesses launching stellar improvements in sound quality over the next three months. In answer to what HTC is looking for in terms of ROI, Chou discussed the desire to have more differentiation in the market, in terms of the branding and technology the purchase will bring to its products; he also told us that the investment will generate several hundred millions of dollars in return beginning later this year. Rather than solely focusing on headsets, HTC plans to integrate the Beats tech completely into the product portfolio. Exactly how extensive that consolidation will be remains a mystery for now; since the effects of this deal will come to fruition sometime this fall, however, we doubt we'll have to wait terribly long to find out.
