Linked List: May 28, 2014

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Tim Cook’s Memo to Employees on Beats Acquisition ★

Tim Cook:

The Beats Music team will report to Eddy. The teams will be getting to know each other better in the weeks ahead, and we are very excited about the possibilities for the future.

Beats Electronics has become the brand of choice for headphones and speakers in both the music and sports world, just five years after its launch. They are among the most popular and highest-rated third-party products sold today in Apple’s retail and online stores. We see an incredible opportunity to bring Apple’s legendary design and engineering capabilities to these popular products under Phil’s leadership.

Not sure why anyone is surprised by this arrangement. Cue has long run Apple’s entertainment/iTunes stuff, and that’s where Beats Music clearly fits. As for the hardware reporting to Phil Schiller, that’s a little less obvious, but makes sense: what Beats needs as an Apple subsidiary is product marketing, a replacement for Ammunition, the firm that previously handled this for Beats.

The weirdest part of this whole thing to me is the idea of Apple acting as a parent company to an independent subsidiary brand. But with Beats Music that might make sense: Cook told the Financial Times’s Tim Bradshaw today that Beats Music will remain available for Android and Windows.

Imagining Developing for a Split-Screen iPad ★

Roopesh Chander:

The case of the status bar might look like a small thing, but I take that as a significant hint. The iOS 7 transparent status bar works best with one app on the screen at a time. Apple being the company that thinks through well before shipping a design, it’s unlikely that they set the status bar transparent in iOS 7 and change course in the next major version.

My bet is that we are not going to see split-screen mutitasking being allowed for third-party apps in iOS 8, at least initially. If at all we’re going to get this feature, it would probably be restricted to some of the Apple apps.

Smart take. Either Apple has solutions to all the problems he lists, or this split-screen rumor isn’t happening.

GigaOm: ‘Apple Now Offers Education Discounts on iPads. Is That Because of Chromebooks?’ ★

Betteridge’s Law of Headlines wins again.

Jackass of the Week: ISI Group Analyst Brian Marshall ★

ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall:

Important to note, since 1996 and enacted through Proposition 215, medical marijuana has been legal in the state of California. However, based on our knowledge, there are no plans to house a medical marijuana dispensary in AAPL’s new “spaceship” campus headquarters currently under construction in Cupertino (expected occupancy in early 2016). Considering Dr. Dre’s debut solo album in 1992 was called The Chronic (slang for powerful marijuana), AAPL may want to reconsider the construction plans…

(Via Darby Lines.)

In Case You Were Wondering What Iovine and Dre’s Titles Would Be ★

Hannah Karp and Alistair Barr, reporting for the WSJ:

Mr. Iovine, a longtime friend of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, said the two men’s titles would simply be “Jimmy and Dre.” They will work with both Apple’s electronics and music-streaming divisions, spending as much time at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., campus as necessary, while serving more broadly to bridge the cultural divide between technology and entertainment industries.

“The ugly truth is that there is such a Berlin Wall between Silicon Valley and L.A.,” Mr. Cook said in an interview. “The two don’t respect each other, don’t understand each other.

The Talk Show: ‘We’re Allowed to Make Stuff Up; It’s a Podcast’, With Dan Frommer ★

Special guest Dan Frommer. Topics include Dan’s new gig as senior tech editor at Quartz, tablets as a form factor for full-featured PCs (and the now-aging design of the MacBook Air), WWDC rumors, the rumored iOS-style redesign of Mac OS X, previous Mac OS visual designs, and more.

~~Listen for ticketing information for next week’s live audience show from San Francisco, Tuesday evening.~~

Update: The first round of 350 tickets are sold out. I hope to make at least 50 more available later in the week after I finalize seating arrangements with the venue — so if you missed out, stay tuned.

Apple Store: Headphones ★

Apple currently sells a lot of different third-party headphone brands — Bose, Bang & Olufsen, Sennheiser, Marshall, and more. Does Beats get special placement now, or do they remain peers to these other companies?

Apple to Acquire Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 Billion ★

Apple:

Apple today announced it has agreed to acquire the critically acclaimed subscription streaming music service Beats Music, and Beats Electronics, which makes the popular Beats headphones, speakers and audio software. As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple. Apple is acquiring the two companies for a total of $3 billion, consisting of a purchase price of approximately $2.6 billion and approximately $400 million that will vest over time.

“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.”

“I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,” said Jimmy Iovine. “The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology. Apple’s deep commitment to music fans, artists, songwriters and the music industry is something special.”

$200 million less than the rumored price in The Financial Times’s scoop three weeks ago, but who’s counting?