Apple does not need Dre, or his Beats

Erika Bradley

Apple recently bought Beats headphones for $3 billion dollars and acquired the co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre to work for Apple where they are able to make more advanced headphones themselves.

According to an NPR article by Sam Sanders, Apple is not concerned about how good the headphones sound, but what ‘smart’ features they can build into them.

Sanders said the smart headphones will be able to track body movements, body temperature, pulse and more due to a patent for a sports monitoring system Apple received from the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.

If Apple is not concerned about how good the headphones sound and just wants to make smart headphones they did not have to spend $3 billion dollars on the Beats company and acquire two professionals of the music industry.

The article speculates that ‘smart’ headphones and other wearable technologies will exceed $50 million by the year 2018. The Apple company will be much more powerful in the technology industry in the next few years.

If the idea of smart headphones had been around awhile, the Beats company could have created this technology and in the long run made more than what Dre sold it for.

According to the May 28 press release Iovine has always admired how Apple combines culture with technology. The press release also mentions that Iovine had already been working with Apple for almost a decade.

There is no doubt Apple has been a leader in the technology industry since the 80s. Buying the company created by Dr. Dre is totally unnecessary considering the talent and loads of money they already have.