Apple beats rivals to wearables

While Google and Samsung have been busy looking for breakthrough wearable technology, Apple has been listening for it. Yesterday the company confirmed that it will buy Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion. Beats Electronics is the maker of the iconic headphones, while Beats Music is the streaming music service that is familiar to most AT&T Wireless customers thanks to a co-marketing deal between the two companies.
“Apple’s Beats acquisition is no doubt largely because of the hardware business rather than the fledgling music service,” said Strategy Analytics’ David MacQueen. The Beats hardware gives Apple an entry into a market that may explode under its direction, much as the mobile phone market did.
Ever since the launch of the first Macintosh 30 years ago, Apple has been making computing more and more personal. The move into headphones should be the next step. Headphones can be even more closely connected to us than smartphones, and they can also be connected to wireless networks. Coupled with Apple’s Siri for voice control, headphones could eventually replace the handset as the device of choice for voice calls.
Headphones also offer Apple the chance to create a wearable device that will deliver contextual information in real time. Wearables that rely on a user’s vision can create a virtual reality that competes with actual reality, but audio input may be easier for many people to process without alienating those around them.
Beats founder Jimmy Iovine says that when he and his partners started the company six years ago, they were “inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology.” Beats shares Apple’s commitment to design, and its products have regularly showed up on rock stars and famous athletes. Beats has created wearable products that are recognized and respected beyond the world of technology enthusiasts, a claim that cannot be made by most companies in the connected wearables space.
Google is clearly thinking about this. This month the company hired Ivy Ross, a veteran from the fashion world, to help market Google Glass. Ross posted on Google Plus: “With your help, I look forward to answering the seemingly simple, but truly audacious questions Glass poses: Can technology be something that frees us up and keeps us in the moment, rather than taking us out of it?” That question may be answered soon, but not necessarily by Google.
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