Apple’s Eddy Cue, Jimmy Iovine Discuss Beats Acquisition And More
by Brent Dirks
May 29, 2014
Just hours after Apple officially announced its $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics, Jimmy Iovine and Eddy Cue sat down for a wide-ranging discussion at the first annual Code Conference.
Beats co-founder Iovine, as you probably know, is joining Apple in a full-time role as part of the deal. Cue is Apple’s senior vice president of software and services.
Originally, Cue was scheduled to hit the stage with Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering. But the acquisition announcement shook the schedule up a bit.
And, to no one's surprise, the acquisition was a major topic of discussion. Cue said Apple wanted Beats for three reasons – the talent headed by Iovine and co-founder Dr. Dre, the headphone line, and the Beats Music service is “subscription music done right.”
Cue also discussed why Apple didn’t design its own headphones or streaming music service:
We don’t do everything. We try to do a few things. We think Beats’ talent can accelerate us. It was a no-brainer. This isn’t something that just happened over night. Jimmy and I have talked about working together for a decade.Iovine said a major part of his job at Apple will be to bridge the culture gap between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. He also said streaming music is the "new album," and that music lovers want to pay for a a 30-45 minute experience that "moves them" instead of just access to a service. Finally, Cue teased what is expected to be quite a busy fall season for Apple with the iPhone 6, iPad Air 2, and long-rumored iWatch apparently scheduled to hit the market:
“Later this year, we’ve got the best product pipeline that I’ve seen in my 25 years at Apple.”