Apple Inc.AAPL has finally unveiled a Beats product under its ownership. The company launched Beats Pill+ Bluetooth speakers recently. This is the first offering since Apple acquired Beats Electronics in 2014 for about $3 billion.
The novel Apple-styled sleek speakers are set to hit the shelves this November for a price of approximately $230. Pill+, refined under Apple’s design and technological prowess, is a successor to Beats Pill speakers that were rolled out in 2012.
The new device claims to have a better battery life than the previous version, improved sound-quality (louder with tighter bass) and better-placed control buttons. Like all devices, these new speakers also feature an Apple Lightning port for faster charging as well as a USB port to charge other devices on the speaker’s battery.
The most important upgrade to the product, in our view, is the "DJ mode" app that allows the pairing of two speakers at the same time while allowing two users to control the same.
Beats has been a leading provider of speakers and headphones. The earlier Pill devices had reportedly crossed the 1 million mark in unit sales. This is because even before being acquired by Apple, Beats was well-known not only for its products but also for its strategic marketing and endorsement by some celebrities.
It is clear that Beats, Apple’s largest acquisition so far, is an important part of the company’s growth strategy. Earlier this year, Apple had also revamped Beats Music service to launch Apple Music. The subscription service also included human-curated playlists, which gave it an edge over peers like Pandora P, Spotify and others.
This time around also, Apple has kept the pricing of Pill+ higher than peers like Logitech’s LOGI UE Boom 2 and Bose SoundLink Mini, both of which come for around $200. The Apple devices also fall short on certain features: they aren’t waterproof, don’t have advanced gesture controls or the ability to form a network of linked speakers.
Apple currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in the broader tech space is Blue Nile Inc. NILE with a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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