Beats co-founder talks trash following Apple acquisition

We didn’t remark on it, because chances are pretty good that you already heard about it from, well, everywhere, but yesterday Apple acquired Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion. The thing is, this isn’t going to change anything for audio enthusiasts. Whether or not you’re a fan of Beats’ products or not, it’s not as if they were short of money and this means they’ll get to keep making headphones.

What this seems very likely to affect, however, are Apple’s audio products, at least if new hire Jimmy Iovine has anything to do with it. Speaking last night at the Code conference, he made no bones about his feelings for Apple’s EarPods, saying “You listen to ‘Apocalypse Now’ and a helicopter sounds like a mosquito,” and that essentially, they’re meant to be used “to see if the sound works.” Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, was quick with damage control, saying that the company makes “the best headphones that come in the box.”

Of course, that wasn’t all that Mr. Iovine had to say by a long shot. During the hour-long interview, he took shots at Beats competitor Spotify as well as Hollywood and Silicon Valley. According to Iovine, Spotify’s days are numbered, with no decent source of revenue once the company runs out of venture capital funding. He says that “Spotify should have 10 million people in America” instead of the 10 million paying customers it currently has globally.

Whether or not this deal will bring anything of value to the world of audio is debatable, but it certainly seems to be a short-term source of entertainment if nothing else.

So what do you think? Is Apple’s acquisition of Beats going to be a good thing or a bad thing for us audio fans?