Beats 1 Lead Executive Ian Rogers Leaves Apple - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Beats 1 Lead Executive Ian Rogers Leaves Apple

Apple Music senior director and former Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers has resigned from Apple nearly two months after the launch of the streaming music service, the company confirmed to the Financial Times today.

Ian Rogers Beats
Rogers was among a group of executives that joined Apple last year when the iPhone maker acquired Beats for $3 billion. Rogers's official title was Senior Director of Apple Music, a position he held since August 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Rogers, who served as Beats Music CEO between January 2013 and August 2014, departed Apple to join an undisclosed "Europe-based company in an unrelated industry" on the west coast. He is credited for hiring Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe, who worked at BBC Radio 1 from 2002 to 2015.

Beats 1 is a 24/7 streaming radio station built into Apple Music, featuring a mix of the latest music and guest appearances from artists such as Drake, Dr. Dre, The Weeknd, Eminem, Pharrell Williams and others.

Popular Stories

imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
HomePod mini and Apple TV Sage

New Apple TV and HomePod Mini Remain 'Ready' to Launch

Sunday March 22, 2026 6:33 am PDT by
Apple has unveiled nine new products this month, but the wait continues for the next-generation Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini models. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said new versions of the Apple TV and HomePod mini have been "ready" since last year, but he reiterated that Apple has held off on releasing them until the more personalized version of Siri and other...
iOS 26

iOS 26.4 Adds Two New Features to CarPlay

Tuesday March 24, 2026 1:55 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps. To update your iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 26.4, open the Settings app and tap on General → Software Update. CarPlay will automatically offer the new features so long as the iPhone connected to your vehicle is running iOS 26.4 or later....

Top Rated Comments

Rogifan Avatar
138 months ago
Ok now when are Jimmy, Trent and Dre leaving so Apple can write off this stupid purchase.
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)
spiderman0616 Avatar
138 months ago
Why is the reaction to stuff like this always, "Because Apple _____ sucks and they're doomed." It can be for 1,000 different reasons. Maybe he was just ready to do something else. Maybe his health is bad. Maybe it's just that Iovine is clearly running Apple Music now and there wasn't room for him. Maybe Apple just wasn't fulfilling for him. If he had done much other than hire Zane Lowe, we probably would have heard a lot more about him by now. The truth is, he came to Apple through an acquisition. Apple doesn't "acquire different". Whenever there's an acquisition, there is fallout, and it's usually within the buyee, not the buyer.
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbeagle Avatar
138 months ago
Why is the reaction to stuff like this always, "Because Apple _____ sucks and they're doomed." It can be for 1,000 different reasons. Maybe he was just ready to do something else. Maybe his health is bad. Maybe it's just that Iovine is clearly running Apple Music now and there wasn't room for him. Maybe Apple just wasn't fulfilling for him. If he had done much other than hire Zane Lowe, we probably would have heard a lot more about him by now. The truth is, he came to Apple through an acquisition. Apple doesn't "acquire different". Whenever there's an acquisition, there is fallout, and it's usually within the buyee, not the buyer.
Because most Apple haters have a knee-jerk reaction to anything and say it's bad for Apple. If every man, woman and child on the planet bought an Apple Watch, it would STILL be a failure because the Martian market was untapped.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
138 months ago
For the record, "undisclosed Europe-based company in an unrelated industry" usually means SPECTRE.

OK, sometimes it's Hydra. But still...
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbeagle Avatar
138 months ago
Apple is full of millionaires. Eventually, most of their older employees will come to realize that retiring or working on what they want to for the rest of their lives is better than taking orders and having a boss.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ProjectManager101 Avatar
138 months ago
Apple is full of millionaires. Eventually, most of their older employees will come to realize that retiring or working on what they want to for the rest of their lives is better than taking orders and having a boss.
A boss with no direction.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)