Apple has quietly removed the "Beats by Dre" webpage from its website ahead of its Apple event on Tuesday, as it prepares to launch a new, lower-cost HomePod and AirPods Studio headphones.
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As noted by Apple Terminal, the landing page for Beats products can no longer be found on Apple's website. The Wayback Machine has a snapshot of the page in its original form from October 2, while the most recent snapshot from October 9 shows the page as down, suggesting Apple removed it sometime between these two dates.
Over the last couple of weeks, MacRumors has independently observed a gradual removal of all links to Beats' support website from Apple's own support pages. Apple also quietly retired its Beats Updater utility that lets users update the firmware of their Beats Wireless headphones, earphones, and speakers.
Apple still sells Beats-branded products on the headphones and speakers section of its online store. However, earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is no longer selling headphones and wireless speakers from companies like Sonos, Bose, and Logitech. Apple did something similar in the past, eliminating stock of fitness trackers ahead of the launch Apple Watch.
These moves all point to Apple readying itself for new product launches in the audio category. Rumors indicate Apple is working on several new audio products, including a smaller, lower-cost HomePod and high-end over-ear Apple-branded headphones that could be called "AirPods Studio," to be sold alongside the AirPods and AirPods Pro.
Both of these new products are expected to launch before the end of the year, and the removal of the third-party audio products from the online store suggests we could be seeing Apple's new audio devices soon, perhaps as soon as this week at Apple's "Hi, Speed" event on Tuesday, October 13, when it is also expected to announce the new iPhone 12 lineup.
Update 10:50 a.m.: The Beats by Dre landing page has returned to the store section of Apple's website.
Top Rated Comments
There were loads of layers to that deal. Beats Music; the Beats Radio platform; subsuming what would now have been a major rival brand; acquiring the R&D and technology patents of Beats; being able to fold what is an amazingly successful lifestyle brand (if an awful headphone) into the Apple ecosystem; getting all that free advertising for their products from NBA and Premier League players strolling around in their massive Beats headphones. There was also a load of endorsement deals that were a part of that which then makes it easier to transition those commercial relationships into Apple ones, so Neymar for instance now wears AirPods instead of Beats in public.
It was easily worth what Apple paid.